Application Of Theme-based Model Of Content-based Instruction In Senior High School English Reading Teaching

Theme-based Model of Content-based Instruction is based on some subjects and themes,which integrates the content with language learning,and contends that the foreign language teaching should confer meaningful content rather than present and practice meaningless vocabulary,grammar and sentence structures.And teaching activities should be carried out around materials which students need to acquire and are interested in.At present,even though the Theme-based Model of Content-based Instruction has aroused much attention,there are still few empirical studies focusing on the application of Theme-based Model of Content-based Instruction into foreign language teaching,especially studies in senior high school.Therefore,it is very necessary to go on doing research to make up for the inadequacy on this aspect,so in this paper,an empirical study is conducted on the application of Theme-based Model of Content-based Instruction in senior high school English reading teaching.There are two research questions to be explored:(1)Can the Theme-based Model of Content-based Instruction improve senior high school students‘ reading comprehension achievement?(2)Can the Theme-based Model of Content-based Instruction increase senior high school students‘ interest in English reading?This teaching experiment lasted 8 weeks.The participants of this experiment was made up of 100 Grade One students of No.5 Senior High School in Gansu Qin‘an,who were in Class one and Class two respectively.Class one was control class,in which Presentation-Practice-Production Model was used.Class two was experimental class,which adopted Theme-based Model of Content-based Instruction.In the experiment,the tests and questionnaire were utilized and all the collected data were analyzed by SPSS 17.0.The results of the study showed that Theme-based Model of Content-based Instruction could improve students‘ English reading comprehension achievement in senior high school.And at the same time,Theme-based Model of Content-based Instruction can increase students‘ reading interest and,during the process of reading,students generally show great interest in this meaningful language teaching method.The implications from this research are: on the one hand,as for English teachers in senior high school,they should know some knowledge of other subjects to try to combine English language teaching with other subjects teaching.If possible,English teachers should observe classes of other subjects and negotiate with teachers coming from different subjects frequently about their teaching plan and schedule.English teachers are also supposed to communicate with the students about what subjects they are interested in and what contents and topics,themes they would like to acquaint with.On the other hand,as for students in senior high school,students should broaden their knowledge consciously to help themselves to understand reading content much easier and reduce anxiety in the process of reading.