The Assistant Role Of Autonomously Extensive Reading In Senior One English Learning

National English Curriculum Standards for Senior Middle Schools issued by the Ministry of Education in2003demonstrate the education during this period of time should focus on students’entity and promote students’learning ability in order to help them become a lifelong learner and a qualified global citizen. Learning:the Treasure Within (Jacques Delors,1996) formulated the four pillars of education:"learning to know, learning to do, learning to live together, learning to live with others and learning to be"(McDeitt,1997:34). It also declared that the ultimate goal of education is to reach the personal socialization of students both inside and outside the classroom. Meanwhile, with the development of society, it is required that all people should become lifelong learners. Therefore, it is critical to cultivate students’ autonomous learning ability.Since1980s, many researchers in China and abroad have emphasized on the autonomous learning and claimed that the students who can apply autonomous learning strategies have a more positive attitude toward English learning, have a deeper understanding of the learning materials and higher English proficiency which result in more active self-assessment and greater passion of English learning. Apparently, it’s worth promoting the wide application of autonomous learning in English-teaching in Senior High schools in China, especially the assistant role of autonomous learning on extensive reading in Grade one, Senior High. While the practical English reading, teaching and learning can’t reach the requirement of National English Curriculum Standards for Senior Middle Schools and the need of students’ English learning development, to say nothing of helping students become lifelong learners? Therefore, this study focuses on study the practical approaches in order to develop students’ own autonomously extensive reading (AER) ability with the assistance and guidance of teachers, aiming to find the efficient approaches to transform the passive and knowledge-based teaching method of English reading to a more meta-cognitive, interesting process and autonomously learning experience for students.During the experimental period, the author did the first-handed experiments to prove the assistant role of autonomously extensive reading in Senior One English learning. These experiments are concerned with AER training in the experimental class, including enlarging students’ vocabulary, enriching their background knowledge for English, stimulating students’ motivation and interest in AER, strengthening the instruction of reading strategies, integrating AER resources and helping students make a proper schedule, monitor it and assess the process. By doing so, the author did prove that autonomously extensive reading has an assistant role of in Senior One English learning. Hopefully, this study can provide some practical ways to all the teachers interested in helping their students become lifelong learners and qualified global citizens.