An Experimental Study Of Strategy-based English Reading Instruction In Senior High Schools

Reading strategies,as one kind of language learning strategies,generally refer to various learning skills and methods adopted by learners to improve their reading comprehension and accomplish their reading tasks more efficiently.Strategy-based instruction(SBI)is to train learners to use learning strategies on purpose during their learning process in order to achieve better learning efficiency.SBI,by explicitly integrating learning strategies with ordinary classroom teaching,mainly aims at cultivating learners to be efficient autonomous learners in language learning.Researchers at home and abroad have done quite a lot of studies on SBI and have made great achievements.However,literature review shows that empirical studies of SBI in English reading teaching in senior high schools are relatively inadequate.Therefore,the author would try to conduct an experimental study on strategy-based English reading instruction in senior high schools,aiming to improve English teaching efficiency and to explore new methods to improve students' reading competence.The author conducted an experimental study by choosing two parallel classes,both taught by the author,of Grade Two in a senior high school in Linzi.One is the control class and the other is the experimental class,each of which has 55 students.And the experiment lasted for a semester.The experimental class was taught in the model of SBI,while the control class was still taught in traditional teaching methods.The main research questions are: Can SBI in English reading instruction help to enhance the students' English reading strategies? Can SBI in English reading instruction better improve the students' English reading proficiency? By analyzing the data collected,the main findings are as follows:(1)SBI in English reading instruction can help students in experimental class improve their frequency of using the reading strategies which are specially trained in the experiment.After SBI,students can employ the trained reading strategies more frequently,and it also shows that they have raised their awareness of using reading strategies and they have improved the efficiency of using reading strategies greatly.(2)SBI can enhance students' reading proficiency in the experimental class.The students' test scores on average are six points higher than that of the control class,indicating that SBI can,to a large extent,promote and improve students' reading proficiency.And the scores of intermediate learners have improved more greatly,which might mean SBI is especially effective for them.