A Study On The Interactive Approach To The Teaching Of English Reading In Senior High Schools

A successful reading program should involve the students with the text in building meaning and lead to creative production, as well as maintain fluent student-teacher and student-student interaction. However, in the teacher-centered class, students are deprived of the chance to construct new meaning and reflect on the use of language at their own pace. In addition, they do not have sufficient opportunities to interact with the teacher and learn from their peers.This paper studies how to incorporate the interactive approach to the teaching of reading in senior high schools. Based on the qualitative and quantitative analyses of four contestants'public teachings in a provincial teaching contest, the author comes up with three models of interactive approach. They are response-oriented model, problem-solving model and signpost question model, which are recommended as an effective means of promoting interaction among the teacher, the students and the text. In the follow-up research, the author conducted a series of semi-structured interviews with the four teachers, one on-line and three face-to-face.According to the study, the teachers'beliefs are not always in accordance with their classroom practice. When incorporating interactive reading activities, they prefer response-oriented model. Problem-solving model ranks second in frequency and popularity. On the contrary, the teachers seldom apply signpost question model to teach reading. They are not fully aware of the importance of signpost questions. Furthermore, they are not good at designing signpost questions. When they apply interactive approach to their teaching, the difficulties they are likely to encounter are students'language deficiency and inhibition, as well as their own limited language competence.