An Empirical Study Of Textual Inference In High School English Reading From Perspective Of Whole Language Approach

The study is an empirical research on improving the competence of TextualInference (TI) in senior high EFL learners. The study intends to bridge betweenWhole Language Approach (WLA) and TI by means of Whole Perception (WP) oftexts. Through an exposition on the relationship among the three, the authorconstructs the theoretical framework based on which two hypotheses are put forward:1). WLA can activate and strengthen subjects’ WP of EFL reading effectively;2). Onthe basis of WLA, the WP can evidently improve subjects’ competence on TI.The author adopts both qualitative and quantitative approaches to verify thehypotheses. Two groups of subjects are all freshmen from Guangyuan Tian JiabingExperimental Middle School who have at least3.5years’ experience on English. Thetwo groups, Experimental Group (EG), Controlled Group (CG) are selected inaccordance with the mean scores in the former final exam (reading comprehensiononly). The total number of each group is46. In qualitative research, twoquestionnaires are assigned. Questionnaire I (see Appendix I) is for both groupsbefore the experiment to investigate attitudes of subjects toward EFL reading and tofind out their difficulties and habits in EFL reading. And Questionnaire II (seeAppendix II) is for EG only which has been done after the experiment as anassessment on the adopted approach, i.e. WLA, and finds out deficiencies over theresearch so as to provide suggestions for further study.In quantitative research, two different test papers (Paper I, Paper II) on Englishreading comprehension (see Appendix III, Appendix IV) extracted from localexamination papers bank have been distributed to both groups. After each test, thedata has been collected. Under the assistance of SPSS16.0, a brief analysis issubmitted over the mean and the value of t so as to investigate subjects’ levels ofEnglish reading comprehension after experiment and verify the hypotheses.The three hypotheses have been testified by the experiment which has broadened the means of EFL reading teaching from the perspective of methodology,especially through activating and strengthening the WP, WLA has improved thecompetence the subjects have in managing TI.