A Study On The Application Of Project-based Learning To The EFL Reading Teaching In Junior High School

As a very significant skill,reading is becoming more and more important in English teaching.English reading is also considered as a crucial way to exchange and obtain information.English reading in junior high school should train and improve students' reading ability.The traditional English teaching is a teacher-centered,exam-oriented,grammar-based,and vocabulary-based language teaching method.It mainly focuses on the cultivation and accumulation of knowledge and it is centered on vocabulary and grammar.In traditional English reading teaching,teachers usually explain or even translate the text word by word or sentence by sentence.Students only take notes of what the teachers are saying mechanically and passively.It makes students have a poor understanding of the whole text and low reading comprehension ability,students can not understand the main ideas thoroughly.The project-based learning is student-centered,and demands students to apply their existing knowledge and resources to resolve the problems in order to grasp the relevant knowledge and skills.With the help of teachers,they can do it by themselves or through team work.As an effective teaching approach,PBL can help students consolidate their knowledge,develop their learning skills,and cultivate their capabilities of language comprehension.This study tried to apply project-based learning to the EFL reading teaching in junior high school to improve students' reading performance and the usage of reading strategies.Two parallel classes of Grade 3 from San He Junior High School in Dong Xiang were selected as subjects.Class One was chosen as Experiment Class to use project-based learning approach,Class Two was Control Class to apply traditional teaching approach,Grammar-translation Method.The research lasted 8 weeks.The study aimed to answer these two following questions: 1.Can the application of PBL improve junior high school students' EFL reading performance? 2.Can the application of PBL affect junior high school students' reading strategies ?The author used tests,questionnaires and an interview to study the application of PBL to the EFL reading teaching in junior high school and analyzed its influences on students' English reading performance and reading strategies.By using SPSS 20.0 to analyze the data collectedfrom the pretest,the post-test and questionnaires,the author came to the final conclusion that the application of PBL to the EFL reading teaching can improve junior high school students' reading performance and affect their reading strategies.