Research On The Application Of Content-based Instruction In High School English Reading Teaching

Listening,speaking,reading and writing are four basic skills of students' language learning.As an important part of English language skills,it plays an important role in reading part in both English learning and teaching.With the implementation of the new curriculum reform,the reading level is becoming more and more important in English teaching and even college entrance examination.The reading level directly affects the development of students' comprehensive language ability.In recent years,many teaching studies have explored a lot of ways to improve students' English reading skills from different perspectives by using different teaching concepts.“Content-based Instruction”(CBI)originated from the “Immersion Education” in Montreal,Canada in the 1960 s.Nowadays,as a new idea of English reading teaching,CBI has been used in many colleges and many other fields.However,it's seldom used in middle schools.In this study,CBI is applied to senior high school English reading teaching,in order to explore its feasibility.The purpose is to enhance students' interests in English learning and improve their English reading level.Qualitative and quantitative research was combined in the research,and CBI is applied to high school English reading teaching flexibly.In this study,students from two parallel classes in the first grade of one senior high school in Shannxi province were randomly selected as objects.Before entering senior high school,they haven't studied high school English reading and have not been exposed to CBI concepts and teaching methods.Before experiment,the research showed that there was no significant difference in the pre-reading scores of the two classes after analysis with SPSS software.It means that the English reading and learning level in the two classes are quite equal,and can be used as objects for further research.The author used the questionnaire1 to know thestudents' interests,reading status and understanding of CBI.The experiment was begun on 1stSeptember,2018 and ended on 1stJanuary,2019,which lasted for four months.During the experiment,the teaching mode of the experimental class was the content-based instruction,while traditional method was adopted in control class.After that,the author used questionnaire2 to know whether the students' interests,the status quo in reading and the understanding of CBI have changed.The dimensions of questionnaire2 are same as questionnaire1,so the changes can be easily compared.SPSS was used to analyze the data of the test.The results showed that students' interests was enhanced;the sig value of the independent sample t-test of two class was less than 0.05,so the score difference between the two classes was obvious;the reading scores in post-test of experimental class improved by 2.4 compared with the pre-test,while the other increased by 0.76.The scores in the front class increased greatly;and the scores in experimental class were more concentrated,but the other was more scattered.The teacher and some students were interviewed to evaluate the effects and suggestions of CBI.The conclusions are as follows: a.The effective use of CBI in senior high school has a positive effect on enhancing students' English reading interests;b.CBI can effectively improve students' English reading level in senior high school.This study shows that teachers should select appropriate learning materials based on students' interests,and apply CBI to English reading class to help students improve their English reading level flexibly.