A Survey On English Reading Teaching In Senior High Schools From The Perspective Of Key Competencies

The English Curriculum Standards for General High Schools(2017 Edition,Revised in 2020)clearly state the nurturing function of the English curriculum.Its core philosophy is to develop students’ language ability,thinking quality,cultural awareness,and learning ability.Developing students’ key competencies should be the ultimate goal of English teaching.The cultivation of students’ English subject key competencies should be integrated into the whole process of English teaching.Reading teaching plays a significant role in developing students’ English subject key competencies in senior high schools English teaching.Based on English subject key competencies,input hypothesis theory and whole person education theory,this paper conducted interviews and classroom observations with 5 English teachers and distributed a questionnaire on 246 students in Grade one of XX Middle School.It intends to solve the following two questions: 1.What English subject key competencies are developed in students in current senior high schools English reading teaching? 2.What are the causes that influence teachers to develop students’ English subject key competencies in senior high school English reading teaching? The study has obtained the following findings.Firstly,senior high school English teachers are capable of consciously developing students’ language ability,cultural awareness,thinking quality and learning ability in reading teaching.However,they fail to develop students’ English subject competencies in a balanced way.Specifically,1).The teachers focus on cultivating students’ language ability,but the cultivation of students’ language ability is unbalanced;2).Teachers are aware of explaining the cultural knowledge concerning the passage,but they fail to sublimate cultural theme in the materials;3).Teachers tend to develop students’ logical thinking and insufficiently train students to think creatively and critically;4).Teachers provide insufficient guidance to students in monitoring and adapting reading strategies and expanding extracurricular reading resources.Secondly,the main factors that influence teachers to develop students’ English subject key competencies are summarized as following four aspects: 1).Unitary reading teaching materials offered by teachers;2).Teachers’ insufficient understanding of English subject key competencies;3).Teachers’ traditional teaching methods and teaching concepts;4).Teachers’ reading teaching objectives are not fully reflect the teaching objectives of English subject key competencies.According to the above research findings,following teaching suggestions for English teachers are proposed based on the English Curriculum Standards for General High Schools(2017 Edition,Revised in 2020).1).Teachers should deeply learn English subject key competencies and enhance their professional competence;2).Teachers should update teaching philosophy and design reading teaching objectives based on English subject key competencies and whole person education theory;3).Teachers should develop more reading teaching resources to cultivate students’ reading habits and interests.Finally,this paper point out some limitations in this study and proposes some outlooks for further research in the future.