A Survey Into The Teacher’s Mediation Role In English Reading Teaching In Senior High School

Greatly encouraged by the concept of lifelong education and the educational reform tide, China has launched the eighth basic curriculum reform at the early beginning of the 21 st century. In July of 2001, “Full-time Compulsory Education English Curriculum Standard(trial version)” was formally promulgated, which insists that teachers inspire and cultivate students’ interest and their spirit of cooperation in learning and help students build confidence, develop good learning habits, grasp effective learning strategies so that students can become successful self-learners. Faced with a new challenge, English teachers need to reposition roles and functions of their own. Consistent with the concept and requirement of the new English curriculum standard, Feuerstein’s mediation theory provides teachers with guidance on how to implement the goals of the new curriculum reform. As a core part of English teaching, reading is very important. According to“Ordinary High School English Curriculum Standard”, the goal of English reading teaching in high school is to teach English by means of discourse comprehension, to teach students reading strategies, to foster students’ language sense and more important, to cultivate students’ ability to acquire and process information. Therefore, teachers should have a correct understanding of the goal and task in English reading teaching. They should teach students how to take the initiative to construct the meaning of the reading material rather than purely explain and teach linguistic knowledge.More importantly, in order to enhance students’ autonomous reading ability,teachers are expected to teach students some reading strategies and the correct ways of using these strategies. In a word, English teacher acts as a necessary mediator in the reading teaching process.Based on Feuerstein’s mediation theory and the author’s understanding of the mediation characteristic of teachers in English reading teaching, the investigation focuses on teachers’ and students’ cognition on teachers’ mediation role in English reading teaching and the implementation of the mediation function of teachers in high school English reading teaching,adopting the method of questionnaire, interview and classroom observation.The results of the investigation are as follows: 1.The teachers have notrealized the importance of “purpose beyond here and now” and “a sense of belong”; while the students have realized the importance of all the aspects of teachers’ mediation role, they have high expectations for teachers. The teachers believe that “purpose beyond here and now” and “a sense of belong”are not important but the students think it is necessary to play the two roles,which is the most prominent difference between teachers’ and students’ views on teachers’ mediation role. What’s more, in addition to “shared intention”,the average value of students’ view on each aspect of teachers’ mediation role is higher than that of teachers’, which shows that the teachers’ consciousnesses of mediation remain to be improved. 2. There is no obvious difference between teachers’ and students’ evaluation of the implementation of teachers’ mediation functions. In English reading teaching, “purpose beyond here and now”, “challenge” and “a sense of belonging” are hardly used, while “shared intention”, “significance” and “teaching reading strategies” are used most frequently. 3. There is an obvious difference between teachers’ views and teachers’ actions on “goal-setting”, “challenge”and “sharing”. For these three mediation roles, teachers’ cognition is significantly ahead of their practice, which illustrates that teachers’ implementation of these three mediation roles should be strengthened.The author draws a conclusion that in order to improve the English reading teaching effect and foster students’ autonomous reading ability,teachers should change the traditional teaching concept and establish the consciousness of “purpose beyond here and now”. Besides, helping students set short-term learning objectives and long-run learning goals, designing various reading tasks to teach students deep reading are also of great significance. Last but not least, cooperative-learning activities should be carried out as much as possible and students’ collective and cultural sense of belonging should be cultivated. All in all, teachers should establish and strengthen their consciousness of all the mediation aspects and give full play to the mediation roles. Only when teachers become promoters and guides, can English reading teaching conform to the requirements of new curriculum reform, and the goal of students’ autonomous reading can be achieved.