The Application Of Inquiry Learning To English Reading Teaching In Senior High School

English reading teaching has always played an indispensable role in the English classroom,we can search a lot of papers about English reading teaching from the CNKI.However,how to teach English reading is still a problem that is worth paying more attention.In the current English reading class,teachers put too much emphasis on the vocabulary and grammar teaching,they always translate the complex passage word by word.This traditional teaching mode of reading makes students accept knowledge passively for a long time,which has seriously hampered students’ learning enthusiasm and affected students’ learning interest,let alone encourage students participate in classroom activities.In order to improve this situation and explore effective teaching models of English reading,the author tries to apply inquiry learning to English reading teaching.Inquiry learning is based on students’ autonomous learning and cooperative learning.Under the guidance of teachers,students can question,explore,discuss and find ways to solve the problems,which can stimulate students’ learning interest and improve students’ reading ability and critical thinking.In order to verify the effectiveness of inquiry learning in senior high school English reading teaching,the author carried out the teaching experiment around the following three questions:(1)What is the impact of inquiry learning on students’ reading interest?(2)How does inquiry learning influence students’ critical thinking?(3)What is the impact of inquiry learning on students’ reading achievement?In this thesis,the definition,characteristics,models and literature review of inquiry learning will be introduced.Afterwards,the detailed teaching design will be given to illustrate the specific application of inquiry learning in English reading teaching.This study takes two classes(C171 and C172)from Qidong No.2 Senior High School in Hunan province as the research subject.Class 171 is the experimental class,which applied inquiry learning to English reading teaching.Class 172 is the control class,which was given a traditional reading teaching model.In this study,three research instruments were chosen such as reading test,questionnaire and classroom observation.It aims to find out the influence of inquiry learning by the comparison of the results of pre-experiment and post-experiment tests.The results of the experiment show that the application of inquiry learning to senior high school English reading teaching can not only stimulate students’ learning interest in English and improve students’ autonomous learning ability,but also enhance students’ awareness of using reading strategies as well as improve students’ English reading performance.At the same time,the emphasis in reading teaching is shifted from “how to teach” to “how to learn”,which promotes the formation of students’ critical thinking.