On The Application Of Constructivism In English Reading Teaching Of Senior High School

Reading plays a significant role in the English teaching in senior high school. Only through reading can students master the language knowledge, get the information they need and help them improve the ability of language using. But the traditional English reading teaching is teacher-centered. Teachers spend most of time in teaching vocabulary and grammatical knowledge through reading texts and ignore the cultivation of students’ ability of English reading in the process of reading teaching. They seldom leave some time for the students to think independently and communicate with each other. In addition, students’ schematic knowledge and experience has been ignored. They just sit in the classroom and accept those new knowledge which teachers taught passively. With time going on, some students’ interest and confidence in learning English reading maybe becoming weaker and weaker.As an important branch of cognitive learning theory, constructivism is becoming more and more popular. It advocates that learning is the learners to construct the meaning of the new knowledge actively on the basis of their existing knowledge and life experience. Constructivism(He Kekang, 1997) holds that the students are the main body in class. However, we can not ignore the teacher’s guiding in the whole process. In this paper, the author connected the constructivism learning theory with English reading teaching closely and applied it to the teaching of English reading.In order to apply constructivist learning theory in English reading teaching practice in senior high school, the author designed an empirical study of the implementation of teaching in two classes that the author taught in the NO. 2 Middle School attached to Qinghai Normal University. Based on the reviewing and combing of some constructivist literature, a specific implementation method established finally. Firstly, the author got to understand students’ current reading habits and skills in the two classes through the questionnaire. Then the author used the pre-test, mid-test and post-test to check the difference between the two classes in the whole experiment. In this process the author communicated with some experienced teachers to know their teaching method and style. At the end of the experiment, some students in the experimental class were interviewed to understand their views on English reading after the application of the new teaching method. The results showed that the English reading teaching based on constructivism in senior high school can change students’ attitude towards English reading and improve their interest and confidence in learning English reading. What’s more, the new reading teaching method helps them master different kinds of reading skills and improve their reading ability.Finally, the paper also discussed some implications for English reading teaching in senior high school. Due to the limited personal level as well as some restrictive conditions in the process of experiment, the author only want to provide some helpful information for the further teaching research.