An Investigation Into Senior High School English Teachers’ Implementation Of The Activity-based Approach To English Learning In Reading Teaching

The National English Curriculum Standards of Senior High School（2017 Edition 2020 Revision）clearly puts forwards the concept of the Activity-based approach to English learning for developing students’ English subject core competences,which is an important initiative to make English teaching and learning more effective.The teaching of reading has a pivotal position in English teaching and the discourse on which the reading teaching depends is a major carrier for implementing the Activity-based approach.Senior High school English teachers’ understanding of the concept of the activity-based approach and how to practice it into teaching determine the teaching quality.At present,many scholars have conducted in-depth research on how to practice the concept of the activity-based approach,most of which focus on classroom activity design and lesson design,so there are few surveys on the current situation of the activity-based approach to English learning.Therefore,it is very important to investigate how senior high school English teachers understand and how to implement the concept of the activity-based approach to English learning in reading teaching.Based on this,this study is guided by the theories of Constructivism Learning Theory and Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives.66 senior high school English teachers from different districts in Hohhot,Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region were selected as the research subjects.The research adopts the methods of questionnaire,classroom observation and interview,focusing on three research questions:（1）What’s the current situation of senior high school English teachers’ understanding of the Activity-based approach to English Learning?（2）What’s the current situation of senior high school English teachers’ implementation of the Activity-based approach to English Learning in the reading teaching?（3）What factors influence teachers’ implementation of the Activity-based approach to English learning?The results show that:（1）Some of the senior high English teachers have a lack of understanding of the Activity-based approach to English learning.Senior high school English teachers do not fully understand the types of activities proposed by the activity-based approach,and do not have a clear understanding of the goals pointed by the activity-based approach to English learning;Senior high school English teachers lack systematic and theoretical study of the Activity-based approach to English learning.（2）Senior high school English teachers focus on the comprehension activities based on text information,but lack the application activities and innovation activities of language use.Teachers pay more attention to the teaching of language knowledge and the cultivation of cultural awareness,while ignoring the cultivation of thinking quality and learning ability.（3）Teachers have found some factors influencing the implementing the activity-based approach to English learning: teachers themselves are not very motivated to learn,teachers lack practical guidance from educational experts when it comes to practicing the activity-based approach to English learning,schools do not pay enough attention to advocate the new ideas,teachers have heavy teaching tasks,and different learning situations of students.Based on the research results,this study puts forward some pedagogical suggestions on how senior high school English teachers can promote the implementation of the Activity-based approach to English Learning,as well as a summary of the research limitation of the study and suggestions for future research.