A Study On Pre-reading Activities In English Reading Class In Senior High School

Reading plays a leading role in English teaching in senior high school.As the beginning of the reading class,pre-reading activities can activate students’ existing schema,stimulate students’ interest in reading and enhance students’ reading motivation.Therefore,it is necessary to study the current pre-reading activities in English reading class in senior high school,which is of great significance to reading teaching.Based on schema theory and constructivism,this research adopts three research instruments: questionnaire,classroom observation and interview.56 teachers and 212 students from Grade 1 and Grade 2 of two senior high schools in Chongqing are selected as the research subjects to discuss the following three questions.（1）What is the status quo of pre-reading activities in English reading class in senior high school?（2）What problems of pre-reading activities exist in English reading class in senior high school?（3）What are the causes of the existing problems in pre-reading activities?Through the statistical data analysis of questionnaires,classroom observation and interviews,it is found that:（1）Teachers are fully aware of the importance of pre-reading activities and they are inclined to choose the pre-reading activities of content schema,such as predicting the main idea through title and illustration and providing background knowledge,followed by the pre-reading activities of linguistic schema,and finally the pre-reading activities of formal schema.In general,teachers will consider corresponding principles when designing pre-reading activities.The principle of relevance is attached great importance while the principle of interest is neglected to some extent.However,students lack an understanding of the importance of pre-reading activities and their favorite pre-reading activities include discussing personal experiences related to the text topics and learning background knowledge.Students’ evaluation of pre-reading activities designed by teachers is relatively high.（2）There are three main problems of pre-reading activities in the current English reading class in senior high school.Students have inadequate understanding of pre-reading activities.The commonly used pre-reading activities by teachers are inconsistent with students’ preferences.Pre-reading activities are not very attractive to students.（3）The causes for the above problems are as follows.The pre-reading activities designed by teachers are less effective.Teachers ignore students’ needs for pre-reading activities.Teachers do not take students’ interest into full consideration when designing pre-reading activities.In order to improve the efficiency of pre-reading activities in English reading class,this research is to provide suggestions from the aspects of teachers and students respectively.For teachers,they should design moderately difficult pre-reading activities,satisfy students’ needs for pre-reading activities,take students’ interest into full account,and design different types of pre-reading activities presented in a variety of forms.For students,they should fully understand the importance of pre-reading activities,actively participate in class and interact with teachers,and restrain themselves and keep self-discipline.