A Study On The Status Quo Of English Extracurricular Reading In Senior High Schools

English extracurricular reading generally refers to students’ reading of English materials apart from their English teaching materials outside class. Due to the limitation of time in classroom reading, English extracurricular reading plays an important role in English learning for senior high school students. On the one hand, through English extracurricular reading, students can consolidate what they have learned in classroom,such as grammar, vocabulary and culture, and further apply this basic knowledge into practice. On the other hand, through English extracurricular reading, students can practice their use of English reading skills, and enhance their confidence in English reading.Relevant literature shows that the research on the senior high school students’ extracurricular reading is relatively scarce at present. Therefore, the author, by using questionnaire and interview, intends to do a survey on senior high school students’ English extracurricular reading, aiming to investigate the status quo of English extracurricular reading in senior high schools. The subjects of this research were chosen from two senior high schools in Yantai, namely 280 students and five English teachers of Grade two in the senior high schools. The main research questions are as follows: 1)What are the attitudes towards English extracurricular reading of the students?(mainly including students’ reading motivation, reading effect, and major difficulties encountered in extracurricular English reading 2) What are the attitudes towards English extracurricular reading of the teachers?(including participation) 3) How do the students implement English extracurricular reading?(mainly including the selection of reading materials, reading amount, and reading strategies)Based on data analysis, the main findings are as follows:1) About 70% students think English extracurricular reading is very helpful to them and can improve their English reading ability; What’s more, the students are mainlyinfluenced by external motivation, which accounts for 82.1%. In terms of the major difficulties encountered, 67.4% of the students think that the biggest difficulty is their lack of vocabulary, and the heavy homework burden comes the next.2) Meanwhile a majority of English teachers agree on the importance of English extracurricular reading. This shows that both the students and the English teachers have realized the importance of English extracurricular reading and have positive attitudes towards it.3) In terms of the selection of reading materials, students tend to choose entertaining articles and magazines, which accounts for 43.8%; in terms of source of English extracurricular reading, 48.7% of the students look for the reading materials by themselves. In terms of English extracurricular reading amount, most students would carry out a certain amount of reading outside class, and only 4.2% students never read outside class. In terms of the use of reading strategies, the extensive reading method accounts for the highest rate(47.6%). In dealing with the new words, the highest rate goes to looking up the dictionaries. In making reading notes, 59.8% of the students only make notes occasionally. In conclusion, most senior high school students have not developed effective strategies of English extracurricular reading, and the role of the teacher’s guidance needs to be fully played in order to further improve the efficiency of English extracurricular reading in senior high schools.