Chapter One Introduction
1.1Present situation of English reading teaching in senior high school
With china’s communication with other developed countries in science, technologyand economy become more frequent, the status of English in our country has become moreand more important, and English has widely been used in the whole world as a means ofcommunication. In china, a great number of people are learning English especially sincethe successful bid for 2008 Olympic Games. Therefore, the teaching of English in schoolsis becoming a key to improving the English ability of Chinese people.At present, the senior high school students’ work in learning English is no longersimply reading and writing, more specifically, it includes the five basic skills: listening,speaking, reading, writing, and translation. The five skills have become the necessary basicskill that the senior high school students have to master. Among the five skills, reading isthe main input channel, because most high school students have little chance tocommunicate with English speakers in order to know English cultural background well.Therefore, reading English newspapers and some articles has become the main way for thestudents to enrich the knowledge of English language and reinforce the vocabulary ofEnglish. What is more, by reading those materials, students’ reading ability is alsoimproved. At the same time, enough reading may affect speaking and writing to someeffect. Thus, English reading has plays an important role for senior high school students inEnglish learning, English reading teaching in senior high school has also sustain a difficulttask.
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1.2 The significance of the study
The senior English Teaching Syllabus (2000) put forward clear requirements for thecomprehension ability of the senior students in our country, and it has also more specificrequirements for the English reading teaching skills of the English teachers: the teachingpurpose is to cultivate the students’ English reading strategies, build up the language sense and especially the ability of acquiring and managing the information during the reading.The material selection requires it close to the students’ living and the students’ languagelevel; the subject should be extensive, thoughtful, interesting, challenging and dynamic.The role of teacher in English reading teaching is to encourage, inspire, guide, monitor,participate, feedback and evaluate. At the same time, the curriculum standards ask teachersto design inquiry activities in their English reading teaching class.The New Senior Curriculum Reform has clearly announced that the aim of the reformis to alter students’ learning style, cultivate the students’ ability for initiative inquiry, anddevelop the students’ enterprising spirit and practical abilities.The author applies a new curriculum form------5E model of inquiry learning into theEnglish reading teaching, it comply with the requirement of the two guidance documents.At the same time, the author not only breaks the constraint of traditional English course,textbook and classroom, help the senior students to try the reading activity of self thinkingand initiative practice, but also make the students inquire the problem in the real situationand solve problems by themselves effectively, thus the students’ ability of four skills can benaturally improved, it is more conductive to realize the goal of English reading teaching.
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Chapter Two Literature review
2.1 The introduction of inquiry learning
In Oxford Advanced Learning’s Dictionary of Current English with ChineseTranslation (1996), inquiry is defined as: asking; inquiring; question; investigation.Educators abroad and at home hold different ideas about the question “what’s inquirylearning?”, and the American National Science Education Standards defines inquirylearning as experience which can help students master science concepts, and gain scientificabilities and skills.J.J.Schwab, who advocates the method of inquiry learning, defines the inquirylearning as learning an activity that children take part in the process of acquiringknowledge autonomously, in the process they grasp inquiring abilities of researchingnature. Meanwhile, children develop active attitude from scientific concepts (ZhongQiquan, 1988:363). Inquiry learning includes two aspects: one is teaching by inquiry; theother is science as inquiry (Schwab, 1962:15).Leonard H. Clark and Irving S.Start (1997) define the inquiry learning as pupils areexpected to find out information for themselves and then draw their own conclusions andgeneralizations (p. 224).Liu Rude, (2005) the professor of Beijing Normal University, thinks inquiry learningis the process of conducting scientific research, where students not only learn sciencecontent, but also experience, understand and apply scientific research methods. Moreover,by imitating scientific research process, they can also attain scientific research ability (p.9).
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2.2 The theoretical basis of inquiry learning
The representatives of Humanism are A. Maslow and C.R. Rogers (Nunan, 1990:300 ).They believe “self-realization” is human’s instinct needs, and it is also the most powerfulinner impel. In humanistic education, the function of education is to provide help for thelearners who want to come true their aims ------ becoming “the whole learner’s learning”.Maslow, one of the proponents of human psychology, thinks that when students seekfulfilling experiences, they should be allowed to choose what they want to learn and theyshould be encouraged to select and control much of their behavior, not given knowledgepassively. In addition, teachers and parents should encouraged students to learnindependently and plan their own lives instead of just providing student’s basic needs.From the view on humanity, Rogers made a series of hypotheses and he thinks that self-change happened in the process of improvement, independence and growth. Everystudent has potential. Thus, teachers should motivate students’ interest to develop theirpotential and then make students are able to self-instruct to come true the aims with aconfidence of learning. Humanistic education pays attention to the model of “discoverylearning”, “inquiry learning”, “open education” (Willis, 1996:29).
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Chapter Three Methodology .......16
3.1 Hypothesis.......16
3.2 Subjects .....16
3.3 Instruments ......16
3.4 Procedures .......18
3.5 Data collection.......25
Chapter Four Results and data analysis ......26
4.1 Results and analysis of the information from questionnaire .........26
4.2 Results and analysis of the information from test ...... 35
Chapter Five Conclusion....... 39
5.1 Research major findings ......... 39
5.2 Pedagogical implications........ 40
5.3 Limitations of the Thesis ........ 41
5.4 Suggestions..... 42
Chapter Four Results and data analysis
4.1 Results and analysis of the information from questionnaire
Based on the analysis result of questionnaires in the experimental class and the controlclass, the author uses the results to prove the first hypothesis which is that students’English reading interests can be improved by 5e model of inquiry learning. First of all, theauthor compares the data of pre-questionnaire between the experiment class and the controlclass with the purpose of investigating whether the two classes have the similar situation inEnglish reading. Then, the author compares the pre-questionnaire and thepost-questionnaire in the experimental class. The purpose is to know whether 5e model ofinquiry learning can motivate students’ interests to English reading. From the form, we find that 36% of the students read for the teacher’s asking andonly 5% of the students read for their own interest in experimental class. It clearly showsthe similar result in the control class. The author thinks that most of the students don’treally know the aim of reading, most of the students read for out of their own willing andjust a few students read for themselves, because students are not interested in reading, sothey feel boring when they read and then they are not eager to read more. The data showsonly 20% of the students think the preparation is important. While, only 19% of thestudents prepare before the class every time and 21% of the students never prepare inexperimental class, the similar results in the control class.
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Conclusion
This study aims to investigate the present situation of senior high school students’English reading class, the relationship between application of 5E model of inquiry learningand high school students’ English reading ability. Through the empirical research, theauthor tries to prove it is necessary to apply 5E model of inquiry learning in Englishreading class in Chinese senior high school for both of teachers and students. At the sametime, the research also reflects some problem in reading class and gives some suggestionsto the reading teaching class. The study has two research questions, and they are solved by analyzing the data ofresearch. Namely the 5E model of inquiry learning is more efficient to improve students’reading ability, and students’ English reading interests can be improved by 5E of inquirylearning.
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Reference (omitted)
