The Effect Of The Teaching Model Of Advance Organizer To English Reading Teaching In Junior High School

Despite the fact that the English Curriculum Standards lay great emphasis on the importance of developing students’ reading competence, some English teachers of junior high school ignore it. The teaching model of advance organizer can not only improve junior high school students’ English reading competence but also change their reading attitudes, foster their good reading habits and improve their reading strategies; therefore, the author introduces the teaching model of advance organizer to the English reading classroom of junior high school, which is based on meaningful reception learning theory..The paper studies the effects of the application of teaching model of advance organizer on junior high school students’ English reading competence. It aims to explore the differences between the teaching model of advance organizer and the traditional English teaching model in facilitating students’ English reading competence and the reasons why such differences exist. The research questions addressed in the thesis are:(1) What is the effect of the application of teaching model of advance organizer on students’ English reading competence? And why?(2) What is the effect of the application of teaching model of advance organizer on students of different English reading proficiency levels? And why?Both quantitative and qualitative methods are adopted in the study.The quantitative research includes a one-semester experiment and a questionnaire. There are119students who are involved in the research. They are Junior Two students from Xiaogan Wenchang Junior High School of Hubei. The pre-test is conducted at the beginning of the experiment. The students are divided into two classes. Class One is set as the control class (CC), and Class Two as the experiment class (EC). In CC, the author adopts the traditional English teaching model while the teaching model of advance organizer is employed in the experiment class (EC).After a semester of teaching, the post-test and the questionnaire are held. The results of both are computed and analyzed. The questionnaire is made up of12statements which covers three aspects concerning students’ reading attitudes, reading habits and reading strategies.The qualitative research is an interview of4students, who come from EC. Two students represent the high achievers and another two were low ones in their class. The interview is tape-recorded and transcribed later. The transcriptions of the interview are synthesized and categorized.Detailed analysis of quantitative and qualitative research yields the final findings as follows:1) The application of teaching model of advance organizer has a significant effect on students’ English reading competence. First of all. most of the students in the experiment class show great interest in the teaching model of advance organizer and take more initiative and willingness to learn and practice both inside and outside the class, compared with the students in CC. In addition, the application of teaching model of advance organizer greatly changes students’reading attitudes, habits and strategies; therefore, the more students devote themselves to the teaching model of advance organizer, the more progress they make.2) Both high and low achievers are positively affected by the implementation of the teaching model of advance organizer. However, the high achievers have made more progress than the low achievers. Firstly, the high achievers are qualified with better reading proficiency than the low achievers. Secondly, the high achievers benefit more from learning in class than the low achievers. The superb performance might have a positive effect on their attitudes and emotions, namely, they become interested, motivated and confident in English reading:they have positive attitude on English reading, and they are competent to use good reading habits and reading strategies on English reading. Thirdly, with the limitation of their abilities and the increasing difficulty of the reading texts, the low achievers might have difficulties in understanding the advance organizer and finishing the reading task, which might in turn make their interest and confidence reduced. Surely, the low achievers might not have made as much progress as high achievers.This study provides a few pedagogical implications. To start with, teachers must have a good command of students’ cognitive structure in English. If teachers intend to make the teaching model of advance organizer work effectively, they must understand students’ English knowledge about vocabulary, background information, grammar knowledge, sentence structures and so on. Furthermore, teachers must make sure all the advance organizers are scientific, concrete and easily understood by students. Meanwhile, teachers should focus more on the order of the advance organizers, because good organization will do well to students, otherwise, it will hinder them to read material successfully.There are some limitations in the study. Firstly, the number of the participants in the experiment is only119, which can not represent all the junior high school students. Secondly, the experiment only lasts for three months; it is not long enough for the author to prove the effectiveness of the teaching model of advance organizer in English reading in the long term. Thirdly, the questionnaire and interview consult from other thesis, which are not designed by authorities. This may affect the reliability of the study.