Artificial Intelligence Technology-Enabled Reading Instruction Design for Senior High School English: A Case Study on Back to Nature

Against the backdrop of the General High School English Curriculum Standard (2017 Edition, Revised 2022), which emphasizes the deep integration of information technology and English teaching, exploring how artificial intelligence (AI) technology empowers English reading instruction to cultivate students’ core competencies is of significant practical importance. This study takes the Back to Nature from the Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press senior high school English textbook as a case, and based on the activity-based approach to English learning, constructs a three-tier AI-integrated teaching model of “learning and understanding-application and practice-transfer and innovation”. For the learning and understanding part, AI tools are used to create reading context, deconstruct the text, and generate mind-map frameworks, helping students grasp the comparative argumentation logic of the article. In the applying and practicing phase, AI image generation technology is employed to transform poetic images into visual comparative charts, guiding students to analyze the similarities and differences in natural concepts between Chinese and Western cultures and deepening their cross-cultural comparative thinking. In the transfer and innovation stage, AI context-creation tools are relied on to construct real-life issue context such as “the relationship between humans and nature in the digital era”, where students engage in intellectual exchanges through interactive discussions. With the AI-generated evaluation forms, students can conduct self-assessments and peer evaluations, and finally facilitate their awareness of learning outcomes via generating quantitative data. The AI technology-enabled reading instruction design for senior high school English is characterized by remarkable teaching effectiveness and practical scalability, providing important reference value for promoting the in-depth implementation of core competencies in senior high school teaching.