| Reading is of vital importance in the foreign language teaching. Through effective reading, students can gather and manage information, perceive the world, develop their mind, and acquire aesthetic experience; at the same time, they can also form a good reading habit and improve their reading capacity. Actually, reading instruction is equally concerned with intracurricular reading and extracurricular reading. English reading is very significant for students, and extracurricular reading deserves special attention. Thereupon, the current condition and state of high school students' extracurricular English reading comes to be one of the major concerns in the English instruction.Based on the recent theories concerning reading and the foremost studies on extracurricular readings, the present study makes a questionnaire to investigate the factors that affect Junior students' English reading such as the internal factors, the external factors, and the social factors. According to a deep and thorough analysis of the questionnaire and research, the present study comes to the findings that there exist the following problems:poor interest in reading, uncertain reading purpose, random-time reading, insufficient extracurricular reading, narrower range of reading, lack of proper selection in reading, of a good extracurricular reading habit, of the parents' encouragement in extracurricular reading, and of the teachers' proper instruction concerning the extracurricular reading.On the basis of more than ten years' teaching experience, the present researcher has already accomplished some publications (papers and research programs), and, thereupon, forwarded some constructive strategies respecting the internal and external factors that affect Junior students extracurricular reading:Trying to transform students' attitude and idea and activating their enthusiasm about extracurricular reading. Improving students' intracurricular reading while encouraging their extracurricular reading. Instructing students in reading methods and strategies while emphasizing their extracurricular reading. Establishing and optimizing a good atmosphere for the extracurricular reading. Helping cultivating a good habit of automatic and persistent reading for the students.Through this research on extracurricular English reading, the present paper attempts to stimulate students' strong enthusiasm about the extracurricular English reading, help them cultivate a good reading habit, improve their English reading ability and, thereupon, English ability. It is expected that the present study might be of some value to the researchers , and teachers in this field. |
