A Study Of An English Extensive Reading Experiment In A RuralHigh School-Linzhang High School

In the world's globalization of the information and trade, English, as an international language, is showing its great advantages in communicating and obtaining the information. Almost all the world are doing their utmost to master this important tool, especially for the high school students who want to lay a solid foundation for their future. However, a substantial amount of high school students in the enormous part of China—in rural high schools are learning English under poor conditions. Many English teachers in these schools are not qualified or even some have no professional English learning. There are not enough teaching facilities and teaching resources, which are very helpful to English learning, even tape recorders. Furthermore, all the teachers and students in rural high schools are striving for the NMET (National Matriculation English Test). Students are learning English mainly by rote memorizing and endless practice of simulated tests which have been boring the students. They have no interest and motivation in English learning. This does not only go against the requirements of the new English curriculum standard but also can not meet the needs of their future work. The writer of this thesis attempts to improve the English learning in rural high schools with extensive reading based on the theories of the Second Language Acquisition (SLA), reading and so on, and have the conviction that it can arouse students'interest and motivation and will greatly improve their English learning.This thesis consists of five parts. The first part shows the present situation of English learning and teaching in the experimental school—Linzhang High School and the requirements of the new English curriculum standard, which indicates that extensive reading is of great necessity. The second part reviews the research on the theories of SLA and reading, especially of Chrashen's Input Hypothesis and Affective Filtered Hypothesis. Some research theories of reading, interest and motivation and practical reading strategies supposed by Chinese scholars are also in the second part. The writer designs the extensive reading experiment in the third part, which includes the selecting and compiling reading materials and the procedures of the experiment. The fourth part is the analysis of the experimental results, including quantitive analysis and qualitative analyses. In the last part, the fifth part, the writer draws an conclusion on the experiment and puts forward some suggestions on English teaching and learning for rural high schools.