A Study On The Use Of Original Illustrated English Storybooks For Extensive Reading In Junior School

Reading is an important skill in language learning and an important part of language teaching.Learning any language requires extensive reading(ER),and learning English is no exception.Commonly,a person cannot truly have a good command of English without ER.With the popularization of English courses and the constant advancing of English course reform,the effectiveness of English reading attracts more and more attention.However,most language materials selected into the English textbooks for junior school students are trying to reflect students'real life,taking teaching operability into consideration and introducing relevant basic knowledge of language.There are few authentic classic works from English-speaking countries suitable for junior school students,and a lot of students' extracurricular English reading tasks are still mainly circling around "reading textbooks" or are merely those "completing cloze and reading comprehension tasks".As a result,for teachers it is difficult to arouse students' interest in language itself,and also difficult to develop good reading habits and effective reading skills.Choosing what to read for children circles around the development of children's language comprehensive competence.This study mainly aims to explore the possibility of using original illustrated English storybooks(OIES)in ER teaching for students of Grade Seven,and verify the positive role of the practice in cultivating students' reading interest and improving their reading effectiveness,and find out a proper teaching model for ER guidance with OIES.In addition,this thesis tried to explain "how to choose OIES","how to guide students to read OIES" and some other questions.Certain answers and suggestions are given for relevant teachers to refer to.The main research methods applied in this study are experimental teaching,observation and questionnaire.Experimental teaching was conducted among 80 students taught by the author,and comparisons were made with another 80 students in the same grade.In the study process,the author tried to make a detailed description of the selection of OIES,teaching practices,the methods to help students learn the vocabularies in stories and reach different levels of comprehension in reading.After the teaching experiments,relevant data were collected and differentiated comparison was made of the experiment results under different conditions.Through comprehensive analysis,the following conclusions were reached:1.During the cohesion stage in primary and junior schools,teaching by using OIES woven with textbooks can help students maintain interest in learning English and keep the motivation of learning English more effectively than simply teaching by using of English textbooks;2.The original illustrated English stories contain the vocabulary frequently used by the English-speaking countries in their real life.Students can encounter high-frequency words and expressions needed in real life,which,to some extent,makes up for the deficiency of the textbook;3.The three-step teaching model(pre-class independent reading,in-class guidance,and after-guidance cooperative demonstration)for guiding students to read OIES is conducive to the cultivation of students' reading interest and habits,the sound transformation of reading strategies,and the improvement of reading ability.4.The guidance of ER with OIES provides students a great springboard for reading the English originals.