An Experimental Research On Applying Story-based Approach To Improve Middle School Students’ English Reading Achievements

To cultivate students’ English reading ability is one of the important goals of English teaching in junior middle schools.The English Curriculum Standard(2011)Levels Three-Five require students to have a clear English learning motivation and a positive attitude towards learning English.They are able to read simple stories and essays,catch the general idea,understand the plot of the story,and predict the plot development and possible outcomes.They are expected to understand dialogues and stories in their daily communicative situations.They can exchange information and simple opinions on familiar life topics.Story-based approach is based on the use of stories as the main teaching material,with the collection of stories,selection of stories,story presentation,story analysis,and evaluation as the focus of the whole teaching process.This fully fits the Levels Three-Five target in the curriculum standard.It can stimulate students’ emotional attitude and make them change from passive acceptance to active absorption so as to improve the efficiency of students’ reading.Based on Krashen’s Comprehensible Input Hypothesis,Swain’s Output Hypothesis,as well as Vygotsky’s ZPD,the research aims to reveal the role of story-based approach in developing students’reading achievements and emotional attitude in English learning through teaching experiment.The subjects of the research are a total of 80 students who are from two classes of Grade Seven in one middle school in Lanzhou,Gansu Province.The two classes are taught by the same teacher,and the students’age,knowledge level and academic achievements are at a similar level.Therefore,the results of the experiment are comparable and operational.The two classes are randomly appointed as experimental class(EC)and controlled class(CC).Story-based approach is adopted in EC and the traditional approach is used in CC.The experiment lasted for one semester.Research instrument includes:pre-and post-questionnaires on emotional attitude,pre-test and post-test on reading,and an interview.After the experiment the data are collected and analyzed by SPSS.Conclusions of the research are drawn as follows:1.Story-based approach can effectively cultivate students’ emotional attitude in English learning;2.1t can significantly improve students’ reading achievements.In spite of the positive effects of story-based approach on English learning,there are still some limitations:1.Not all English teachers are prepared to apply story-based approach to their teaching;2.Not all students take interest in story-based approach because "One man’s mutton is another man’s poison."3.The validity of story-based approach requires more time and practice to test,and the 18-week experiment was short and hurried.It also needs continuous improvement and exploration.