A Study On The Effects Of The “Literature Circles” On Senior High School Students’ English Reading

General Senior High School Curriculum Standards English(2017 Edition)puts forward five language skills including listening,speaking,reading,viewing and writing.Reading is vital for senior high school students to improve their language skills.The “Literature Circles” can mobilize students’ interest in reading and develop their language skills because it can give them the autonomy to choose reading materials and provide opportunities for communication and cooperation among them.This study tries to apply the “Literature Circles” to English reading teaching in senior high school,and discuss two questions: first,what effect does the “Literature Circles” have on improving senior high school students’ English reading achievements? second,what effect does the “Literature Circles” have on stimulating senior high school students’ English reading interest?Both qualitative and quantitative studies were used in the thesis.A total of 86 students from two parallel classes(Class 5 Senior 2,and Class 6 Senior 2)of Tongwei No.2 Senior High School were selected as the research subjects.Class 5 was the Control Class and Class 6 was the Experimental Class.In the CC,the traditional reading teaching was used while in the EC,the“Literature Circles” was adopted.Both the CC and the EC used the Bookworm Series(level 4)as reading materials.And the experiment lasted 18 weeks.Before the experiment,a pre-test was conducted both in the CC and the EC;a pre-questionnaire was carried out in the EC.After the experiment,a post-test was done both in the CC and the EC;a post-questionnaire and an interview were implemented in the EC.The two test papers were chosen from the reading comprehensions of the College Entrance Examination in the past ten years.The ARCS interest questionnaire of Guo Dejun et al.was selected for the two questionnaires and 12 students were interviewed in the EC.And the experimental data was analyzed by SPSS and EXCEL.SPSS was adopted to analyze the students’ English reading scores.And the results of the questionnaires,EXCEL was employed to analyze the students’ interest in English reading.The data analysis of the students’ English reading scores showed that the p value of the CC after the experiment was.253(p>0.05),and there was no significant difference between the scores before and after the experiment.However,the p value of the EC was.000(p<0.05),and there was a significant difference between students’ scores before and after the experiment.The data analysis of students’ interest in English reading showed that the application of the “Literature Circles” can improve students’ interest in English reading.The interview results showed that the students in the EC held a positive attitude towards the “Literature Circles”.To sum up,the “Literature Circles” can improve students’ English reading achievements and enhance their interest in English reading.