Action Research On Fostering Junior High School Students' English Reading Motivation With The Situational-interest-triggering Program

Previous studies argue that reading motivation is one of the strongest predictors of reading depth and breadth.Researchers and practitioners have become increasingly interested in how to cultivate students' reading motivation and foster reading outside classroom.However,researches concerning reading motivation in China have primarily focused on a comparison of reading behaviors between motivated and unmotivated learners or the components of reading motivation.There has been far less research examining the development of learners' reading motivation.Moreover,these studies were mainly undertaken among learners at college level.Therefore,we have gained little insights into the process of motivational development of learners at secondary level.As regards to the current teaching situation,reading instruction in most Chinese middle school,with the text-based intensive reading approach,is focused on a close study of vocabulary and grammar rather than the experience of reading enjoyment and interest.As a result,most junior students demonstrate a lack of motivation to read in English,which runs counter to the New National Curriculum Standard's advocating of life-long learning.In an effort to improve the teaching and learning situation,the present study tried to foster junior students' English reading motivation through a situational-interest-triggering reading program.With the Action Research Paradigm,it explored answers to two research questions: 1)Can the situational-interest-triggering reading program help to foster students' English reading motivation? 2)If so,what particular factors contribute to the development of students' English reading motivation in the process of teaching? The assessment of teaching in this program was based on the measure of reading amount and the change of different components in reading motivation.This 12-week action research was carried out in a junior-one class of a key middle school in Guangzhou.The participants were 50 students in the class.The research instruments included Motivation for Reading Questionnaire,conversational interview and Reading Interest Log.The results showed: 1)the students had overall higher reading motivation after the program,especially in the part of intrinsic motivation and reading efficacy;2)students' reading amount increased and their reasons for reading became more intrinsic over time in this program;3)interesting reading materials,opportunities for choice,peer collaboration and teacher's feedback and evaluation were associate with the development of students'The findings of the present study indicated that motivation processes may occur in classrooms through triggering situational interest and intrinsic motivation is likely to increase when the classroom context is providing support for children's choices,collaborations and interaction with interesting texts,and activities connected to reading.Suggestions on how to motivate junior students to read in English are put forward at the end of the thesis.