Study On Genre-based Language Teaching Approach To English Reading In Junior High School

English reading is the foundation of other language skills,like writing and speaking.Therefore,it is of great importance for English learners to learn how to read in English learning process.It can not only help students with vocabulary learning but also can do good to their writing ability.Without it,students overall English competence won t be improved.Therefore,reading is an important aspect which should not be ignored in the English learning.The National English Curriculum Standards for Junior High School(2017 Edition)puts forward higher demands for the English reading of middle school students.For the past decades,many researchers have tried to find different ways to help learners to improve reading achievements effectively.However,to some degree,there are still many problems existing in the current English teaching of junior high school.Genre-based teaching approach is based on the analysis of the discourse type,that is to say,to use the genre theory to guide the classroom teaching automatically and to hold the teaching activities based on the discourse.The genre-based teaching approach includes six steps which are genre analysis,imitation analysis,group discussion,individual analysis and in-depth analysis and imitative writing.Based on the schema theory,scaffolding theory,input and output hypothesis,this study aims to answer the following three research questions.(1)Is genre-based language teaching approach more effective than grammar-translation approach in improving the overall reading achievements of junior high school students?(2)What are the effects of genre-based language teaching approach on junior high school students of different levels respectively?(3)What attitudes do the students have toward genre-based language teaching approach?The experimental subjects come from two parallel classes of Grade 9 from The NO.2 Middle School Attached to Northwest Normal University.And Class One is chosen as the experimental class and Class Two is the control class.The teaching experiment lasts for two months.The genre-based language teaching approach is applied in one class while the grammar-translation approach is carried out in the other.The research instruments used by the author are reading tests and interview and questionnaire.In order to achieve the teaching goal and provide a new idea for English reading class in junior high school,the data is collected and analyzed by SPSS 24.0.Although the post-test results of these two classes have both improved to certain degree,the results of experimental class improved greatly compared with that in the control class.Therefore,genre-based teaching approach is more effective for the improvement of reading achievements of junior high school students than grammar-translation approach,which can be used to answer the first research question.Secondly,the results of the comparison of reading achievements among high-level students,low-level and middle-level students in the experimental class show that the achievements of low-level students improved most which can be used to answer the second question.Thirdly,based on the data gained from questionnaire and interview,it can be known that students of low-level show preference to this approach,and students are willing to use this method and they are interested in it and they prefer to read by using this approach which means the third question can be answered.However,there are some limitations in this study,such as the lack of experience and time.Therefore,the further studies are suggested to focus on other aspects of English teaching and are conducted in a relatively long period to make the research more credible.