A Study On The Application Of Genre-based Approach In Senior High School Reading Instruction

As one of the four skills of language learning, English reading plays an important rolein the English learning, therefore English reading has become an important part of Englishteaching in senior high school. However, the traditional teaching method is stillteacher-centered and focuses on solving the problems of vocabulary and grammar, whichconstrains the development of students’ reading ability. How to teach reading effectivelyhas been a question which researchers and teachers concern about.Genre-based approach has provided a new perspective for English reading of seniorhigh school. The genre-based approach pays much attention to genre structures of the textand researches the usage of the genre knowledge in the classroom. The genre-basedapproach aims at helping students get the knowledge of genre, attain information based ongeneric structure and language features and then improve students’ reading ability.The paper aims to study the feasibility and necessity of applying genre-basedapproach to senior English reading and find out its practical effect. In order to explore theinfluence of genre-based approach in senior English reading teaching, the related theory ofreading, genre, genre analysis and genre-based approach are reviewed, which combineswith domestic and international research and current situation. Based on the literaturereview and the experiment, the study attempts to explore the following three questions:1) Can genre-based approach stimulate students’ reading interest and help them formhabits of using reading strategies?2) Can genre-based approach enhance students’ reading comprehension achievement?3) Can genre-based approach effectively cultivate students’ awareness of genre?The study subjects are students in Grade2from Senior High School Attached toShenyang University, Liaoning province. The research presents the experimental sample,experimental procedures and experimental instruments, which includes two readingcomprehension tests and two questionnaires. The research shows that the experiment hasgot the effective results: after the experiment, the mean score has increased by3.1642, thesignificance value is0.000which is less than0.05. What’s more, zero is not included in the95%Confidence Interval of the Difference. The results from the two readingcomprehension tests show that the students in the experimental class have enhancedcomprehension reading achievement after the training of genre-based approach. Findingsfrom analyzing the two questionnaires reveal that genre-based approach has stimulatedstudents’ reading interest, increased their reading confidence, formed habits of using reading strategies and cultivated students’ awareness of genre. Therefore, the findingsgenerated from the current study imply that genre-based approach has positive effects onimproving students’ reading ability, and it can be applied to English reading high schools.