| In recent years,English curriculum reform in junior high schools in China has entered the “core competences era”.Cultivating students’ reading literacy can effectively promote the development of students’ English subject core competences.Therefore,English researchers and practitioners have attached great importance to reading literacy.Reading literacy includes reading ability and reading character.Domestic researchers not only pay attention to students’ English reading ability,but also attach great importance to cultivating students’ reading character.However,many teachers still adopt the text teaching model,in which reading is arranged into chapters or parts,and the teaching of reading is short of overall design(Zhang,2018).As a result,many junior high school students have poor reading character.Therefore,many researchers proposed that English teachers could conduct whole book reading teaching(WBRT for short)based on whole language approach and constructivism learning theory in order to cultivate students’ reading character.Many studies have proved that students’ reading is more active and effective when students take part in different types of activities such as “learning and understanding”,“applying and practicing” and “transferring and innovating” based on English learning activity concept.Therefore,according to the theoretical framework for the development goals of English reading literacy of Chinese primary and secondary school students,and under the guidance of whole language approach and constructivism learning theory,the present research explored an effective way to cultivate students’ reading character through English WBRT based on English learning activity concept.The present research aimed to answer the following research questions:(1)How to conduct whole book reading teaching based on English learning activity concept?(2)What are the influences of whole book reading teaching on the English reading character of junior high school students?97 students from a key middle school in Yunfu City were selected as the research participants,and questionnaires,interviews and teaching logs were applied to collect relevant data.Two rounds of action research for 16 weeks were conducted.Before the study,the researcher investigated the current situation of junior high school students’ English reading character in Yuncheng District through questionnaires and interviews,put forward research hypotheses,identified research questions,and made an action plan on WBRT.WBRT consisted of two parts,including teachers’ classroom reading instruction and students’ extracurricular free reading.In the first-round action research,the researcher selected appropriate graded readers,guided students to make reading plans,designed different types of lessons such as guided reading lesson,discussion lesson and innovation lesson,and designed different types of activities such as “learning and understanding”,“applying and practicing” and “transferring and innovating” based on English learning activity concept to conduct English WBRT.Students carried out extracurricular free reading actively and took part in post-reading activities so as to initially develop good reading habits and obtain positive reading experience.In the second-round action research,sustained silent reading and portfolio assessment were added and the activities were optimized.The major findings are as follows:(1)Different types of activities such as “learning and understanding”,“applying and practicing” and “transferring and innovating” based on English learning activity concept in WBRT can foster students to read more actively and effectively.Therefore,teachers can choose appropriate graded readers,design different types of lessons and activities to conduct WBRT.(2)WBRT based on English learning activity concept can cultivate junior high school students’ English reading character,including good reading habits and positive reading experience.Three types of lessons and activities can low down the difficulty of reading and foster students to cultivate good reading habits and optimize their reading experience.The above findings show that WBRT based on English learning activity concept is an effective way to cultivate junior high school students’ English reading character.Therefore,English teachers can conduct WBRT based on English learning activity concept actively.First of all,teachers can design different types of activities based on English learning activity concept to meet the needs of different students.Meanwhile,scaffolding strategy can be employed to promote students to participate in various reading activities actively.Subsequently,teachers can give full play to the role of portfolio assessment to guide students to assess their reading effect and reflect their reading behavior actively.Through this way,they can conduct active reading to cultivate good English reading character. |
