Action Research On Application Of Production-oriented Approach To English Reading Teaching In Junior High School

Reading,as one of the five basic language skills of listening,speaking,reading,writing and viewing,has always had a very important position in English teaching.According to the materials collected by the author,there is a problem of “separation of learning and use” in the current English reading teaching.Therefore,exploring reading teaching methods has become one of the key points of reading teaching reform.Production-oriented Approach(hereinafter referred to as POA)is a teaching method proposed by Professor Wen Qiufang to solve the problem of “separation of learning and use” in foreign language teaching.As a localized teaching method in China,POA has been widely used in college and high school teaching practice,and has achieved good results,but it is rarely used in junior high school.In view of the above problems,the research adopts an action research method,supported by three research tools: interview,questionnaire,and test,to explore how to apply POA to junior high school English reading classes,and the impact of applying POA to junior high school English on students’ reading motivation and reading score.Forty-five students from an eighth-grade class at X Middle School in Changzhi,Shanxi Province,are selected as the subjects of this research.The research finds that:(1)In the enabling session,the production task is more conducive when it is divided into multiple sub-tasks.In addition,teacher-led peer assessment of students’ sub-productions can improve the quality of their final production.(2)The application of POA to junior high school students’ English reading instruction can improve students’ reading motivation.The results of the questionnaire shows that students’ motivation levels on the three motivational dimensions of efficacy belief,achievement value and goal,and social factor are all higher than before the action research.(3)The application of POA to English reading teaching in junior high school improves students’ reading scores.The test results show that the reading scores of the students in the class after the action research are higher than those before the research.Based on the above findings,the author makes the following recommendations for implementation:(1)Teachers should take into account the actual situation of the target group when using POA and adapt the teaching process effectively.(2)Teacher-student cooperation is the key to the teaching process of POA.On the one hand,students can understand the teacher’s teaching intentions,complete teaching activities and production tasks in a timely manner,and provide feedback to the teacher on their difficulties and gains in the learning process.On the other hand,the teacher is able to understand the students’ learning situation through their feedback and to make timely diagnosis and evaluation.(3)In the enabling session,teachers should give full play to the role of “scaffolding”,guiding students to extract relevant information from the input materials that can lead to the completion of production tasks.