A Study On Activity-Based Approach To English Learning In Senior High School’s English Reading Teaching

In order to achieve the goal of core literacy,the National English Curriculum Standards for Senior High School(2017 Edition2020 Revised)proposes Activity-based approach to English learning(ABA)as the organizational model of class teaching.Teachers’ perceptions and practices of ABA not only affect the quality of class teaching,but also further influence the refinement and development of this theory.For this reason,this study investigates the practice of ABA in high school English reading teaching under the guidance of activity theory and the classification theory of educational objectives,in order to put forward an advisable suggestion for practicing ABA in high school English reading teaching.Using questionnaires,classroom observation scales and interview outlines as the research tools,this study is conducted with 70 high school English teachers in H city in northern Anhui Province.The research questions focused on:(1)How do high school English teachers of H City in northern Anhui perceive ABA?(2)How do high school English teachers of H City in northern Anhui practice ABA in reading teaching?(3)Are there significant differences in the perceptions and practices of ABA among different groups of high school English teachers of H City in northern Anhui(teaching age;education level)? If significant differences exist,in what aspects of ABA?Through data analysis,this study comes to the following conclusions: firstly,the overall cognition of ABA among high school English teachers in H city in northern Anhui is average,and the cognitive level of the relevant content of ABA from high to low is as follows: the interpretation of the textbook,the design of teaching activities,and the concept connotation.At the same time,the interview results show that teachers have cognitive ambiguity,cognitive dislocation and cognitive bias in the concept of ABA.Secondly,the overall cognition of ABA among high school English teachers in H city in northern Anhui is good,and the degree of practice of the three types of activities of ABA is in order: learning and understanding activities,transfer and innovation activities,and application and practice activities.At the same time,classroom observation records and interview results show that in learning and understanding activities,the forms of activities are mostly making tables and mind maps.In the application practice activities,there are confusion and imbalance in the proportion of activities.In the transfer and innovation activities,teachers’ questions only stay on the surface information and teachers are not good at using critical evaluation activities in the expository text.Finally,there is no significant difference between teachers of different teaching years and education level in their overall and various dimensions of cognition and practice of English learning activity.However,in the learning and understanding activities,there are significant differences in the practice level of teachers of different teaching ages,that is,the practice level of teachers with teaching age of less than 5 years is significantly lower than that of teachers with teaching age of 11-15 years and more than 15 years.Based on the results of this study,the authors make the following suggestions for implementing the ABA in high school English reading teaching: First,teachers should carefully read the curriculum standards to improve the theoretical literacy of practiceoriented ABA.Secondly,teachers should practice ABA integrating six elements to improve the compatibility between class teaching practice and ABA.At the same time,teachers should timely attend lectures on ABA and learn how to flexibly apply ABA to practical reading teaching through excellent cases provided by experts and scholars.