An Empirical Study Of The English Newspaper Reading Teaching In Senior Middle Schools

The 21st century is the information age, when science andtechnology is developing rapidly, the international exchanges are veryfrequent, and the talents pursue self development and sustainabledevelopment. Along with the deepening of the globalization of theeconomic activities and the gradual promotion of the internationalizationof the education in our country, the new age puts forward a higherdemand for the foreign language teaching. The traditional models ofEnglish teaching and the teaching contents are no longer suitable for thedevelopment of the situation. "Several tens of millions of people havevariety of certificates of the foreign languages in our country, yet theforeign language talents are still very scarce" (Liu Runqing 2003). Onlythe minority of them can really communicate in foreign languages withforeigners and read the originals and newspapers in foreign languages. Onmany occasions, the former Vice Premier Li Lanqing pointed out thatthere exists a problem of "high cost in time and low efficiency" in theforeign language teaching.In order to meet the demand required by the development of thetimes and the need of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese, Our countryis carrying out actively the basic education curriculum reform, the newsyllabus and the new curriculum standard have been promulgated, andsome new textbooks have been compiled, a comparatively larger varietyof textbooks have been adopted, yet it is unavoidable that textbooks arestill confined to grammar and typical classroom language, and that some of the teaching contents are single or out of date, so it is hard for studentsto obtain the latest information and improve their abilities of obtaininginformation by reading only textbooks, and some of them are no longercontent with reading only textbooks.But students want to gain the newest information and learn thepopular language. In order to develop the students into practical talentswho meet the needs of society in the future, the senior middle schoolEnglish teaching at the stage of basic education has the duty to improvethe students' abilities to obtain knowledge and use English. The Standardof English Courses makes it clear that the rich teaching resources in audiomedia, television, newspaper, magazines and on the Internet should bemade full use of to expand the methods of learning and using English.Reading is the main approach of obtaining information and the input ofthe target language; Moreover, English newspapers can offer students richlatest information and idiomatic language, English newspaper reading canbuild a bridge between students' learning and their real life, make up forthe shortages of the textbooks and help to improve the students' abilitiesto acquire knowledge and use the English language.However, some people are doubtful about the feasibility of Englishnewspaper reading in senior middle schools, and some teachers are notsure about how to carry it out.Therefore, by the means of empirical study, to confirm whetherEnglish newspapers meet the needs of the students in senior middleschools for the reading materials, whether English newspaper readinghelps to improve the students' composite abilities of using the languagesand how to implement effectively the English newspaper reading teaching is of great practical significance for the students' sustainable developmentas well as improving English teaching efficiency and promoting Englishteaching reform.For these reasons, the author carried out "An Empirical Study of theEnglish Newspaper Reading Teaching in Senior Middle Schools".In addition to the introduction and the conclusion, the thesis isdivided into five chapters. In Chapter I, the author analyzes the currentsituation of English reading teaching in senior middle schools in China,the current situation of the study on the English newspaper readingteaching at home and abroad, and the features of 21st Century Teens·Senior Edition. And the significance of the English newspaper readingteaching in senior middle school is also discussed. In ChapterⅡ, theauthor gives a brief introduction to the theories which are relevant to thepresent empirical study: needs analysis, the Affective Filter Hypothesisand the Input Hypothesis of Krashen, Schema Theory and the task-basedlearning theory. In ChapterⅢ, the author introduces the purpose of thepresent empirical study, the hypotheses, the subjects, and theexperimental tools and materials. On the basis of relevant theories, theauthor puts forwards the following experimental hypotheses: 1.Englishnewspapers meet the needs of the senior middle school students for thereading materials; 2.English newspaper reading helps to increasestudents' English vocabulary; 3.English newspaper reading helps toimprove the students' composite abilities of using the languages. In theexperiment, the author chose two natural classes in Senior 2 in his schoolas the subjects, and implemented a one-year empirical study. In ChapterⅣ, the author describes in detail the procedure of the experiment of the English newspaper reading teaching in senior middle school, includingthe pre-tests, the post-tests and the survey, whose purpose is to be awareof the changes in the situation of the students' learning English. Theauthor designed carefully the English newspapers reading tasks, strived tobuild the models of newspapers reading teaching, and made full use of the21st Century Teens·Senior Edition to have reading, writing, listeningand speaking practice; He tried to help the students form the good habitsof reading English newspapers; He also organized varied out-of-classactivities to create a good environment for the students' Englishacquisition. In ChapterⅤ, the author uses SPSS12.0 (social statisticalsoftware package) to analyze the data collected through the experimentand the survey. The results of the questionnaire and the experiment provethat the hypotheses are correct in a certain degree: English newspapersmeet the needs of the senior middle school students for the readingmaterials; English newspaper reading contributes to increasing students'English vocabulary; It is feasible and effective to improve the students'composite abilities of using the languages through the implementation ofthe English newspaper reading teaching in senior middle schools.In the conclusion, the author sums up the advantages and problemsof the English newspaper reading teaching in senior middle schools,pointing out the limitations of this study and the teaching inspiration, witha number of strategies to read English newspapers and suggestions putforwards to make it perfect.