A Study Of Promoting Students' English Reading Comprehension Through The Application Of Pads In The Reading Classroom At Junior High School

With the integration of new information and communication technologies in education,such as pads,more teachers and researchers are eager to know what's going on behind the screen when students are learning with them.However,there are not many published research within the field of foreign language digital reading and only a few have been conducted within using pads in the English reading classroom.Furthermore,it adds a new argument to whether technology can support students' strategy learning.Therefore,this study investigated the effects of using pads in English reading classroom on improving English reading achievement and reading strategies at junior high school.The participants are 60 Chinese English as Foreign language learners aging from 13 to 14 years old who are learning English at a junior high school in Hangzhou now.This research is conducted with the purpose of finding out the answers to three research questions:Question One: What are the effects of the application of pads on students' reading achievement at junior high school? And does the difference exist between the experimental group and the control group?Question Two: Does reading through pads promote students' reading strategies?What is the difference in strategy using within the group and between the groups?Question Three: What is the students' perception of using pad in English reading?And what is the correlation between the students' perception and their reading achievement?The participants were from two different classes in Grade Eight.The two classes are respectively experimental group and control group.In the experimental group,the teacher uses pads in her reading classes to assist reading teaching,while in control group the teacher just undertakes traditional interactive model for teaching reading with print materials without pads.Before the study,both groups were given a pre-test of English achievement and metacognitive awareness of reading strategies which shows no difference.A post-test was given to both groups at the end of the 16-week experiment.Meanwhile,the experimental group was given a questionnaire after the post-test.The main findings show that 1)The application of pads in English reading classroom had a positive effect on students' English achievement at junior high school;2)Reading through pads promoted students' reading strategies and it has a greater effect in cognitive strategies including using the senses to understand and remember,conceptualizing with details and metacognitive strategies including planning for cognition,obtaining resources for cognition and monitoring cognition than other reading strategies;3)Using pads in English reading meets learners' perception and learner's perception was found to be related to their reading achievement.This study suggested that teachers should use pads in reading classroom to help learners improve reading achievements and reading strategies.It also give a good example of using pads in English reading classroom to assist reading learning and enrich the reading pedagogy.