An Empirical Study Of Senior School English Reading Teaching From The Perspective Of Piaget’s Theory Of Cognitive Development

In the light of Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development, English reading activity is viewed as a cognitive developmental process, a voluntary constructive process of meaning and a process of dynamic equilibration between readers’ decoding and the author’s encoding of the reading material in which readers’ schema is enlarged, enriched, and evolved through assimilation or accommodation via a continuous cycle of equilibrium—disequilibrium—new equilibrium, with the readers’ comprehension of the text realized.Since the implementation of The New Curriculum Standard for Senior Students, senior English reading teaching has undergone noticeable changes, from the traditional cramming education which centers on discrete vocabulary and grammar, to a shift on information-processing through reading. High school English reading teaching, however, is far from satisfaction. Above all, current reading course is testing the students rather than teaching them how to read in substance. In such courses, the teacher follows a commonly held teaching procedure, namely, question-presentation—simple instructions—answer-checking—the next teaching steps, the deficiency of which lies in a lack of effective guidance necessary for strategies exercise. Also, in present teaching activities based on one-one correspondence of asking and answering, the teacher exerts the guiding role to the utmost while learners’principal role in reading is impaired to the extreme. Furthermore, the course pivots around the superficial information like facts, details, etc, while the deeper meaning of an article is pending further discussion. Finally, a focus on information-processing is paid at the cost of ignoring linguistic explanation, even dropping it utterly. There is no denying the fact that English learners under such circumstances lack interest in reading and confidence indispensible for the learning of any kind, which brings about this pessimistic phenomenon that students in English class feel as if they were lying on a bed of thorns, and that reading achievement is disappointing. Therefore, it grows extremely urgent that a scientific, rational and efficient teaching mode in accordance with the senior students’ cognition be worked out to meet New Curriculum Standard requirements.Enlightened by Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development and motivated by the necessity of reform in present reading teaching, the thesis puts forward a new teaching mode, that is, Assimilation—Accommodation—Cognitive disequilibrium Mode. The author offers a teaching case to manifest its theoretical foundation, teaching principles as well as the detailed teaching procedures, and later proves its effectiveness in senior English reading teaching by conducting an experiment. The following is how the experiment works:First of all, in order to get an idea of how English reading teaching is being performed nowadays,230students from Grade Two in Honghu No.l Senior School and Honghu He Long Senior School are chosen randomly as the participants of the questionnaire. The results of the questionnaire disclose that students feel reading comprehension dull and laborious and they become frustrated at the little progress they have made during years’hard work. Then,108Senior Two students in two classes are selected as the subjects of the subsequent experiment, one being the control class which is taught in Grammar Translation Method, emphasizing the interpretation of reading materials and grammar, the other being the experimental class which is given in the new teaching mode. At the end of the experiment, an interview is held to see whether students from the experimental class approve the new teaching mode in general as well as collecting useful recommendations to perfect the teaching mode.The experiment is sustainable over15weeks, and all the data collected by questionnaire, interview in addition to testing are processed on SPSS15.0. The results demonstrate that the new teaching mode is advantageous to a great extent:1) Reading achievement is fostered largely.2) Comprehensive English competence, after a period of reading interference, is fairly improved.3) The pass-rate is promoted to some degree. And comparatively speaking, intermediate students benefit more as they make greater progress.4) Other positive outcomes such as deeper understanding of texts, self-efficacy, and higher motivation on learning tasks are spotted.In conclusion, the new teaching mode guided by Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development is feasible and effective. The research is of paramount significance to reading teaching both theoretically and practically.