In English reading teaching,the activities are related and mutually reinforcing.The teaching activities need closely link with students’real life,on their cognitivelevel,combing the teaching content with their knowledge to help them deeplyunderstand the thematic meaning of each discourse.
2.2 Theoretical Basis
2.2.1 Constructivism Theory
The development of Instructional Design(ID)model based on Constructivism,Piaget is an essential contributor to the concept of Constructivism in the 1970s.In acomplicated environment,he claims that children gradually construct knowledgeabout the external world to develop students’cognitive structure.Constructivism hasthree main teaching modes:scaffold teaching,anchor teaching,and random entryteaching.It is not only a theory about teaching but also about knowledge and learning.It emphasizes learning as an adaptive activity,learning as situated in the contextwhere it occurs,and knowledge as constructed by learners.The“learning”of the childis a process of constantly and actively constructing himself;the teacher’s“teaching”is a necessary scaffolding to support children in constantly constructing themselvesand building new abilities.
From the perspective of the constructivist,their theoretical model provides areference to the concept of learning activities,building scaffolding and establishing aconceptual framework around the learning theme,according to the requirements ofthe“zone of proximal development,”it allows students to enter the situations.Theemphasis here is on the premise that each lesson must have a situation.Theconstruction of knowledge meaning finally completes through students’explorationand cooperative learning.The teacher needs prompt students in time to help themclimb gradually.
Chapter Three Research Design.........................17
3.1 Research Participants.......................18
3.2 Research Instruments..........................18
Chapter Four Two Rounds of Action Research....................21
4.1 The First Round of Action Research......................21
4.1.1 Research Questions..............................21
4.1.2 Action Research Implementation...................21
Chapter Five Data Analysis and Discussion.............................39
5.1 Result and Discussion of Questionnaire Survey...................39
5.2 Result and Discussion of Two Reading Tests.......................41
Chapter Five Data Analysis and Discussion
5.1 Result and Discussion of Questionnaire Survey
Before starting the research,the questionnaires are distributed to 17 teachers inthe experimental school,in order to find out how they think about the concept ofactivity-based learning concept and what the present status quo of their Englishreading teaching is.All of these teachers participate in the questionnaire,and 17 validquestionnaires are returned.
There are 20 multiple choices in this questionnaire.All the questions aredesigned under the guidance of the activity-based learning concept.In addition,thequestions are designed to find out the current English reading teaching situationdirected by the activity-based learning concept from both practical and theoreticalaspects.
Table 5.1 shows how English teachers in this experimental school know aboutthe activity-based learning concept and their ideas about English reading instructionaldesign are.According their answers to Question 1,94.12%of teachers think they havea basic understanding of activity-based learning concept.Questions 2 to 5 are aboutcomparing three aspects of the activity-based learning concept.In question 2,64.71%of teachers think that application and
