Reading Strategy Training In High School Through English Newspapers

Reading is the main approach to obtaining information in foreign language context. Being an important receptive skill, it undoubtedly becomes one of the most important aspects in English learning and teaching. Thus cultivating students' ability of reading is the first and foremost requirement of reading teaching in Senior English. However, in the actual reading teaching, although both teachers and students have devoted a massive amount of time and energy to it, students have not produced as much reading competence as expected. One of the various reasons for this phenomenon is that many teachers ignore the reading strategy instruction and as a result, students can't employ reading strategies properly. Another reason is that in the current textbooks, some of the reading materials are out-of-date, vocabulary is deficient, and the content of the texts is restricted in narrow limits. So it's difficult for the textbooks to provide enough authentic language input for the students and stimulates the students' passion for English learning, which prevents the improvement of the students' English reading ability to some degree.The importance and necessity of reading strategy training are shown in the new Curriculum, current textbooks and the latest entrance examinations. To train reading strategies, the choice of reading materials is very important. Compared with the current textbooks, English newspapers have the following distinctive characteristics: up-to-minute content, authentic language, various materials close to the students' life etc. It's obvious that English newspapers are excellent materials for reading strategies training, which can enrich teaching resources and develop the students' interest in learning English.This thesis endeavors to probe into the combination of the reading strategy training and the exploration of English newspapers directed by the theories of Krashen's EFL acquisition, Schema Theory and the related demands about reading in the new Curriculum. It reports on a 3-month program of reading strategy training via learner-centered classroom activities based on 21st Century Teens (Senior 2 Edition) for 50 students from Shashi High School. This program was designed to deal with four questions. The first is whether the training has a positive effect on learners' reading comprehension and general English level. The second is whether the training helps to improve learners' awareness of employing reading strategies. The third is whether the employment of reading strategies is related to learners' reading comprehension and general English level. The fourth is what the general differences are in relation to employing reading strategies between successful and unsuccessful learners of the experimental group. This program puts forward an idea that our reading instruction or teaching should stick to two principles, i.e. student-centered and task-centered. It adopted the direct-and-integrated-instruction strategy training model, which consists of five stages—preparation, presentation, practice, evaluation and expansion. It also suggests three steps for carrying out reading activities based on English newspapers, i.e. pre-reading, while-reading and post-reading.The study shows that through enhancing students' awareness and proficiency of employing reading strategies, the training has a potential positive effect on students' reading comprehension and general English level. The study has important and productive implication for Senior English reading teaching. The author hopes that the study can help teachers to be aware of the importance of reading strategy training and exploring the newspaper as an authentic teaching resource.