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The Educational Review, USA

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ArticleOpen Access http://dx.doi.org/10.26855/er.2025.11.004

Integrating Communicative Language Teaching and a Top-down Reading Approach in a Chinese Senior High School English Lesson

Yujiang Liu

Department of Foreign Languages, Hunan Institute of Engineering, Xiangtan 411100, Hunan, China.

*Corresponding author: Yujiang Liu

Published: December 16,2025

Abstract

This article reports on an integrated reading-speaking task-based lesson designed for first-year students in a Chinese senior high school. Situated within a predominantly exam-oriented educational context, the pedagogical aim is to enhance learners’ communicative competence—specifically in requesting and providing advice—while reinforcing essential reading skills, including skimming, scanning, and intensive reading. The instructional framework draws on principles of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) and adopts a top-down approach to reading comprehension. The lesson sequence incorporates multiple communicative phases: a video-assisted lead-in, prediction tasks, intensive reading combined with role-playing, collaborative group problem-solving, and a structured class debate. Each activity is analysed with regard to its communicative properties and cognitive reading processes. Recent scholarly work on top-down processing and integrated reading instruction provides theoretical support for the pedagogical design. In conclusion, the article discusses salient implementation challenges and practical implications for effectively merging CLT and top-down reading strategies in exam-oriented EFL classrooms.

Keywords

Communicative Language Teaching; top-down reading; integrated skills; Chinese senior high school; textbook adaptation

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How to cite this paper

Integrating Communicative Language Teaching and a Top-down Reading Approach in a Chinese Senior High School English Lesson

How to cite this paper: Yujiang Liu. (2025). Integrating Communicative Language Teaching and a Top-down Reading Approach in a Chinese Senior High School English Lesson. The Educational Review, USA9(11), 906-910.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.26855/er.2025.11.004