Effects Of Whole Language Approach On The High School Students' English Academic Achievements

Traditional English teaching approaches focus on the teaching of phonetics,vocabulary,grammar and fragmented discourse respectively.The students lack autonomous construction of knowledge,meaningful language learning situations and the opportunities of understanding and learning whole language.Traditional English teaching approaches are no longer suitable for the needs of high school students in accordance with the new curriculum reform while whole language approach focuses on students,meaningful learning and practical teaching activities.It advocates the teaching concept of "autonomy,cooperation and inquiry" the new curriculum promotes,effectively improving students'learning efficiency and stimulating their learning interests.Therefore,it is of great significance to apply the whole language approach to the English classroom of senior high school.In view of this,this study explores the effects of whole language approach on the high school students' English achievements and their interests in English learning.The experimental method and questionnaire were used as research methods,the subjects of the study from a key high school in Nantong,Jiangsu province were grouped into two classes as the experimental group and the control group respectively.The research questions of the study are addressed as follows:(1)Can the whole language approach improve the English academic achievements of high school students?If yes,to what extent?(2)Can the whole language approach help the students motivate the English learning interests of high school students?If yes,what is the change?The findings of the study are summarized as follows:Firstly,the finding of the study shows that the whole language teaching approach can really improve the senior high school students' English achievements.After one semester's planned whole language teaching,the results of the final exam of the experimental class and the control class show significant differences,which shows that the whole language approach has a unique advantage.After the application of whole language approach,the students perceive language as a whole and practice the pragmatic functions of language and finally the students' ability and skills of English language have been improved.Secondly,the findings of the study reveal that the students' interest in learning English has greatly increased after the implementation of whole language approach,for the whole language teaching is close to the reality of the students' learning,which greatly improves the students' attention and enthusiasm,greatly enlarges the capacity of classroom teaching and increases the students' interest of English learning.To some extent,the findings of the study have some implications for the current English teaching in senior high schools,so teachers need to pay much attention to the whole language teaching,optimize the strategy of whole language approach and deepen cooperative learning in groups to improve the senior high school students' English achievements and their interest in English learning.