A Survey On Junior High School Students’ Extracurricular English Reading

Reading is an indispensable cognitive activity in the progress of human civilization.Meanwhile,it is also one of the important means for human beings to acquire knowledge and understand the outside world.Besides,it is an important part of English teaching.English reading has a vital impact on junior high school English learning.As an additional means of reading teaching,extracurricular English reading plays a significant role in improving students’ English reading ability and English proficiency.Therefore,the study of extracurricular English reading is of certain guidance and reference significance for English teaching.Based on the Autonomous Learning Theory and Krashen’s Second Language Acquisition Theory,this paper randomly selects 280 students in grade1 and grade2 and 16 English teachers from Xi’an Qujiang No.1 Middle School as the research subjects.Through the methods of questionnaire survey and interview,the author intends to study the current situation of junior high school students’ extracurricular English reading,analyze the existing problems and reasons,and put forward corresponding suggestions.Accordingly,the research questions of this study are as follows:(1)What are the students’ attitudes towards extracurricular English reading?How do they participate in the extracurricular English reading?(2)What are the teachers’ attitudes towards students’ extracurricular English reading? How do they contribute to students’ extracurricular English reading?(3)What obstacles are students confronted with while doing extracurricular English reading?Through the investigation,this study finds that most of the students in Xi’an Qujiang No.1 Middle School can recognize the significance of extracurricular Englishreading,and think that carrying out extracurricular English reading can improve the English proficiency,especially for enlarging vocabulary and improving reading ability.However,the overall situation of extracurricular English reading is not optimistic and there are many problems.Specifically,under the influence of academic pressure and small vocabulary,the form of students’ reading materials is single,reading time is limited,reading amount is small,reading purpose is utilitarian and reading plan is not clear,which result in their lack of good extracurricular English reading habits,effective English reading methods and reading strategies.Although teachers hold a positive attitude towards students’ extracurricular English reading,they lack effective guidance for students’ extracurricular reading due to the great pressure of teaching and the lack of experience in guiding extracurricular English reading.Extracurricular English reading takes students as a center.On the one hand,we should fully mobilize the initiative of students in extracurricular English reading.On the other hand,it is essential to give full play to the leading role of teachers,teachers’ effective assistance is the guarantee for the smooth development of extracurricular English reading.Finally,in view of the above problems,this study puts forward that teachers should guide students to choose appropriate reading materials,cultivate students’ reasonable and efficient reading strategies and good reading habits,and give timely supervision and scientific evaluation.What is more,schools,families and teachers should create a good extracurricular English reading atmosphere for students.Students should also take the initiative to develop good extracurricular English reading habits with the help of teachers.In the long run,they will study autonomously,read autonomously,and enjoy happiness and fun from reading.