High School Students’ Extracurricular English Reading Under The Background Of New Curriculum

Extracurricular activities are essential to schooling. Extracurricular reading is considered to be a very good way to cultivating students’ awareness and capability in their autonomous learning. Extracurricular English reading is part of English learning. In the background of new curriculum in China, several national documents issued by the Ministry of Education(MOE) for senior high school English curriculum have highlighted the importance of extracurricular reading and made clear specification of the amount and the levels of extracurricular reading. Therefore, senior high school English teachers should try to carry out the basic concepts and rationale of the new national English curriculum standards in this area by emphasizing the guidance for their students’ extracurricular reading, developing and utilizing various extracurricular reading resources and cultivating their students’ extracurricular reading awareness and ability.The present thesis focuses on senior high school students’ extracurricular reading in English course. In the light of theories of extracurricular learning and autonomous learning in educational studies, those of language input in second language acquisition research, and those of reading, and on the basis of the study of extracurricular English reading in China and extracurricular reading in foreign language teaching abroad,the author first made an investigation into the current situation of extracurricular English reading from the perspective of the teachers and students at Laigang High School in Shandong Province by means of the questionnaires, interviews and testing,and then made an experiment introducing the guidance of extracurricular English reading in the same school. This thesis was mainly aimed to study the following questions: 1) What was the status quo of the students’ extracurricular English reading at Laigang high school situation under the background of new curriculum? 2) Did the English teachers know about the requirements of extracurricular reading in thecurriculum standards? What about their guidance in practice? 3) What was the current situation of the students in terms of their extracurricular reading level? 4) Did the experiment of the teacher’s guidance introduced in students’ extracurricular reading bring about any positive changes in students’ extracurricular reading ability and psychology?According to the investigation, it was found that most teachers and students in the school were not familiar with the requirements for extracurricular reading made in the new English curriculum standards, lacking full attention to extracurricular reading;however, it was also found that many students expressed their urgent need for extracurricular reading as well as the need for their reading practice under the teacher’s guidance. As the result of the experimental study indicated, if the teacher emphasized the guidance in students’ extracurricular reading, the students could make progress in their motivation and their competence.Following the study above, it is suggested in the paper that the role of the teacher in guiding the students’ extracurricular reading should be strengthened, the consciousness of the students in practicing their extracurricular reading should be reinforced, and the construction of extracurricular reading culture in the school should be highlighted.