The Effect Of English Extracurricular Reading On Students’ English Reading Competence In Grade Eight

The English Curriculum Standard for Compulsory Education(2011 Edition)clearly emphasizes the importance of cultivating students’ reading competence.It requires teachers to pay more attention to the basic knowledge of language and strengthen the cultivation of students’ English reading competence in an all-round way.In order to achieve the above goals,it is far from enough to rely on the reading materials provided in the textbook,so it is necessary to make students contact with the English extracurricular reading materials with more extensive subjects and richer contents,so as to improve their English reading competence.This study aims to explore the effect of English extracurricular reading on grade eight students’ English reading competence,mainly answering the following two questions :1.What is the effect of English extracurricular reading on grade eight students’ English reading competence?2.What is the effect of English extracurricular reading on grade eight students’ English reading attitude?Based on the input hypothesis and autonomous learning theory,104 students from two classes in the eighth grade of No.18 Junior High school in Yining were tested,and the teaching experiment was carried out for 12 weeks using the method of experiment and interview.Among them,the students of experimental class is 51,the students of control class is 53,students’ age group is between 13-14 years old.After the post-test,eight experimental class students were randomly selected for interviews.The study shows: English extracurricular reading can improve grade eight students’ English reading competence;after the English extracurricular reading experiment,students will habitually look for time,place,characters and other relevant information to understand the passage.That is,English extracurricular reading can improve students’ competence to generalize information related to reading materials and to extract specific information,but it fails to improve students’ competence to reason and judge English reading and to analyze cause and effect.According to the interview: students pursue the interest of English reading text more when carrying out English extracurricular reading.The more interesting the text,the more students are interested in English reading.Students with good grades hope to improve their English reading competence by reading English extracurricular reading.And the students who had not done well had been encouraged by the improvement of their grades after the English extracurricular reading experiment,so they were happy to continue such activities.Teachers can add English extracurricular reading to reading teaching and organize students to conduct English extracurricular reading in a planned way.Second,for the selection of extracurricular reading materials,teachers should pay attention not to choosing single reading topics,and it should be as diverse as possible.And it is necessary for teachers to increase the interest of reading teaching,teachers can use various methods to stimulate students’ interest.