Application Of Drama In Education To English Reading Teaching In Junior Middle Schools

According to the requirements of quality-oriented education proposed in the new curriculum reform and the characteristics of students’ age development,teachers need to try a variety of teaching methods in class to stimulate students’ interests and motivation in learning and further improve their English learning efficiency.In English teaching,there is no doubt that reading is a very important part.However,due to various reasons,students are not motivated enough to do English reading and their achievements in English reading is not optimistic.Therefore,some educational experts and scholars tried to integrate drama into English classes,which is a kind of teaching method with drama characteristic and educational purpose.Drama in education(DIE)originated in Britain in the early 19 th century and was introduced to China in the 1980 s.In recent years,drama in education has begun to develop rapidly in China.Both teachers and students favor this new teaching method.In order to explore the influence of the application of DIE on English reading learning of middle school students,this paper reviewed a large number of relevant literatures to define the concepts of drama,drama education and drama in education,clarified the scientific theoretical sources of DIE and analyzed and summarized the research status of DIE at home and abroad.This paper aims to answer two research questions through experiments and questionnaires:(1)What are the effects of DIE on junior middle school students’ reading achievements in English?(2)What are the effects of DIE on junior middle school students’ learning motivation in English reading?The experiment was carried out in Jiuquan D Junior Middle School in Ganshu Province.In the experiment,two parallel classes in junior one were selected as the experimental class and the control class respectively.There are 35 students in control class and 36 students in the experimental class.The DIE mode was applied in the experimental class and the PWP teaching approach was used in the control class.The experiment lasted for three months.Before the experiment,the author distributed a questionnaire to the students and collected and analyzed the reading scores in the first monthly English test results of two classes to ensure that there were no significant differences in reading levels and motivation between the two classes.After the experiment,the reading scores in the final exam were used as the post-test data,and the same questionnaire was distributed again.All the data was analyzed by SPSS 26.0 statistical software to answer the two research questions.The data showed that the average score of final reading in the experimental class was significantly improved,indicating that DIE had a positive effect on junior middle school students’ English reading achievements.In addition,the results of the questionnaire showed that students’ motivation level for English reading was significantly improved.The results of this study have certain enlightenment and guiding significance for the teaching and learning of English reading in junior middle schools.