Embodied Analysis And Teaching Strategies Of Meaning Construction In Senior Middle School English Reading

Reading plays a very important role in English teaching, and it is also a basic skillfor students to learn English. However, according to the present situation of Englishteaching of senior middle school in China, the teaching method for reading is still subjectto the traditional way. That is to say, most reading classes focus on the translation of thereading materials and the study of language points, especially the explanation of newwords and grammar. In such process, the teacher-centered teaching method alwaysdominates the whole class. It can not arouse students’ interests and learning enthusiasm.Also it ignores the cultivation of their learning abilities to some extent. The final resultsare not satisfactory, and the status quo of reading teaching is not optimistic.In recent decades, experts and scholars kept on exploring effective reading theoriesand teaching methods all the time. From the traditional teaching model which stresses theteaching of words and sentences, to the cognitive teaching model which thinks reading isa psycholinguistic guessing game and the interactive model that emphasizes theinteractive function between the reader and the text, the study of reading, especially thestudy of teaching method is developing. These results had obtained a certain achievement,but there are still many problems. So many experts are exploring how to modify themethods of teaching reading.In the recent years, some researchers attempt to apply the cognitive approach intothe teaching of reading. In this way, people gradually pay attention to embodiment.Embodiment is a term in cognitive linguistics. It refers as our collective biologicalcapacities and our physical and social experiences as being functioning in ourenvironment. In reality, the acquisition of knowledge is a complexinformation-processing system. According to the research of human’s cognition, each input of new knowledge will be stored in learners’ memory through the steps of filter,recognition and selection. During the process, the embodiment in human’s mind plays avery important role.We have recognized the great importance of embodiment. From these studies andresearches, we can draw the conclusion that it will improve learners’ abilities ofinformation processing and reading if we emphasize the motivation of their abilities ofembodiment. But recently both practice and research of this aspect are pretty stagnant.In this thesis, we attempt to apply embodiment into the teaching for reading ofsenior middle school students, and to explore the teaching strategies of meaningconstruction in embodiment-based reading. During the research process, first we make aseries of assumptions, and then we construct a teaching model for embodiment-basedEnglish reading which emphasizes meaning construction and aims at activating seniormiddle school students’ ability of embodiment to understand and appreciate the readingmaterials. We also design a four-month experiment to verify whether this teaching modelis feasible. By analyzing and comparing the results of the comprehension tests whichstudents from the control class and the experimental class do before and after theexperiment, we can find that the embodiment-based teaching model for reading iseffective to improve students’ reading abilities.In short, the embodiment-based teaching model for reading focuses on how to carryout the principle of student-centre, and emphasizes the process of learning and thedevelopment of students’ learning abilities. It gives full play to students’ initiatives andlets them enjoy the process of reading. And it is also the main aim of teaching reading.