1. Introduction
1.1Analysis on the Present Situation of Teaching English Reading at High School
Along with increasingly frequent communication at home and abroad in the aspect ofeconomic, technological and cultural exchanges. English plays a important role in our dailylife. Nevertheless, what students are facing in English study during the high school in China isno longer simply reading and writing. The five basic skills of English learning includinglistening, speaking, reading, writing and translation have also become basic ones that studentsshould master and be familiar with.Among the five skills, the role of reading in students' English learning surpasses otherfour parts, because in the domestic environment of learning English, the opportunities ofpracticing listening, speaking and writing are less. Only by reading a lot of English abstracts,papers, newspapers, magazines and information can students enrich their knowledge andsense of English language. In addition, it is clear that students can expand and consolidate theEnglish vocabulary more effectively as well as improving their ability of English readingcomprehension and thinking. At the same time, in the language situation where people leamEnglish in China, those people who have the opportunity to go abroad to get a glimpse of the”original” English are a few outstanding and lucky ones. However, the vast majority oflearners including English major students and a large number of English teachers are notlikely to have such an opportunity to do such things. Thus most of Chinese students mainlyget a better understanding of the general culture and overview about English-speaking countryby reading English.
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1.2The Significance of Research
English syllabus (trial edition) (2000) in high school makes the clear claim to thestudents' ability of English reading comprehension and English teachers' reading teachingskills in China. Teaching objective is to cultivate students' English reading strategies, build uplanguage sense, especially laying stress on students' ability of acquiring and managinginformation. The selected material is required to be close to the students' language levels andlife. The aim of material should be perse, extensive, full of the character of thoughtfulness,interestingness, knowledge and times; The role that teachers should play in teaching readingis to encourage, inspire, guide, help, monitor, participate, give feedback and evaluate. At the same time, in the type of the teaching activity, the curriculum standard requires that teachersshould go on with inquiry activity. ”Full-time compulsory education of ordinary high schoolEnglish curriculum standard (experiment draft)" (2001) also puts forward the idea thatteachers should encourage students through experience, practice, discussion, cooperation,exploration, to develop the comprehensive language skills of listening, speaking, reading andwriting. English teaching in high school should encourage that students form the process andmethods with the character of senior students through actively trying, autonomously exploring,independently discovering and practicing. The author applies a new kind of curriculum formto activity of English reading teaching —Five E Inquiry Learning Models. Meanwhile, theauthor breaks through the limit of traditional English curriculum, textbooks and classes,which is conductive to students' conducting reading activity such as trying to leam,independently thinking and actively practicing. More important is that inquiry learning modelmakes the students integrate into real situational teaching to go on studying really andeffectively. Thus the student's applied ability of comprehensive English is naturally improvedwhich is conducive to the achievement of teaching goal of English reading.
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2. Review of the Literature
2.1 An Overview on Inquiry Learning
The starting point and end-result of inquiry learning is to take student learning ascenter. Teaching only serves students' learning, and teaching should obey learning. Thusresearch on teaching reading is based on the students' reading. What is inquiry learning is alsothe primary problem before we begin to do the study. What is exploratory learning? On thisproblem, the domestic and foreign scholars views: Schwa-ab thought that inquiry learningrefers to a learning activity, in which children participate in the process of knowledgeacquisition and master inquiry ability which exploring nature needs. At the same time,children can form the basis for understanding the concept of nature-scientific, thus fosteringpositive attitude to explore the world. (Liu Rude, 2005:16). There are also a lot of domesticscholars on its definition. Jin Yule points out in his book that inquiry learning refers to a kindof learning which students go on by a similar or scientific way of research (JinYule, 2002:3).Ren Chang song points out that inquiry learning means the process of learning in whichstudents encompass a certain problem, text, or materials to seek answers or independentthinking, under the teacher's help and support (Ren Changsong, 2005:29). Throughout thedefinition of inquiry learning, we can find that domestic scholars have more emphasis on theteachers' role of guiding to the students in inquiry learning process. And on the contrary,foreign scholars emphasized the students' initiative investigation in inquiry learning. Butwhatever definitions are given to inquiry learning by scholars, they must be beneficial to theactual development of inquiry learning and must be based on exploration and inquiryteaching.
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2.2 Research at Home and Abroad on Inquiry Learning model
The ancestor of inquiry learning can be traced back to an ancient Greece's famousphilosopher and educator, Socrates. “The midwife technique” is the origin of inquiry learning:“I don't give knowledge to others, but to make the knowledge produced." (Wu Shi ying, 1998:28). Socrates didn't give knowledge directly to students, but let students independently askquestions, discuss and quiz each other, advocate students to explore the knowledge. Later,during the “Enlightenmen”，Rousseau, Pestalozzi, Frobel and other educators continued topromote the development of inquiry learning, especially in Rousseau's “theory of discoveryteaching”，he asked to respect the nature of children and break the bondage of traditionalteaching. In his masterpiece Emile: ou De reducation, he claims: “the problem is not to tellhim a truth, but to teach him how to discover the truth.” (Rousseau, 1994:1994). “By the endof the 19th century and early 20th century, affected by the rapid development of experimentalscience, the main advocates of inquiry learning, Dewey, Kilpatrick and other progressives Counts, Rugg focused the purpose of training students on the ability of how to adapt to themodelm society and how to transform nature and society. Teaching methods foster the spiritof inquiry learning and attach importance to the learning process." (Lin Li 2005:12).
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3.Theoretical Basis........19
3.1Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development........19
3.2Bruner's Theory of Cognitive Structure........19
3.3Theory of Constructivism Learning........20
3.4Brief Summary........21
4.Research Design........23
4.1Aim of Experiment........23
4.2Experimental Hypothesis........23
4.3Subjects........23
4.4Methods........23
4.5Experimental Instruments........24
4.6Experimental Process........24
4.7Data collection........25
5.Results and Analysis........27
5.1 Results and Analysis of Questionnaire........27
5.2 Results and Analysis of the Pre-test and Post-test........29
6. Influence of Implement of Inquiry Learning to Teaching English Reading Class
Through the above questionnaire and the analyzed results of teaching experiment ofreading test, we can see: Exploratory teaching has a larger effect on improving students'level of English reading. Inquiry study has a certain pragmatic effect in the actual teaching,which can enhance the students' interest of English reading, make them master certainreading strategies and skills, improve students' interest and enthusiasm to the Englishdiscipline learning, raise students' level of English reading and the overall level ofdiscipline knowledge of English language, also cultivate the students' ability of solving theEnglish problem and be more conducive to heighten their ability of solving practicalproblems in real life. Therefore, inquiry learning is of great help to English teaching, butexploratory teaching, as a kind of education model，there is no enough information andrules for teachers to leam from and refer to nowadays. However, the author thinks that inthe process of adoption and implementation of inquisitive learning, there is certainenlightenment on both teachers, students and writers of teaching materials:
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Conclusion
The author applies inquiry learning to English reading in high school. The wholeexperiment has lasted five months, and the experimental material is the first article aboutreading comprehension of each unit from first and second volume of English textbook inhigh school. For experimental class—class 1，the author mainly makes the reading teachingexperiment in accordance with the order of the units of inquiry learning in the way ofadopting Five E model. Meanwhile, the author combines questions of readingcomprehension with after-school reading training of high school. Before the trial, theauthor has carried on the reading test 1 for experimental class and control class, in order todetect ability of reading comprehension and level of reading, when both of classes enterinto high school in the beginning. After the test is made, the conclusion is that both of twoclasses are the parallel class and there is no significant discrepancy in the average score,the highest score and lowest score. Even average grade point of experimental class islower 0.1 point than the control class. The pretest of experiment provides a basis for thelater teaching experiment. After five months of teaching experiment, the average score offinal exam in experimental class is 9.14 points higher than the average score of the controlclass, where there exists a huge gap. It fully shows that inquiry learning has a certaineffect on classroom teaching of English reading to a certain extent in senior school.Inquiry learning can improve most of students' English reading learning and even interestof learning, help them master good reading skills and strategies more effectively, beadvantageous to carry out teaching activities of reading classroom. What's more, inquirylearning can make students get the practical English language knowledge in true sense,enhance students' ability and level of reading comprehension, be beneficial to cultivateand create their ability of innovation and practice and promote their long-termdevelopment better.
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References (omitted)