A Study On The Assistance Of Newspaper In English Reading Teaching In High School

With the popularity of the electronic devices,people's habit of reading printing books is being increasingly challenged.High school is a key period in students' life to help them cultivate reading habits and widen their scope of knowledge.What's more,in recent College Entrance Examinations,the articles that are used to test students' reading ability increasingly features timeliness.They also seem more demanding when it comes to examining the depth and width of students' knowledge.As a result,it is extremely urgent to cultivate students' habit of reading English newspapers not only to satisfy the needs of admitting them to universities but also to prepare them for the future.Shanghai Students' Post is a local newspaper,which is popular among students and teachers owing to its timeliness and interesting content.In Shanghai Number 8 Senior High School,where the writer teaches,it has been over a decade since students subscribed to this newspaper.However,for some reason,teachers fail to use newspapers regularly to assist teaching English reading.Although there is a large number of essays that focus on how to teach with the newspaper,it is known that when teaching students of different levels or from different parts of China,teachers have to come up with different teaching activities.In this study,the writer wishes to find the answers to the following questions: Is it effective to use Shanghai Students' Post as an aid in assisting teaching English reading in high schools? What teaching strategies can be used in teaching English reading with Shanghai Students' Post?This study is based on Krashen's Input Hypothesis and Affective Filter Hypothesis.There are two phases in the study.At phase one,the writer illustrated the advantages of newspaper reading and how Shanghai Students' Post has supported English reading teaching.The analysis is based on topic,content and vocabulary in the New Century textbook.In addition,the writer designs questionnaires on English reading teaching and learning in high schools.The questionnaire is designed to analyze teachers' attitude towards textbooks,English reading teaching and how newspaper reading helps with the teaching.On the other hand,the writer analyzes the students' current English learning situation and their motivation,reading habits,reading obstacles,and newspapers reading situation.At phase two,the writer has conducted a three-month teaching experiment in a parallel class in Shanghai Number 8 Senior High School.The activities for students to take part in before class,in class and after class are elaborately prepared.After the experiment,the writer compares the scores of the students from control class and experimental class in pre-test and post-test.The writer also carries out surveys and interviews with students to figure out in which areas they have made improvement.Finally,it is concluded that Shanghai Students' Post used in English reading teaching with reasonable teaching guidance does help to stimulate students' interest in reading,cultivate a good reading habit and develop their cultural awareness.It also plays a positive role in consolidating grammatical knowledge,enlarge vocabulary and developing other language skills.Based on these findings,the study proposes using newspaper as a strategy to support English reading teaching.Firstly,teachers should develop students' reading strategies by teaching with English newspapers.Secondly,teachers should select and use the articles relevant to the texts students study at class as supplementary reading.Thirdly,teachers can motivate students to read by using newspapers,thus helping them develop their reading habit.What's more,collaborative learning can be adopted to help students to relieve anxiety in reading and improve classroom efficiency.