An Action Research On English Reading Teaching Based On Thematic Meaning Exploration In Senior High School

Traditional English reading teaching plays an important role in helping students to learn basic language knowledge and train language skills.However,it ignores the teaching of thematic meaning in reading materials when teaching textual knowledge.The General Senior High School English Curriculum Standards(2017 Edition 2020Revision)(2020)clearly points out that students’ exploration of the thematic meaning should be the most important content for students to learn a language.This study aims to discuss how to apply the exploration of thematic meaning in senior high school English reading classes to implement more effective reading teaching.It attempts to answer the following three questions:(1)What effects does the reading teaching based on the exploration of thematic meaning have on senior high school student’s interest in English reading?(2)What effects does the reading teaching based on the exploration of thematic meaning have on students’ use of reading strategies?(3)What effects does the reading teaching based on the exploration of thematic meaning have on students’ understanding of thematic meaning?This study combines Wang Weizhong’s(2020)English reading teaching strategy based on thematic meaning exploration and English Learning Activity View,and constructs a new teaching case.This case penetrates the thematic meaning exploration into the reading teaching activities,trying to make students apply language knowledge and cultural knowledge into practice and transfer and innovate knowledge in reading activities.Then the researcher conducted two rounds of action research for 15 weeks in a class of Grade Two of a senior high school in Xinyang.In the process of research,questionnaires,interviews and teaching logs were used as data collection tools.And SPSS 25.0 was used to analyze the results of the questionnaire.Based on the analysis of questionnaire data,interviews and teaching logs,this study found that:(1)The reading teaching based on thematic meaning exploration has a positive impact on senior high school students’ reading interest.It shows that students are more focused in class and their enthusiasm for participating in classroom activities is improved.(2)The reading teaching based on thematic meaning exploration has a positive impact on senior high school students’ use of some cognitive strategies.More students can predict the text content according to the title and keywords.Besides,they can also skillfully use the mind map and tables to sort out structure of the text.However,its effects of students’ use of some metacognitive strategies and affective strategies is not significant.For example,some students are still nervous for fear of making mistakes in the process of reading,and few students evaluate their reading effect after reading.(3)The reading teaching based on the exploration of thematic meaning can promote students understanding of thematic meaning.After receiving two rounds of reading teaching based on thematic meaning exploration,most students can understand the text by paying attention to the theme of the text.In addition,they can pay more attention to the exploration of thematic meaning in reading activities and better understand the thematic meaning.Through this research,the following teaching implications can be drawn: in reading teaching,teachers need to strengthen the excavation of text content,and strive to realize the situational teaching from the real life and actual needs of students.What’more,teachers also need to focus on the exploration of thematic meaning as the main line throughout the entire reading class,and design different levels of teaching activities to promote the transfer and innovation of students’ knowledge.