An Applied Research On Inquiry Teaching Of English Reading For Junior Three

Reading is a most important one of the four basic skills concerning English learning. Students of Junior Three are going to take the entrance examination to senior high schools and in that examination reading comprehension takes one-third of the total grades. So improving their reading ability has become the most urgent task in teaching English for students of Junior Three. However, in English classes the teachers only use traditional ways to teach English reading, like translating and analyzing the texts sentence by sentence. As a result, the students are inclined to lose their interest in learning English.By observing and evaluating other teachers'classes, and communicating with students and experts, the researcher realizes that a new teaching method must be introduced to English class in order to change the old way of teaching English. Inquiry teaching might be one of the ideal choices, which emphasizes independent and cooperative study of students, free inquiry and discussion. So inquiry teaching will change teacher-centered classes into student-oriented classes, and the students'interest in learning English and their independent learning ability and reading ability will be enhanced.In this thesis, the definition, characteristics, principles, modes of inquiry teaching are dealt with first and then a literature review is given. Next, the application of 5E inquiry teaching modes in English reading for Junior Three is discussed. This thesis takes two classes from a middle school of Jilin City as the object of research and the research methods are such as literature review, interview, questionnaire and experiment. It aims to find out the significance of inquiry teaching by comparing the results of pre-experiment and post-experiment tests.The results indicate that teachers can create harmonious and cooperative learning environment by using inquiry teaching. The students think English reading is no longer boring and the interest of learning English is simulated. It also arouses students'learning enthusiasm and manifests teachers'leading role fully. Meanwhile, students change passive learning into active participation. There are active interactions between students and teachers and among students themselves. Students have fostered independent thinking habit and they have also improved their abilities of learning English by themselves. Inquiry teaching method enhances their consciousness of using reading strategies and has a certain effect on improving students'English grades.According to the results, the researcher gets the following enlightenments. On the design of teaching contents, teachers should obey feasible, interesting and significant principles. Inquiry teaching manifests teachers'leading role and students'subject role. When we know it is good for students to use inquiry teaching method, we can't deny traditional teaching method. If we combine the two methods, we can improve teaching better. As researcher's limitation on theoretical level and the study level, the present paper still has some insufficiencies but the author can try to solve these problems.