An Empirical Study Of Theme-based English Reading Instruction In Senior High School

Reading is one of the most significant teaching contents for English learners in senior high school,and it plays a vital role in learning foreign languages.The traditional reading teaching pays much attention to the explanation of vocabulary and grammar in text,while the combination of students’ reading ability and everyday situations is ignored.The theme-based instruction is one of the important models in the content-based instruction teaching approach.It’s known that the theme-based instruction emphasizes on learning about content rather than language itself only,and it is regarded as an effective method to improve the learning pf both language and content knowledge.This research mainly aims to answer these following questions:1.What effects does the theme-based instruction have on students’ ability of mastering vocabulary?2.What impacts does the theme-based instruction have on students’ English reading proficiency?3.What are students’ perceptions of the theme-based instruction?The research was carried out in a senior high school in Taiyuan city.The participants the Class one serves as the experimental class and is taught English reading in the theme-based instruction,while Class two is treated as the control class which adopts the traditional method.The researcher uses several instruments to collect data,including test,questionnaire,classroom observation and interview.Finally,the research findings show that1.Applying the theme-based instruction has positive effect on improving the ability of mastering vocabulary.It can be seen that the theme-based in instruction has a positive effect on students’ vocabulary knowledge in breadth.Teacher use the theme-based instruction to present vocabulary,which can strength students’ impression on words and let students master some vocabulary related to different themes.It also has a significant effect on the depth of vocabulary knowledge.Students are more familiar with the meaning of vocabulary and use vocabulary correctly.2.Applying the theme-based instruction has positive effect on improving high school students’ reading scores.The average score of the experimental class in post-test is higher than that of the control class.During the English reading tests,students make great progress in the aspect of summarizing the main ideas and generalizing the central ideas.In addition,students’ ability of guessing the meaning of words has a great improvement.In short,the theme-based instruction plays a role in improving students’ reading ability.3.By analyzing questionnaire and interviews from three dimensions:learning content,learning process and learning impact.A great number of students have a positive attitude towards the theme-based instruction.Secondly,students think that the teaching processes and activities are interesting and meaningful.Finally,students believe that it has a positive impact on their English reading proficiency.The theme-based instruction has positive influence on senior high school students’English proficiency and the ability of mastering vocabulary.The research concludes that the theme-based instruction can be effective and feasible in enhancing senior high school students’ reading proficiency and it is advised to be used widely to senior high school English reading teaching.