An Application Of Whole Language Approach To English Reading Teaching In Senior High School

Reading plays an important role in English learning and teaching,which also accounts for a substantial part in the college entrance examination.Criterion of New English Curriculum issued by the Ministry of Education in 2017 puts forward higher requirements for senior high school students' English level,which demands that students should have a deeper understanding of cultural connotation and cultural differences in order to express their ideas felicitously and solve problems creatively,so as to motivate the students to integrate listening,speaking,reading and writing into an entirety for promoting an integrated development of language skills.However,the current situation of English reading teaching does not promote the synchronous development of students' language skills.In recent years,the emergence of Whole Language Approach provides a new perspective for teaching English reading.By reviewing a large number of literature,the thesis finds that there are not so many studies applying Whole Language Approach to English reading teaching in senior high school.Whole Language Approach was initiated in the mid 1970 s.As a set of pedagogic philosophy about language,language teaching,course content and organizational learning,which advocates the synchronous development of language skills.It believes that teaching should emphasize the “whole”,which is in accordance with the requirements of Criterion of New English Curriculum for students.Besides,this approach emphasizes that the arrangement of teaching content should consider the capabilities,interest and differences of students.For a newly-developed teaching trend,most scholars abroad study Whole Language Approach in a theoretical level and the researchers at home put it into practice,mainly applying Whole Language Approach to college English teaching but few to high school.As the development of Whole Language Approach,some scholars point out that Whole Language Approach can increase students' reading scores and enhance their confidence and interest toward reading.However,there are few discussions of in what aspects students' reading level can be improved significantly.This thesis attempts to investigate the influence of this teaching approach on English reading teaching in senior high school.On the basis of previous analysis,this thesis puts forward three research questions:1.How can this approach be applied to English reading teaching in senior high school?2.In what aspects does this approach affect students' English reading scores?3.What is students' evaluation of applying this approach to English reading teaching in senior high school?In order to guarantee the effectiveness and feasibility of Whole Language Approach applying to English reading teaching in senior high school,this research adopts literature analysis,experimentation and questionnaire method.In this study,a four-month teaching experiment in No.1 High School of Tongxu,Kaifeng has been carried out.The research subjects are students of Grade 2 from two classes,an experiment class and a control class respectively.The author adopts Whole Language Approach in the experiment class and translation method in the control class.Before the teaching experiment,there is a pre-test to ensure that there are no obvious academic differences between these two classes.After the teaching experiment,a post-test is held to testify if students' English reading level have been improved and in what aspects the improvement embodies.The author uses the software of SPSS to analyze the collected data.The result of this teaching experiment illustrates that the reading scores of students in experiment class taught under Whole Language Approach are higher than the students in control class under translation method after four months teaching,especially,in the aspects of the two question types: words in the context and inference and judgement.The result of questionnaire shows that most students in experiment class have a good understanding of and feel satisfied with Whole Language Approach,which are helpful for enhancing their confidence and interest toward English reading.Therefore,the author arrives at a conclusion that applying Whole Language Approach to English reading teaching in senior high is practicable and effective.