An Empirical Research On Mi-based English Reading Teaching In Senior High School

The New English Curriculum Standards promote quality education and the all-rounddevelopment of the students, which require that English teaching is not only to improvestudents’ ability to use language, but to cultivate students’ interest and their confidence inlearning the language, and to help them form effective learning strategies. However,under the pressure of current college entrance examination system and the influence oftraditional English teaching methods and ideas, the reading teaching modeoveremphasizes the explanation and transmission of grammar and vocabulary and ignoresstudents’ individual differences, as a result, students develop a habit of mechanicaltraining in the reading teaching emphasized on linguistic intelligence, with noimprovement in their reading competence and interest.Multiple intelligences theory, proposed by an American cognitive psychologistHoward Gardner, insists that every person possesses at least eight kinds of intelligencesand everyone has unique combination of the eight intelligences. It stresses that teachersshould respect students’ individual differences in accordance with personalitydevelopment to facilitate teaching and learning activities, finally promote students’all-round development. Therefore, MI theory supplies a theoretical basis for teachers torealize students’all-round development and the tendency of quality education.The study is to apply MI theory to the teaching of English reading, so that improvestudents’ English reading proficiency, especially their reading grades. Besides, throughvaried forms of activities developed by multiple intelligences to improve Englishclassroom teaching mode, motivate students’ reading interest, and cultivate their Englishreading skills, finally promote the development of students’ multiple intelligences andimprove English teaching quality.The study designs an experiment in one common senior high school of Ganzhou.The author chose two classes in senior one as the experimental class and the control classrespectively, with the experimental class conducted MI-based English reading teachingand the control class conducted traditional reading teaching. The experiment lasted forone semester with instruments such as questionnaires, tests and interview to collect theresearch data. By analyzing the results of questionnaires, tests and interview, it shows that students’attitude toward English learning has changed and their interest has been aroused. So wecan find MI-based English reading teaching is helpful to increase students’ interest inEnglish learning and reading. Besides, a significant difference between the experimentalclass and the control class in their reading scores shows that the application of MI theoryto English reading teaching is effective in improving students’reading proficiency.