Facilitating Reading Comprehension With Newspaper-based Instruction

Based on psychological and educational theories, this paper is concerned with the question of how reading comprehension can be facilitated with newspaper-based instruction.A preliminary reading of the relevant literature reveals that reading, one part of language teaching to understand and gain knowledge, is the most important of the four language skills in the teaching and learning of English as a foreign language. Previous researches on Newspaper in Education indicated that students who read newspapers in class showed gains in "reading competencies". It was also noted that the use of newspaper in classroom teaching aroused more interest in current events among students, and helped improve their abilities of verbal interaction, comprehension and critical thinking, as well as vocabulary development. But most of the results are based on American learners, not on Chinese learners. Some research in China has been conducted concerning English majors in Universities. However, little has been done for high school English learners, which made the study necessary.In light of the requirements of Syllabus for senior high school English and based on a three-term program conducted among 120 senior grade 2 students in No. 5 Middle School of Putian, the authorexperimented in offering the newspaper-based instruction to the students with an integrated approach, and achieved some positive and encouraging results. On the macro level, the effect of newspaper-based instruction is investigated; on the micro level, the students' wrong habit's of reading were eliminated with right reading strategies instructed, effective teaching modes are practiced.