An Application Of Inquiry-based Teaching To English Reading In Junior High School

Reading is crucial to English learning.English reading accounts for a large portion of the total English scores in the senior high school entrance examination.Relatively strong English reading ability is the cornerstone for students to accumulate language materials.Many drawbacks exist in the traditional English reading class.It is imperative to improve the traditional reading teaching in order to satisfy the students' need for English reading.After looking up relevant information and literature,observing the class and communicating with the teachers and students,the author found that the inquiry-based teaching might be a plausible teaching method to enhance the English reading teaching in junior school.Inquiry-based teaching refers to teaching procedure where with the guidance and assistance of the teachers,students actively discover problems,construct meaning,and center around the key problems and rely on relevant materials to understand information in the passage.Inquiry-based teaching lays stress on the students' self-inquiry learning and team cooperation.It underlines the students'dominant role in class whereas the teachers play a supporting role.During the inquiry,students are active in taking part in the class by fnding out the inquiry problem,seeking related materials,and solving problems,so as to exercise and develop their thinking and creativity.In inquiry-based teaching,problem-solving and meaning construction are attached much weight,which means that students efficiently improve their reading strategies and integral reading abilities through a large number of pertinent practice;teachers create concrete situations for the application of problem-solving skills,raise topics pertinent to students' real life,appeal to students,carry out various forms of class activities;teachers provide platform for students to communicate,and only through group activities,can the students strengthen team consciousness,learn from each other,grow and develop with each other,and therefore raise their reading interest and enhance their reading abilities.First of all,the thesis discusses the inquiry-based teaching from five aspects,namely,its definition,features,application models,theoretical basis and previous researches both at home and abroad.One of the widely used application model is the modified 5E inquiry teaching model.Based on the pertinent data and class observation,the author considers that to insert the Expression Phase to the 5E instructional model would probably cater to the English reading class in junior high school.Thus,in order to testify the effectiveness of the modified 5E inquiry teaching model,and to check its feasibility and practicability,the author has conducted an experiment for four months.There are three key issues regarding this experiment:1.In what ways can the modified 5E inquiry teaching model improve junior high school students' English reading proficiency?2.In what ways can the modified 5E inquiry teaching model enhance junior high school students' reading interest and the ability of using reading strategies?3.What effects does the modified 5E inquiry teaching model have on junior high school English reading class?To find the answers to the questions above,the author took the students from two junior three classes in Tieyi Binhe Middle School in Xi'an as samples,with 50 students in each class.The research methods adopted by the thesis included questionnaire method,interview method and experimental method.The author explored in depth about the effects of the modified 5E inquiry teaching model on the reading class in junior school by means of contracting the results of pre-test,mid-test,and post-test and analyzing the results of questionnaire and interview.The research results show that the modified 5E inquiry teaching model can effectively and gradually improve students reading scores and abilities via stimulating students' reading interest,enhancing their autonomous learning abilities,strengthening their application abilities and consciousness of reading strategies,and improving their satisfaction with English class.By adding Expression Phase to the 5E instructional model,the author reinforced the targeted training for students with different reading abilities.In the following step,the students with adequate reading abilities were further challenged with difficult problems,and the students with limited reading abilities were able to catch up with the teaching schedule,master the teaching content,and gain confidence in dealing with the tasks designed for them.In the inquiry activities,the students were not bored or idling about.Instead their attention was tightly attracted.Thus the class atmosphere engaged in all of the students and inspired them to actively explore about the activities.