Present Situation of and Development Strategies for Extracurricular English Reading in China’s Rural Junior High Schools
The survey and interview of 12 English teachers and 210 students from rural junior high schools in H County in central China shows that, the present situation of students’ extracurricular English reading is: Firstly, rural junior high school students spend less time on extracurricular English reading; secondly, most students have limited choices of extracurricular English reading materials; thirdly, students’ interest and enthusiasm in extracurricular English reading are not strong. The main reasons for these situations are: for students, their English reading skills are not good enough, and they ignore the importance of English reading; for teachers and schools, dated English teaching methods block the connections between English learning and real life, and books for English reading are in shortage. The above reasons led to the low interest in English learning of rural junior high school students and will further undermine the quality of rural junior high school English teaching and affect students’ learning and development. Therefore, this study attempts to give suggestions from the perspectives of students, schools and society, in order to improve the extracurricular reading level of rural junior high school students.
Key words: rural junior high school; extracurricular English reading; current situation; reasons; suggestions
Funding: 2021 Henan Provincial Project of Reform in Teacher Education Courses: Construction and Practice of a U-G-S Coordinated Development Mode of School English Teachers from the Perspective of Community (Project No.: 2021-JSJYYB-049).
