An Action Research On Illustration Assisting English Reading Teaching In Senior High School Based On The Visual Grammar Theory

As an important language learning skill,reading is the premise for students to obtain new information and output language.However,the current reading teaching in senior high school mainly focuses on the explanation of knowledge and grammar in the text.Most of the teachers use the grammar-translation method and pay less attention to students’ reading interest and reading motivation.Therefore,students’ reading motivation is not high.Illustration is an important teaching resource,so the scientific use of illustrations in reading teaching can effectively create reading situations for students,alleviate students’ reading anxiety,help students sort out the text content,and improve students’ reading motivation and reading ability.However,in the process of teaching,the author found that teachers’ utilization of textbook illustrations is not sufficient,and the use of illustrations is not guided by scientific theories.Based on the visual grammar theory,the author carries out two rounds of action research on illustrations assisting English reading teaching for one semester.The subjects are 45 students in a class of grade one of YH senior high school in De Zhou,Shandong Province.In the research process,the author uses the questionnaire,interview and test to collect data,and uses SPSS22.0 for data analysis.The author tries to solve the following three problems: First,how can the teachers make better use of textbook illustrations to assist English reading teaching in senior high school based on the visual grammar theory?Second,what is the impact of using illustrations to assist English reading teaching on students’ reading motivation? Third,what effect does illustration assisting English reading teaching have on students’ reading performance? In order to solve the above problems,the author carries out two rounds of teaching action research.The result shows that:(1)When using textbook illustrations,we can combine the visual grammar theory to analyze the function of illustrations,create reading situations for students before reading,and stimulate students’ interest and original background knowledge.In the reading stage,the teacher can choose appropriate illustrations according to the type of writing to help students understand the article and make it easier for students to understand.In the post reading stage,the teacher uses illustrations to promote students’ speaking and writing,to help students internalize language knowledge and to improve students’ comprehensive language ability.(2)The use of illustrations assisting reading teaching can stimulate students’ reading interest and strengthen students’ reading motivation.All dimensions of reading motivation are improved.Students’ reading self-confidence and self-efficacy are improved.They are willing to actively participate in reading and speaking activities in class.(3)The use of illustration assisting reading teaching can improve students’ reading performance.After the action research,the average score and pass rate of students’ reading have been improved.This study uses the visual grammar theory to analyze the textbook illustrations and apply the illustrations in English reading teaching,which can improve the way of illustration assisting reading teaching in practice.This study broadens the way for teachers to carry out reading teaching and use textbook illustrations.