Research On Effective Leading-in In Teaching Of English Reading At Junior High Schools

Of all the four language skills, reading is the most difficult to develop. However, reading is a very important skill for the students. New English Curriculum presents detailed demand for reading. But in the ELT classroom, especially in traditional pedagogy, teachers pay little attention to the teaching of reading. The students regard reading as a headache for them and make it the last thing to be practiced. In their opinion, they can’t make much progress in reading even if they are asked to read once or twice a week, and reading will cost them too much time. Therefore, in order to improve the students’ reading ability, the researcher has done the study on the leading-in in teaching of English reading for junior high students.The hypotheses of the action research are:1.An effective leading-in in reading may help students develop positive attitudes towards reading2. After the action research, the ability of the students’ reading will be improved(reading rate, reading accuracy, reading speed).The subjects of the action research are60students in two classes in Grade One of XinChengzi Junior High School in Mi Yun County, Beijing. Three kinds of the instruments are used in this action research; they are two questionnaires, one interview and two tests. The action research began in October2012. It consisted of two stages, which are the preparation period and the actualization of the action research. During the first period, the researcher prepared the materials needed for the action research and two questionnaires were addressed to the research subjects, mainly to find what problems the students have when they read from the first questionnaire and to know their attitude towards reading from the other questionnaire. At the beginning of the second period, the students took part in the examination organized by the school at the beginning of this term. The researcher collected the students’ papers and analyzed their reading. Then the action research was carried out according to the schedule. At the end of the second period, the students took part in the exam. Then the interview was carried out.From the analyses of the data collected, the two hypotheses are confirmed and the researcher found it quite necessary to practice reading.There are some limitations in the action research. Firstly, the researcher paid no attention to the input before the students did their reading. Lastly, the action research is a little too much focused on examination rather than on teaching of reading. Therefore, in the further research, the input before reading must be taken into consideration.There are altogether five chapters in this thesis. The first chapter is the introduction. The second chapter offers the theoretic basis for the action research, including the theories on reading, especially on leading-in part. The third chapter focuses on the action research itself. In the fourth chapter, the data collected from the questionnaires, the interview and the tests are shown and discussed. Through the analyses of all the data, the three hypotheses are confirmed. The fifth chapter covers the major findings and implications of the research. The researcher also points out some limitations of the action research and gives some suggestions on further research in Chapter Five.