An Action Research On The Application Of PBL To English Reading Teaching In Junior Middle Schools

The English Curriculum Standards for Compulsory Education(2022 Edition)proposes that English teaching should adhere to the concept of “learning through experience,applying in practice,and innovating through transfer”,and improve student’ ability to think independently and solve problems cooperatively through experience,participation,exploration,and cooperation,thereby developing students’ key competences in the English language discipline.As one of the key points of English teaching in junior high schools,reading teaching is of great significance to the development of students’ core English literacy.PBL teaching method is a student centered teaching method,which pays more attention to cultivating students’ thinking quality,learning ability,and ability to solve problems cooperatively,which meets the requirements of the new curriculum reform.Based on constructivism theory,situational teaching theory,and cooperative learning theory,this study adopts a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods,using questionnaires,interviews,and tests,and applies PBL teaching method to action research in the teaching of English reading in junior high schools.The purpose of this study is to improve the teaching of English reading,mainly answering the following two questions:1.How do teachers carry out and continuously improve the teaching of English reading in junior high schools based on PBL?2.What is the effect of English reading teaching in junior high schools based on PBL?This study lasted four months.In two rounds of action research,the PBL based English reading teaching in junior high schools was carried out through five steps:creating problem situations,posing questions,assigning tasks,exploring questions,displaying results,and evaluating and summarizing.In the first round of action research,through the analysis of questionnaires,interviews,and pre-reading tests,it was found that there are many problems in current English reading teaching,such as the single teaching goal,a fixed teaching model,and a lack of teaching depth.In response to the above questions,the author applies the PBL teaching method in the classroom to design a complete set of question systems based on “major problem”,and organizes students to master certain learning methods and reading strategies through independent thinking and cooperative learning.In the second round of action research,teaching was adjusted to address the issues identified in the first round of research,such as bad learning effects of students with poor language competence,students’ poor feedback in the awareness of “problem”,difficulty in designing“problems”,and low participation of some students in group learning.The adjustment measures included giving full play to teachers’ greater auxiliary role,guiding students to post questions,selecting reading questions,and controlling the number and difficulty of questions,setting up a group bonus system to improve students’ classroom participation,etc.The results of two rounds of action research have found that students’ sense of “problems” and learning ability have improved,their reading interest has strengthened,and their reading performance has also improved.The following pedagogical implications have been obtained from this study:asking introductory questions based on the reading materials,and setting up authentic situations for questioning;establishing heterogeneous learning groups of moderate scale to diffuse students’ thinking and improve their learning abilities through cooperation;setting up a question chain to guide students to explore the thematic meaning based on “major problem”.