Research On The Integrative Model Of Teaching English Reading Based On The Whole Language Theory

The whole language theory offers a new perspective of language education and has gained more and more attention and application in language teaching since it has come into being. It views language learning as an inseparable part of children's growth. And the language can be easily learned when it is treated as a whole entity in the authentic situations. In contrast with the traditional ways of discrete teaching, the whole language stresses "the whole is more than the sum of the parts" in language learning. Also, the whole language emphasizes the learner's autonomy in language learning. Therefore, prior experience or background knowledge of individual is stressed in language learning. Such views of language provide implications for the ELT in China.The purpose of the thesis is to have a general knowledge of the whole language and its views of language education, its major difference from the traditional language theories. Then it focuses on the integrative skills learning and using. Based on that, the paper is intended to explore the effective teaching activities on the class, and put forward the integrative model of teaching reading.The paper consists of six parts. The first part gives a brief introduction of the major points in this paper. The second part reviews some literature closely related to the present research and introduces the whole language movement and the whole language theory, which involves the process of the movement and the development of the theory. Part three discusses the nature of reading, the relationship between the whole language and three reading models. And the emphasis is on the interactive model in reading. Part four focuses on the teaching reading with the guidance of the whole language theory. The integration and combination of teaching techniques are analyzed. Part five puts forward the integrative model of teaching reading and presents some teaching activities in accordance with the model. The concluding part summarizes the whole paper and indicates the direction for further research.