A Study On The Application Of “Literature Circles ” Teaching Method To Senior High School English Reading Teaching In Gan Nan Area

Reading plays a key role in the four basic skills of English study. It is the main means of the input in language study. In Senior Middle school’s English teaching,reading is of great importance. The New English Curriculum Standards indicates the requirements in students’ reading ability and the amount of reading are much higher than before.It requires that senior English curriculum should emphasize on improving the students’ ability of using English to acquire information, dealing with information, analyzing and solving problems. It especially values improving the students’ ability of thinking and expressing themselves in English. In Gan Nan military area, most of the Senior English teachers attach great importance to the teaching of English reading. They have devoted a lot of time and energy to improving the students’ reading ability. However, because they value examination too much, the utilitarianism of teaching makes the English teachers emphasize intensive reading to complete the teaching task. They ignore the instruction to the students’ extracurricular reading and the function of extensive reading. What’s more, the limited vocabulary and old reading materials make the students lack interest in reading. Therefore, in the present teaching situation, the students’ reading ability is unsatisfactory.To stimulate Tibetan students’ interest in learning English, change their reading attitude and improve their reading ability, the author studies the teaching of English reading based on the model of “literature circles”, introducing its basis of the theory and concrete teaching procedures in detail. Directed by the Cooperative study, Humanistic learning theory and Schema theory, the author carried out a year’s teaching of English reading experiment based on “literature circles”. 108 Senior 1 students who come from Liu Lin Middle School were involved in the experiment as the subjects. 54 students in the Experimental Class were given extensive teaching of reading based on the model of “literature circles” every Saturday, The series of bookworm were chosen as their reading materials. 54 students in Control Class were also given teaching of English reading. They were instructed with traditional teaching methods. Students in both EC and CC were given the same teaching periods and teaching schedule. During the experiment, the author organized two tests(pre—test and post-test) in both EC and CC and analyzed the data. The author also carried out questionnaire surveys among all the participants before and after the experiment. The result of the experiment showsthat literature circles’ teaching of English reading can improves the reading ability, changes Tibetan students’ reading attitude, stimulates the students’ interest, cultivates the students ability of self-study and cooperation in reading to a certain extent. The author expects that the teaching of English reading based on the model of “literature circles ”can be of use in Gan Nan senior teaching of English reading and make more teachers attach importance to the instruction of extensive reading and apply the literature circles teaching method into the teaching of English reading in senior schools.