论文总字数：36574字

摘 要

发展学生英语学科核心素养是深化基础教育英语课程改革的重大举措之一，也是今后英语教育教学的重大指导原则。英语阅读教学对于促进学生核心素养的发展具有重要作用。本文在分析了我国高中英语阅读教学现状的基础上，论述了英语学科核心素养对学生的具体要求，并根据其要求为高中英语阅读教学提出了四点建议，分别是：夯实学生理解和灵活运用语言的能力、培养学生的自主阅读能力、发展学生的思维能力、引导学生形成正确的文化立场和态度。

关键词：英语学科核心素养；英语阅读教学; 高中

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 1

2.1 Previous studies on English key competencies 1

2.2 Previous studies on English reading teaching 2

2.3 Limitations of previous studies 3

3. Current Situation of Senior High School English Reading Teaching 3

3.1 Overlook of the cultivation of learning abilities 3

3.2 Inadequate cultivation of cultural awareness 4

3.3 Insufficient cultivation of thinking abilities 5

4. Requirements of English Key Competencies 5

4.1 Linguistic competence 5

4.2 Learning abilities 6

4.3 Thinking quality 6

4.4 Cultural disposition 7

5. Pedagogical Implications on English Reading Teaching Strategies in Senior High School 7

5.1 Enhancing the ability to understand and use language flexibly 8

5.2 Cultivating students the autonomous reading ability 9

5.3 Developing students thinking ability 10

5.4 Leading students to form correct cultural standpoint and attitude 11

6. Conclusion 13

Works Cited 14

1. Introduction

Coincident with the advancement of science technology has been the remarkable changes of old jobs and appearance of new ones. In response, the ministry of education, in 2014, put forward an important concept, “key competencies”, which can prepare students for any unexpected social and work environment. From then on, it has been the most focused topic in educational circles and an increasing number of researches and studies revolving around it have emerged.

In China, it is the teaching practice of various disciplines in basic education stage that is responsible for the cultivation of students’ key competencies. For English key competencies, reading ability is the basic requirement of English learning and plays a promoting role in the cultivation of other abilities concerning English. Therefore, in terms of the cultivation of English key competencies, English reading teaching deserves special attention. With a brief analysis of current situation of English reading teaching in senior high school and the requirements of English key competencies on students, this paper offers four strategies on how to cultivate students the required competencies through English reading teaching practice.

2. Literature Review

2.1 Previous studies on English key competencies

Officially, there is no definite definition of English key competencies. OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) firstly put forward key competency value in 1997, and numerous countries soon followed to construct the key competency model.（Li 17） In China, the key competency index system for students, developed by experts organized by the ministry of education, also includes foreign language quality, which is defined as “the ability to understand, express and communicate in other languages through oral or written language forms according to one’ s own wishes and needs”. (Chengamp;Zhao 81)

Nevertheless, foreign language quality is quite different from English key competencies. When developing the key competency index system, it is necessary to study not only foreign language quality, but also the cultivation of key competencies that English course can undertake. In other words, instead of simply imparting the essential knowledge and skills that students are supposed to learn, English reading teaching should be concerned with what other qualities and abilities students can acquire by taking English courses. In order to concretize the educational value of the English curriculum, English Curriculum Standard (2011) for junior high schools boils English key competencies down to four aspects: linguistic competence, learning abilities, cultural disposition, and thinking quality. (Li 17)

In abroad, a large number of researches and studies concerning key competency have been made. Xin Tao, Jiang Yu, Liu Xia made a summary about the key competency of many international organizations and countries such as the OECD, the EU, the USA and Finland, and most of them mentioned foreign language quality.(Xin 9) For instance, one of the eight key competencies of the EU framework is the ability to communicate in a foreign language.(Pei 97) In the framework of Australia’s key competency, English courses are responsible for the major cultivation of cross-cultural understanding quality.(Wang 23)

In China, the connotation and cultivation of English key competencies have been thoroughly studied by many famous academic researchers. Professor Wang Qiang suggests that by analyzing and solving problems, students are able to develop their thinking quality, form their cultural understanding, thus shaping their correct outlook on life, and promoting English key competencies’ formation and development. (Wang 7) Besides, Professor Cheng Xiaotang and Zhao Siqi have made a thorough analysis of the four components of English key competencies and Professor Cheng has offered several suggestions about their assessment and evaluation in his another essay.

2.2 Previous studies on English reading teaching

English reading teaching boasts a lot of teaching models, such as bottom-up model，which follows a linear process from the recognition of words to phrases, to sentences, to paragraphs and then to the meaning of the whole text, and top-down model which begins with providing students with background knowledge. Nowadays, many researches have proved that top-down model is a useful way to exercise students’ thinking ability. As Day and Bamford once put it, “reading is the construction of meaning from a written message.” Goodman also said reading is “a psycholinguistic guessing game”. Besides, Harmer pointed out that instead of being dismissed as passive, reading skills should be employed actively and extensively. Encouragement should be given to students to interact with the reading contents actively and chances should be provided for them to predict, guess and think.

In China, with further development of New Curriculum Reform as well as science technology, numerous studies regarding English reading teaching strategies have been made. Professors like Chen Jianping and Cai Zhangbing argue that teachers should make full use of the advantages in the era of “Internet ”. Besides, many teachers in service like Huang Wenhui and Liu Hong also put forward many useful strategies in English reading teaching in response to the New Curriculum Reform. What’s more, Professor Wang Qiang has introduced many effective teaching activities according to different stages in English reading teaching in her book A Course in English Language Teaching.

2.3 Limitations of previous studies

Although there are many studies about English key competencies and reading teaching, it’s not difficult to find that few of studies has been made on reading teaching from the perspective of the cultivation of English key competencies. Besides, many of these studies conducted by education authorities have limited their analysis to the connotation of these competencies but fail to combine them with English teaching practice. Given that, this paper attempts to offer several practical strategies for English reading teaching in senior high school under the guidance of English key competencies.

3. Current Situation of Senior High School English Reading Teaching

3.1 Overlook of the cultivation of learning abilities

A growing body of research shows that a majority of teachers still doesn’t realize the importance of learning abilities cultivation. Under the pressure of sending students into top universities, many teachers tend to teach to test. They keep close eyes on the changes of college entrance examination and assign homework, design English exercises according to its question types. In general, they concentrate most of their energy on vocabulary and grammar teaching while ignoring the cultivation of self-learning ability, thus developing students into study machines who are good at listening to orders but fail to put their knowledge into practice let alone use it flexibly. However, our education goal is to cultivate all-round development of people, which should be rooted in every teacher’s mind. Currently, under this kind of teaching pattern, it’s only natural that we find such students with high marks but low abilities. For instance, it’s a universal phenomenon that a teacher singles out several so-called important words and sentences in a reading text and then spends most of time in class on explaining the word collocations and the important grammar points while almost paying no attention to the discourse itself let alone teach some necessary reading strategies. At the same time, students are busy with writing down important expressions and grammar structures on their notebooks, totally under the control of teachers.

3.2 Inadequate cultivation of cultural awareness

The advancement of China’s international status and the exchange of the world culture have been accompanied by the need of publicizing our Chinese culture to all over the world. Therefore, one of our teaching goals is to develop the spokesman of Chinese culture who can explain our traditional culture to foreigners in English and even in various languages. The cultivation of this ability can be realized through reading teaching. In reading teaching, students are exposed to different cultural phenomena that easily arouse their interest. Unfortunately, most teachers do not fully take advantage of reading teaching class and merely explain the phenomena students encounter in reading superficially without consciously cultivating students’ cross-cultural awareness. Even if a few teachers realize the importance of raising students’ awareness of cross-cultural understanding, they still fail to provide students with some useful methods for students to introduce Chinese traditional culture. Without proper guidance from teachers, it’s difficult for students to form correct cultural standpoint and attitude on their own. As a result, more and more students become hot fans of western culture but tired of our own traditional culture at the same time, which goes against our English curriculum objectives.

3.3 Insufficient cultivation of thinking abilities

According to Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf, the structure of the language people habitually use influences the ways they think and behave, that is to say, different languages offer people different ways of expressing the world around, and thus they think and speak differently. (Dai 128) Without any doubt, foreign language learning can develop people thinking ability and enrich their thinking modes. As for English teaching, a coherent and complete discourse is a good material to cultivate students’ thinking ability. However, in most teaching practice, teachers’ attempt to develop students’ thinking ability is only restricted to asking them to find out the function of certain paragraph, which is definitely required of examinations. In addition, they like questions with only one correct answer so that they can easily correct exercises and evaluate students. What’s more, they are used to sparing little time for students to think for a question, for most of the time is devoted to the vocabulary and grammar teaching. Consequently, students are not willing to use their head in English class and what they care about is the correct answer which can help them get high marks in exams. Gradually, English curriculum is regarded as a course that only needs to recite and write from memory.

4. Requirements of English Key Competencies

4.1 Linguistic competence

Linguistic competence is defined as the capacity to understand others and express oneself with the help of language in social contexts. Besides from the basic language skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing, linguistic competence, as the core of English key competencies, also refers to language understanding and communication, as well as language and speakers’ communicative roles awareness. Basically, Linguistic competence can be divided into the following five aspects: (1) English language and English learning awareness, such as recognizing the significance of English as an international language, the value of learning English as second language, and even the relationship between language and culture, language and thinking; (2) mastery of English language knowledge, particularly the ability to construct and express meaning with learned knowledge; (3) comprehension ability of spoken and written English texts of diverse themes and genres; (4) flexible use ability of spoken and written English; (5) the ability to use language to establish communicative roles and interpersonal relationships. (Chengamp;Zhao 84)

In addition, special attention should be paid to the following three points: (1) as an important component of linguistic competence, language knowledge is not limited to phonetics, vocabulary and grammar, but also includes discourse and pragmatic knowledge; (2) linguistic competence pays more attention to the use of language knowledge in the process of constructing and expressing meaning than merely emphasizes the accumulation of language knowledge; (3) readers’ response to discourses calls for special attention in terms of language skills.

4.2 Learning abilities

Citizens in the 21st century must be equipped with lifelong learning awareness and autonomous learning ability. In the era of reform and open up, it’s particularly important for Chinese students to develop English learning ability. Learning abilities mainly refer to students’ consciousness and ability to actively employ and adjust English learning strategies, widen English learning channels and improve English learning efficiency. It is important to note that as the key competency, learning ability is not merely concerned with learning methods and strategies, but also with certain understanding and attitude of English and English learning. For instance, students should have a correct cognition for and an intrinsic interest in English learning, a positive learning attitude and achievement motivation, the consciousness and habits of active participation in language practice and should be able to establish a clear learning objective. Besides from dealing with the use of learning methods and strategies, students should also be able to monitor the use of them, evaluate the use effect, and adjust them as needed.

4.3 Thinking quality

It is well-known that language is closely related to thinking. Language acquisition relies on thinking, and in the mean time the study and use of language can further facilitate thinking abilities development. However, as the English key competency, thinking quality is different from the thinking ability in general and the comprehension and expression ability in linguistic competence. It is the thinking qualities that are closely related to English learning, such as understanding the connotation and extension of English conceptual words; linking these words to the world around them; summarizing common features of things according to given information; deepening understanding of the world with new concepts formed with the help of English; thinking and solving problems from different perspectives based on learned conceptual English words and sentence patterns. (Chengamp;Zhao 85)

In particular, on top of being beneficial to the cultivation of general thinking abilities of students (such as recognition, comprehension and inference ability), understanding and expressing through English is also conducive to the formation and development of unique ways English speakers think and speak.

4.4 Cultural disposition

It’s essential for citizens in the 21st century to be equipped with international understanding and intercultural communication abilities. The two abilities can be acquired through learning foreign languages, especially English. Learning a language other than our mother tongue enables people to understand the feelings, attitudes and values of other nations. Cultural disposition includes the inclusive understanding of different cultures, awareness of diverse emotional attitudes and values of different nations, as well as the ability to evaluate the cultural tradition and social cultural phenomena reflected in discourses, to compare and conclude the culture reflected in texts, thus forming their own cultural standpoint and attitude, cultural identity and cultural identification ability. From this perspective, the connotation of cultural disposition goes beyond the previously mentioned cross-cultural awareness and intercultural communicative competence.

5. Pedagogical Implications on English Reading Teaching Strategies in Senior High School

5.1 Enhancing the ability to understand and use language flexibly

To actually improve students’ linguistic competence, teachers should not merely impart language knowledge to them, but also teach and encourage them to use it in real life. The development of students’ abstract thinking has entered such an important period in senior high school that teachers should seize this critical period to develop their linguistic ability.

5.1.1 Changing traditional reading teaching beliefs

Necessary changes should be made by teachers in regard to their stubborn and fixed way of reading teaching which just focuses on the explanation of some important words and expressions. Instead, teachers can ask students to preview these language points in advance and spare more time in class to learn the discourse itself and design more meaningful activities such as role plays, discussions and debates to exercise their ability to use learned knowledge. Through performing these activities, students are able to know how language users use the knowledge of pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, discourse and pragmatics to express meanings rather than mechanically accumulate knowledge.

5.1.2 Designing reading activities in different levels

In English class, due to the differences in students’ cognitive level and knowledge base, if teachers properly design teaching activities, the interaction between students will largely improve their pragmatic competence and language sense. For instance, based on specific analysis of students’ multiple reading scores, the teacher can divide students into three levels: level A is for students with high reading ability, level B is for students with moderate reading ability, and level C is for students with reading disability. (Liamp;Peng 59)Then, teachers are able to design activities for students at different levels particularly.

5.1.3 Focusing on the overall structure of the article

The evaluation of learners’ English language comprehension ability depends more on their understanding of the whole discourse rather than merely a single sentence. Instead of explaining sentences by sentences, teachers can introduce the genre of the article to students first, thus learning effect will be greatly improved. Therefore, cultivating students the knowledge of stylistic features and consciously guiding them to recognize different styles of English articles can effectively improve their reading efficiency and linguistic competence. Besides, the overall structure of the article needs particular attention. Teachers should spare more time for students to find the theme of the text and the topic sentence of each paragraph, to guess the meaning of new words, and to figure out the skeleton of the passage.

5.2 Cultivating students the autonomous reading ability

5.2.1 Believing students’ potential to read autonomously

The cultivation of students’ autonomous reading ability is the manifestation of learning ability of English key competencies in reading teaching. The key of cultivating students with autonomous reading ability is teachers’ belief that students have the potential to read autonomously. After more than 10 years of educational experiments, Indian education scientist Sugata Mitra found that the biggest difference between human and Deep Blue, Watson and other artificial intelligences is that human can complete learning tasks without scientists inputting task codes and programs. Therefore, he redefined education: education is a kind of self-organizing behavior. (Wang 51) As the paragon of animals, people are born with logic and self-organizing ability, so students totally have the ability to read and learn independently.

5.2.2 Cultivating students’ interest in reading

It’s advisable for teachers to stimulate and cultivate students’ interest in reading first since interest is the internal driving force of students’ learning activities. Therefore, in reading training, full play should be given to students’ subject status. According to different reading objectives, various and interesting exercises have to be designed to stimulate students’ interest in reading. Besides, reading materials must be moderately difficult, contemporary, novel, interesting, and most importantly, close to students’ life, so as to stimulate students’ reading desire.

5.2.3 Teaching necessary reading skills and strategies

There are two kinds of reading strategies, namely intensive reading and extensive reading. Teachers should cultivate students the good habit of combining these two reading skills and consciously employing different methods for different reading purposes. For instance, to grasp the gist of a passage, students are aware of scanning the whole passage quickly; to master key phrases and sentences, they know to read intensively. Besides, students’ reading efficiency can be greatly improved by proper employment of metacognitive strategy in reading. Teachers are advised to ask students to set goals before reading, read with questions in their mind and check their answers after reading.

5.2.4 Expanding students’ reading resources.

It’s obvious that in different types of texts different reading skills and strategies should be employed. Students can never acquire autonomous reading ability if they have no experience of reading extensively, for their ignorance of certain type of text. Hence a great variety of authentic materials should be consciously provided for students, since textbooks are always needed to be supplemented by extra materials. Besides, teachers must bear in mind that they are not only responsible for teaching students the reading materials in textbooks but also for preparing them for future needs. That’s where the cultivation of students’ autonomous reading ability in reading teaching comes in.

5.3 Developing students thinking ability

5.3.1 Engaging students in active thinking

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