A Case Study On The Implementation Of The Activity-based Approach To English Learning In Senior High School Reading Instruction

The National English Curriculum Standards of Senior High School(2017 edition revised in 2020)clearly states that the specific goal of senior high school English course is to cultivate and develop students’ subject core competency,that is,language ability,cultural awareness,thinking quality and learning ability.And the activity-based approach to English learning(ABA henceforth)is a powerful way to practice this goal.Therefore,many scholars have been committed to the in-depth study of the teaching concept of ABA in recent years.However,there are very few case studies on the practice of English reading teaching in senior high school.In this study,three English teachers in Grade One of a key high school in Fuyang City and the corresponding classroom teaching of the three classes are taken as the research subjects.Using the qualitative research method including classroom observation and interview to investigate the classroom teaching of these three teachers in order to answer the following questions:1.How is the practice of ABA in high school English reading class?2.What are the factors that affect the practice of ABA?The results of the study showed that: 1)teachers can basically practice the three types of ABA in the English reading class,but there are still great differences in the design and implementation ratio of the nine sub-types activities in the specific classroom teaching process.Specifically,in terms of the comprehension activities,the overall grasp of this kind of activities is good,especially the perception and attention activities and the obtaining and combing activities,but the generalization and integration activities appear less frequently.In terms of the application activities,they mainly focus on internalization and application activities,while less attention is paid to the description and interpretation activities or the analysis and judgment activities.In terms of the innovation activities,compared with the previous two types of activities,the practice of such activities is generally poor.2)The factors affecting the practice of ABA in English reading teaching mainly include: the ideas of schools and teachers attaching importance to students’ test scores;the ways of schools and education departments’ evaluation on teachers and students;the degree of teachers’ understanding to the ABA.Based on the above findings,this study puts forward some suggestions from the macro and micro aspects: In the macro aspect,teachers should change the traditional teaching idea and improve their understanding of the ABA;schools and education departments should construct the evaluation standard of ABA,diversify the evaluation content,and promote the practice of ABA;the education experts should give the theoretical guidance and provide excellent teaching cases.In the micro aspects,for the reading teaching,teachers should: 1)interpret the discourse text in-depth;2)formulate hierarchical teaching objectives;3)design and implement activities in line with the concept of ABA and the core competence of the subject.On this basis,the researcher tried to give specific cases,hoping to give some help and reference to the front-line teachers.