The Application Of Reading Strategy Training In Senior High School English Teaching

The globalization of social lives and economy makes mastering a foreign language anecessity for a citizen in the21stcentury. English as a world language plays an important part inpeople’s communicating with each other. As one of the four basic language skills, reading is notonly an important means of having access to information but also the teaching focus. However,traditional reading teaching pays too much attention to how to teach, yet ignoring how to learn. Itattaches too much importance to the language itself, the cognitive ability and the inputting ofinformation, yet ignoring the overall understanding of the discourse and the cultivation of theability of analyzing and critical thinking. Therefore, although reading occupies a large proportionboth in teaching materials and curriculum, reading teaching doesn’t achieve the desired effect.Mastering reading strategies is a key factor in raising reading competence and languageproficiency and cultivating the autonomous reading ability. Therefore, the teaching focus hasbecome how to train reading strategies, stimulate interest in reading and shift from passivereading into active reading.“New Curriculum Standards for English Teaching at Senior HighSchools (experiment draft)” points out that teachers should strengthen the training of languagestrategies and leave students enough time to make reflections and adjustments, which can helpcultivate the autonomous learning ability and lay a solid foundation for life-long learning.The thesis is intended to investigate the application of reading strategies by senior highschool students and tract the effect of the training. In the process, the author tried to identifyproblems with reading teaching and find out the effective measures to improve readingcompetence. An experiment was undertaken on100students in two classes in Qingzhou No.1Middle School.First of all, the author delivered a questionnaire to the students to investigate theapplication of reading strategies. And then a test was given to test their reading competence andlanguage proficiency. After that the students in the experimental class received a period ofreading strategy training, while those in the control class received traditional reading teaching. Atthe end of the experiment, another test was given to test their reading competence and languageproficiency. Besides, the author had an interview with some students in the experimental class tocollect more in-depth information. What’s more, all the data collected was analyzed withstatistics package for social science SPSS. The study has gotten the following findings: At present, most students can not employreading strategies consciously; the current situation of reading teaching is far from satisfactoryand requires improving. Besides, reading strategy training can arouse students’ interest, boosttheir motivation, improve reading competence and cultivate the autonomous learning ability.The study has gotten the following implications: Teachers should change their traditionalroles and update the teaching concept. At the same time, it is also necessary for teachers to guidestudents to form good reading habits, recommend suitable reading materials and developautonomous learning ability and cooperative learning ability.