A Study On Senior High School Learners’ Autonomous English Reading Ability

Reading, which plays important roles in our daily life, is one of essential ways for people to attain information. In China, reading comprehension, cloze and task reading in the college entrance examination are made to test learners’ reading ability. This shows reading is a big draw. Hence, improving learners’ reading ability is an urgent issue which English teachers and learners should take an effort to solve. In 2003, The English Curriculum Standards for Common Senior High School (experiment draft) issued by the Ministry of Education states that teachers should optimize learners’ learning ways and cultivate learners’ ability of autonomous learning. It distinctly proposed that one of the basic tasks in reading teaching is to cultivate learners’ autonomous English reading ability. Autonomous reading ability is stated that learners would realize the demands on their own to make their reading plans as well as conduct their plans strictly based on their own situations.However, from the real situation, learners with the aim of reading have to complete teachers’ reading task. The number of learners who are eager to read is small. They are lack of the reading motivation, let alone their autonomous reading ability. Hence, the author makes an investigation and research on the current of autonomous reading ability of learners in senior high school. The author would like to find some problems and then give some suggestions, which will improve learners’ reading ability and boost the development of autonomous reading consciousness.282 students from grade two in Wan Yuan Middle School are studied as the objects of the study. Questionnaire, classroom observation and interviews are used in the study. Through analysis and research, the author found five problems as follows: firstly, learners are lacking of the active reading attitude and emotion; Secondly, learners are not able to make autonomous reading plans and goals; Thirdly, learners have no autonomous reading motivation; What’s more, learners are not equipped with reading strategies; Additionally, examination-oriented education leads to learners’ passive reading. Teachers adopt the way of "force-feeding education". According to the problems above, the author comes up with five suggestions:firstly, teachers should conduct affective teaching; secondly, students should be able to make autonomous reading plans and goals; thirdly, teachers should stimulate learner’s reading motivation; What’s more, learners are equipped with reading strategies; additionally, the roles of teachers and learners should be changed.