Action Research On Cultivating Students' Ability Of Generating Questions In English Reading Courses

Reading is an active thinking process, according to Goodman. Current situation of English reading courses in China, however, does not entail active thinking on the part of students, leading to inadequate question generation in classroom activities of these courses. To develop students'ability to generate questions and solve the above-mentioned problem, the author of this paper delves into the topic "Action Research on Cultivating Students' Ability of Generating Questions in English Reading Courses", and proposes a new learning strategy that combines autonomous learning, collaborative learning, and inquiry-based learning styles.The action research has lasted 3 months, taking grade three students in senior high school as its subjects, and employing the correspondent textbooks published by Yilin Press. The first stage of the action research is a pilot study that helps to develop research questions and hypotheses by questionnaires, interviews and authentic classroom observations and investigations, all contributing to a carefully-made research plan. The second stage is implementation of the research plan. We first create a situational teaching atmosphere that favors critical thinking and question generation, mostly by redefining the relationship between teachers and students and stimulating students'meta-cognition. Then, based on the feedback of students, we proceed to a coaching session on how to improve their reading techniques and collaborative learning skills, hoping to enhance the meaning construction of students'knowledge acquisition process and to help generate high-quality questions. Meanwhile, we also adopt a new evaluation system that encourages students to generate questions more actively. The comparison of the pre-test and post-test results suggests that the students of the experiment class have performed better in finding, analyzing and solving questions, and that their quantity and quality of question-generation have both been obviously improved. The results of the final English test in the semester also show that the experiment class has outperformed the control class. All this demonstrates that the new teaching strategy emphasizing question generation does not only help to improve the English reading ability, but also contributes to the general improvement of students' performance in English courses.In conclusion, the new teaching strategy emphasizing question generation in English reading courses might be able to meet the diversified requirements of students, develop their creative thinking, and retain the authenticity of classroom instruction.