A Survey Of Senior High School Students’ English Reading Ability Based On China’s Standards Of English Language Ability

National English Curriculum Standards for General High School(The 2017 version and revised edition in 2020)points out that students should be trained to form the necessary language ability,cultural awareness,thinking quality and learning ability.Among the language abilities of listening,speaking,reading,viewing and writing,reading ability is the basis and premise for learners to develop other abilities.Therefore,it is urgent to improve the English reading ability of senior high school students.China’s Standards of English Language Ability(CSE)was published by the Ministry of Education and the National Language and Writing Commission on April 12,2018 and then implemented on June 1,2018.The CSE is the first English proficiency assessment standard in China,which aims to guide English teaching and testing in China.Its release provides a new basis for the measurement of students’ English reading ability,and also provides a reference for English reading learning and teaching.Therefore,this thesis takes the self-assessment scale in CSE as an example to explore senior students’ current situation of English reading ability,which may gives full play to the practical value of the CSE and improve students’ English reading learning.This study intends to answer three questions:(1)What is the overall situation of senior students’ English reading ability which is measured by the CSE?(2)What is the situation of senior students’ English reading ability in the six indicators which are described in the CSE?(3)Can senior high school students assess their English reading ability effectively by using the CSE? Totally 260 senior high school students who come from Cha Haer branch school of Shi Yan Middle School in Hohhot,Inner Mongolia participated in the survey.The self-assessment scale and subscales of reading ability in the CSE are the main research tools,and students’ English reading test scores and interviews are auxiliary tools.The data is analyzed by SPSS 23.0.The major findings are as follows: Firstly,the English reading ability of senior high school students is probably between CSE 3 and CSE4,which indicates that there still exists a certain gap between students’ current English reading ability and the requirements of the CSE.Secondly,there are differences in the description of six indicators of reading ability among senior high school students.In terms of text types,students scored higher in understanding written narration,interaction and argumentation than in understanding written exposition,description and instructions.In terms of cognitive ability,students are good at extracting detailed information and understanding the main idea,while the ability of reasoning and evaluation is relatively weak.Thirdly,the results of Pearson correlation analysis showed that there is a significant positive relationship between the English scores and the self-assessment average scores,which shows that senior students can use CSE make a self-assessment effectively to their English reading ability.Finally,the study puts forward some suggestions for English reading learning and teaching in senior high schools,and discusses the prospects of future research.