Research On The Current Situation Of English Extracurricular Reading Of Junior High School Students

Reading skill is one of the four basic language skills.English Extracurricular Reading refers to the reading of materials apart from their English textbook in class that students do during their spare time.In the previous researches,many experts and scholars found that large amount of English Extracurricular Reading would help learners to improve their overall language ability.Because of the limited teaching time in class,English Extracurricular Reading plays a very important role in the teaching of English reading for the Junior High School students.English Curriculum Standards for junior students stipulates that the amount of students' English Extracurricular Reading should reach over 150,000 words in total.So it is necessary for us to know about current situation of the Junior High School students' English Extracurricular Reading.Based on the Input Hypothesis,motivation theory,self-access learning theory,schema theory and so on,this paper states the importance and necessity of English Extracurricular Reading.The writer sent questionnaires to the students in the Xinhuadu Academy of the First High School of Changsha and collected 963 questionnaires,and then interviewed 6 English teachers from 3 different grades in the school.The main researching questions include: 1.What are the junior students' attitudes toward English Extracurricular Reading?(including the reading motivation,the effects and the problems they meet in reading)2.What are the teachers' attitudes toward English Extracurricular Reading and how about their participation? 3.How to conduct English Extracurricular Reading in junior high school?(including reading materials,reading strategies and monitoring and assessment in reading).After analyzing the data,the results and findings are as followed: many students read to increase their vocabulary and prepare for high school entrance examination.They don't have clear plans before they read,they don't adjust themselves to the reading materials while they are reading,and they don't evaluate themselves after they read.Therefore,they gain little from reading.So for teachers,they are in favor ofEnglish Extracurricular Reading.But most of the time,they can hardly give enough guidance to students.Suggestions are given on how to conduct English Extracurricular reading as well.The current situation of English extracurricular reading of junior high school students is explored in this research with the emphasis on the problems in student's extracurricular reading.Possible solutions to the problems are discussed as well with the purpose to give those inexperienced junior high school teachers some useful suggestions.In the future,teachers should pay more attention to English extracurricular reading,teach students different reading skills,and use various ways to monitor students' reading.Therefore,it will be possible to improve students' English through English extracurricular reading.