A Case Study On Senior High School English Teachers’ Beliefs And Practices Of Text Interpretation In Reading Instruction

Reading instruction,as an important part of English language teaching,is always organized based on reading texts.Reading text is important in reading instruction and teachers’ interpretation of reading texts can affect their reading instruction.As is put forward in National English Curriculum Standards for General High School（2017）,it is important for English teachers to deeply study texts so as to grasp the key points in teaching.Moreover,activity design in reading instruction should be based on English teachers’ multi-dimensional interpretation of reading texts.Teachers’ beliefs directly influence teachers’ teaching practices.Studying teachers’ beliefs and practices of text interpretation in reading instruction can provide some implications for teachers’ future work on text interpretation in reading instruction.Thus,the present study aims to study senior high school English teachers’ beliefs and practices of text interpretation in reading instruction and attempts to answer three questions:1.What are senior high school English teachers’ beliefs about text interpretation in reading instruction?2.How do senior high school English teachers conduct their interpretation of texts in reading instruction?3.What is the relationship between senior high school English teachers’ beliefs and practices of text interpretation in reading instruction?If there are inconsistencies,what are the influencing factors of those inconsistencies between teachers’ beliefs and practices of text interpretation in reading instruction?Qualitative and quantitative research methods are adopted in this study.Firstly,questionnaire is used to explore teachers’ beliefs of text interpretation and 35 teachers are included in this part.Three teachers are then interviewed and observed in order to further know about teachers’ beliefs,practices of text interpretation and the relationship between teachers’ beliefs and their practices.The research results show that:1.In reading instruction,high school English teachers think that teachers’ interpretation of texts can greatly influence students’ interpretation of texts and they hold positive attitudes toward text interpretation and emphasize the importance of interpreting texts in reading instruction.It is believed by senior high school English teachers that genre,structure,language feature and textual information are important dimensions concerning text interpretation in reading instruction.2.Textual information is emphasized more by high school English teachers in reading instruction,while dimensions of genre,structure and language feature are neglected in their practices.Most interpreting activities are about literal and interpretative comprehension of texts,while activities for critical comprehension of texts are quite few.3.Teachers’ beliefs and practices are mostly consistent.With the influence of certain factors,there are also inconsistencies between teachers’ beliefs and practices and teachers’ beliefs are interactive with their practices.The relationship between teachers’ beliefs and practices is influenced by factors in the microscopic system,mesoscopic system,and exosystem,including teachers’ classroom management ability,teachers’ interpreting ability,learners’ language proficiency,colleagues’ influence,and the pressure of examinations.Some suggestions are provided by the author based on the findings of the present study.