Survey On Lead-in Strategy Of English Reading Teaching In Junior High School

Reading plays a fundamental role in language learning and is the basic to develop other three skills including listening,speaking and writing.In an English reading lesson,learners are expected not only to obtain relevant information,linguistic knowledge and cultural aspects of the given reading material,but also to develop reading skills and positive emotions.Such being the case,teachers and students exert all possible efforts to enhance reading skills.However,the underachievement of junior high school students in English reading comprehension has been documented.Although many factors could contribute to students' failure in reading performance,studies have repeatedly shown that the absence of reading interests is a major one.Two types of interests were analyzed by the author:individual interests and situational interests.It has found that situational interest was more susceptible to change and thus it was feasible for teachers to increase students' situational interests by arranging some engaging learning activities.Lead-in,the first step of teaching procedure,plays a key role in effective teaching and learning.Excellent and appropriate lead-in activities are able to intrigue students'interests and focus their attention on learning tasks.In fact,the function of lead-in strategy has been closely studied by researchers both at home and abroad,yet few studies have focused on the implementing of lead-in strategy in English reading lessons.In particular,there are not adequate studies dedicated to explore what factors can influence teachers' selection of lead-in strategy and what factors should be considered in designing lead-in activities for English reading class.Based on established research area of lead-in strategy,this study examines lead-in strategy in English reading lesson for junior high school students.The aim of this thesis is to explore the implementing of lead-in strategy in English reading class:what teachers and students know about lead-in strategy;what teachers do in designing and conducting lead-in activities;and how students respond.It is hoped that this study could add more insights into previous studies in exploring the issue of what factors should be considered in designing lead-in activities for English reading lessons.For this purpose,three research questions to be addressed are presented as follows:1)How do teachers implement lead-in strategies in English reading classes of junior high school?2)What are the attitudes of junior high school students and teachers toward the lead-in strategy in English reading class?3)What factors can influence teachers' selection of lead-in strategies for English reading class?Three research instruments were employed in this study:classroom observation,questionnaire and interview.Data collected were analyzed by descriptive statistics.Classroom observation was conducted at the initial stage of this study and 25 English reading lessons in a Shenzhen junior high school were chosen as the subjects of observation.It was mainly focused on the following aspects:method of lead-in strategy and frequency of employing them;time spent on lead-in activities;students' response and classroom atmosphere.It was observed that the most frequently used lead-in methods were free talk,brainstorming and picture-talking.It was also observed that the time allocation of lead-in activities was between one to eight minutes.Besides,it was important to note that different lead-in activities resulted in different students'participation and response.The findings indicated that lead-in strategy had great influence on students' learning performance and effective lead-in methods was able to facilitate students' subsequent reading learning.A more constructed investigation of teachers' and students' perspectives on lead-in strategy was then conducted by using questionnaires and interviews.The subjects were 10 English teachers and 220 students in the above mentioned junior high school.Findings showed that the importance and function of lead-in strategy for English reading lessons have been well recognized by both teachers and students;however,few teachers followed the principle of student-centeredness or the idea of conducting lead-in activities based on students' needs and many teachers had little idea about what factors should be considered in designing lead-in activities for English reading class.Results of the study underscore three noteworthy implications.Firstly,lead-in stage should be incorporated into English reading teaching procedure.Secondly,teachers should employ diversified lead-in methods based on a variety of factors:students' need,teaching objective,learning material,class type and so on.Finally,time spent on lead-in activities can be adjustable,but a time limitation is needed.