A Research Into High School Students' Reading Strategy Training Through English Newspapers

As the main input of language learning, reading plays a very important role in English teaching. However, it is regretful that the teaching of reading is far from satisfactory in high schools in China. There are three reasons, they are lack of appealing English textbooks, insufficient training of reading practice and inadequate training of reading strategy.The new English Curriculum points out that one of the most important tasks of the English Curriculum is to develop students' good learning habits and to form efficient learning strategies. Also for the past few years, college entrance examinations required the students to have faster reading speed and better reading comprehension.The present dissertation endeavored to probe into the combination of reading strategy training and the exploration of English newspapers. It reports on a study of reading strategy training via learner-centred activities based on English newspaper 21^st Century Teens in Senior Two and investigates the effects of the training on reading proficiency. The research questions for this study are: 1. What kind of reading strategies will be developed after reading instruction and strategy training by using English newspapers in the classroom? 2. To what extent is reading comprehension ability related to reading strategies? 3. In which way is newspaper reading effective to the strategy training?The study began with a questionnaire and a pre-study reading test, which serve as "baseline data". After the completion of reading strategy instruction and training via reading activities based on English newspapers, a post-study reading test was carried out and a comparison was made. Answers to the research questions showed that strategy training was effective in enhancing middle school students' overall reading proficiency and reading speed. The training, to different degrees, had effect on the improvement of students' abilities to grasp main ideas, to make global inferences and to extract detailed information; however, it had no obvious effect on the improvement of their ability to guess unknown vocabulary. The interview after the study revealed that students took positive attitudes towards the training of reading strategies through English newspapers, indicating that such training activities can be used in high school classroom.The research in this dissertation tried to explore a more effective approach to developing reading strategy and proficiency via English newspapers. In spite of its limitations, the study can act as an attempt and encouragement for peers to be aware of the importance of reading strategy training and exploring the newspaper as a valuable teaching resource.