An Empirical Study Of Holistic& Cognitive Reading Teaching In Senior Middle Schools

Reading teaching has always been an important component of English as a foreign language teaching (EFL). Although English reading course has always been greatly emphasized in middle schools, and both teachers and students have made great efforts, the result is not satisfactory owing to many factors. And the teaching approach is a very important factor. The traditional EFL reading teaching seems to mainly concern sentences, for traditional reading teaching is often regarded as a course for teaching pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary. As a result, teachers only concentrate on explaining new words, language points and sentence structures, while students try to memorize them mechanically. The traditional method teaches students language knowledge in an isolated situation, ignoring the need of developing students' skills in understanding the whole text, enriching their knowledge and cultivating their ability to solve problems. This "high input, low output" phenomenon has caused a lot of problems. Recognizing weakness of traditional reading teaching method, the author, from the angle of discourse and cognitive theory, tries to proves the necessity and feasibility of holistic & cognitive reading teaching (HCRT)by experimenting. In this essay, the author first reports the procedures and then the findings of the experiment.Based on some literature about teaching reading to EFL students, the author combines theory with practice in an experiment by holistic & cognitive reading teaching, which is carried out on such principles as holistic designing, teaching students in accordance with their aptitude, and developing students' creativity. This teaching method stresses integrity, discourse, content, and overall meaning. The fundamental features of it are that teaching is based on learner-centered instruction and teachers play a leading role in the classroom. With this reading teaching, it is not the form of the language but the content of texts that is emphasized. It attaches great importance to the cultivation of communicative competence, both oral and written expressiveness, with the purpose to help students raise reading speed, improve reading competence and acquire background knowledge of English-speaking countries. With the help of another English teacher, an experiment is done in her and my classes by using two different teaching methods in about six months, one is traditional, the other is new, that is, holistic & cognitive reading teaching. This experiment starts with an investigation and some preparation, then holds a pre-test, and a post-test six months later, finally the author does the data collection and data analyses through Micro Soft Excel 2003 for Windows. The result of this experiment shows that holistic & cognitive reading teaching can improve students' reading competence.Besides the introduction and the conclusion, this essay consists of four chapters. In the introduction, the background of this study; its theoretical framework; the statement of the problems in English reading teaching; definitions of terms; the research questions; methodology ,the significance of the study are introduced, and the structure of this essay. Chapter 1 contains a review of the related literature and research about English reading teaching in middle schools, including traditional teaching models on reading comprehension; discourse theory; cognitively based views; schemata theory on reading; and students and teachers' effect in developing reading comprehension. Chapter 2 is an introduction to English reading teaching models and reading teaching at home and abroad; Chapter 3 is about the holistic & cognitive reading teaching model, including the nature of holistic & cognitive reading teaching, the principles of it, and the procedures. Chapter 4 presents the methods and procedures of the experiment, such as the instruments, sampling, data collection and data analyses, even samples of the teaching model in the experimental class and in the controlled class. The conclusion is a summary and the implication of the study.Findings of this study demonstrate that 1) the holistic & cognitive reading teaching is effective in English reading teaching in senior middle schools 2)this reading teaching can help teachers to improve students' reading competence...