how-to-improve-our-reading-ability.doc

Title:how to improve our reading ability A Thesis Submitted as a partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree of Wu han Da Xue Yunyang teacher college ,shiyanshi January,2012 CONTENT 1 introduction to reading.32 the importance of motivation in the english study.4 A examine the reading issue from a language teaching perspective .5. B different from pervious research.6 C emphasize the importance of motivation in the study of reading.73 There exist a series of problems that blockade our english reading.8. A point out the problem.9. B this problem pose an obstacle in our study.10.4 How to improve our reading ability. 11. A i propose a motivational theory to testify the correlation between interest and reading.12. B additional discussion of necessary background knowledge,reading skill .13. 5 reference book. .14 IntroductionWith the development of society, English reading not only appears in exams but also exists in looking information, getting Info, entertaining or chatting online. English articles are getting more and more, and the range of them is getting wider and wider. English, be the world nowadays international social intercourse language the success that it obtains is an unprecedented in history of. So enhancing English reading comprehension ability becomes utmost urgency How to enhance English Reading Comprehension AbilityThe importance of promoting students reading abilityWith the development of society, English reading not only appears in exams but also exists in looking information, getting Info, entertaining or chatting online. English articles are getting more and more, and the range of them is getting wider and wider. English, be the world nowadays international social intercourse language the success that it obtains is an unprecedented in history of. So improving students reading ability is of great urgency.The score takes about 40%in the college English test band 4. In a certain extent, doing well or not in the reading comprehension directly influences the grades of English tests. Moreover reading could maintain the interesting of learning English， strengthen knowledge and improve ability and be helpful for students to have a better understanding of the world. We can not study foreign language well without improving the reading ability. Status in quo of college students reading ability and the analysis of the obstaclesEnglish reading comprehensive ability consists of vocabulary, grammar, cultural knowledge and reading skills. According to my questionnaire, however, almost 80% students who answered to it are far from satisfied with their reading job. To see why, I took a more detailed questionnaire. Finally I got the reasons. 1. Severe lack of vocabularies As the survey shows, there exist three problems. First, they pay little attention to the accumulation of vocabularies. Second, about 45% students fail to continue reading when they meet new words. Third, some of them just guess the new words according to the texts, which influences the understanding to the details of texts. Vocabulary is the foundation of language, and every reading material is made up of a number of words formed in grammatical rules. Dictionary with a large vocabulary contains as many as 200,000 entries. But a common college student indeed master and apply only 3,000 to 4,000 words. It is simply a drop in the bucket! what is more，Scientific and technical terms as well as catchphrase continually appear on paper. No doubt that these situations add the difficulty to English reading. Hence we have to enlarge our vocabulary in order to improve reading ability. Of course it needs persistence, or reading will hardly go on. Generally the larger vocabulary you get the fewer obstacles you meet.One of reasons for vocabulary obstacles is that we pay little attention to vocabulary accumulation. The range of vocabulary is just so narrow. Second many of us just master one word and one meaning. So when they meet polysemy, they feel confused. Moreover, some students would skip the words that they do not know. Or they would count on dictionary or e-dictionary, which either wastes lots of time or the meaning they get doesnt necessarily meet the one in the context. It is the main obstacle for students to enhance their reading ability.2. grammatical capability is weakIn grammar the problems are also severe, and which form a bigger hinder, once facing long sentences the students accounting for 72% of the total are hard to make them clear. 66% students are insensitive to contextual pronouns, disjunctive conjunctions, and causal adverbs. The base unit of a sentence is word, and every sentence is made up of words in certain grammatical rules. Having acquired a good knowledge of grammar is good to enhance the capacity of analyzing sentences. When reading we should grasp the meaning of sentences through the grammar structures or styles. Thus Grammar has a great effect on reading speed and accuracy. 3. shortcomings in background KnowledgeAs we all know, the differences of the area of national life, surroundings, social system and civilization lead to the diversity of every nations thinking style, language habit and behavior. Because of this, each nation have big difficulty in commutating. Though a student abroad learns a lot of English language, he would feel hard to handle the culture shock. That is because he knows little about the culture abroad. This gives us a lesson that we have to learn the culture well in language studying. In my surveys, 56% students have such appearance that they know all the words in a paragraph, but still do not understand the hidden meaning of it. 83% students being lack of cultural background information of Britain & America have poor understanding on reading, which causes reading disabilities. Lets take “face” for example.He has squandered his money and he has got to face the music.If you continue doing something wrong long enough, sooner or later you are going to face the music. So what does the expression “face the music” mean? Its for you to make it out if you have no idea about its story.It means to accept the results of what you have done. No one is sure how the expression began. One story is that it came from a military ceremony held when a soldier was forced out of an army. The buttons were cut from the soldiers clothing. He was put on a horse, facing the back of the horse and led away. As he left, he faced the music of a military band and the soldiers he had served with. Another story says the expression began in the theater. New actors, shaking with fright, were told that the only cure was to go out and face the music. The music was played by the orchestra seated in front of the stage.4. Not good and scientific reading habitsReading ability includes reading speed and reading comprehension. The survey shows that there are lots of students developing habits on reading, which also affect Reading ability. Some students are accustomed to murmuring words. In fact this is quite unscientific，because they pay much attention to vocabularies, and which has an adverse effect upon the entire understanding of the contents as well as reading speed. Thus vocalizing goes against enhancing reading ability. so the same with sub-vocalizing. Some others like doing something else while reading, such as picking his nose, playing pens, listening to music. These actions distract their attention so as not to enhance reading ability. Bad habits of reading can only increase your burden.5. Bad psychology of readingAs for mental mechanism, many psycholinguists hold that reading is a psychological activity. It is a procedure of readers and authors mutual participating. In the traditional mode of teaching, teachers just impart basic knowledge, and regardless of cultivating students good psychology of reading. As a result, students are prone to bring out impatience, anxiety, fear and such bad feelings. 52% students can not keep a good mood while reading in my research. Therefore bad psychology of reading greatly affects improvement of reading ability. Some Suggestions to overcome the obstacles in readingReading is a kind of constructive thinking process. It not only includes the understanding of the literal meaning, but also includes the understanding of the implicit semantics. Reading ability contains analysis, evaluation and imagination. It is essential to strengthen students reading strategy In order to adapt to the needs of foreign language learning. Based on the above dyslexia in the analysis, and the practice teaching, the following can eliminate those obstacles. In order to effectively improve students reading ability, college English teachers should find some pertinent countermeasures in the ordinary English teaching implementation.1. Update ideas, brave practice new teaching methodsThe new curriculum revolution is not a change of a series of textbooks but a update of educational concepts, a change of the talent fostering mode to reform and all round reform involves classroom teaching modes, students learning pattern and evaluation of teaching effects. Against this backdrop, teachers should strive to study education theories, change the educational ideas, strengthen study, widely practice under the guide of advanced theory and explore advanced and effective teaching methods. Only when teaching thought and teaching method transformed, can the situation of extensive cultivation change, can reading teaching be freed from simple grammar teaching and can the ability of Students acquiring information and Presenting Information improve.2. Solve the problems of vocabulary and grammar, and lay a solid foundation in readingTo a language learner, linguistic ability in vocabulary and grammar is the base of reading. Teachers should take various measures to encourage students grinding away at memorizing words to enlarge vocabulary, such as series connection Memorial Method, affix Memorial Method. Of course, it is insufficient for a vocabulary book to enlarge vocabulary, so, we should read more English articles at ordinary times to understand the words in the article. The understanding of vocabulary includes two forms, the understanding of Structural Words and notional word. At the same time, we should hold the clue of overall structure and distinguish the layer of sentence structure. Secondly, Structural relationship between modifier and modified ingredients should be recognized.In the last place, we also need to get the mood of the whole sentence, that is to say, what the meaning of the sentence is (derogatory or commendatory, Positive or negative). Wed better care certain skills to master vocabulary and grammar well. In the usual accumulation, some usage to the flexible word, adverbs, verb tenses, passive, etc should be paid more attention to. Though grammar is relatively difficult to master, but as long as much more practice, long-term training, can solve this problem. 3. Knowing of English culture background, and enlarging our scope of knowledge 1)According to Schema theory, background knowledge plays an important part in reading. The range of background information is quite wide and it includes culture, custom, geography, science and technology, etc. British &American Culture and Society, British & American Literature, History of British &American Literature etc can help students understand those countries information. Actually Americans usually say how are you doing? -pretty well, rather than how do you do?. When teaching, teachers can choose some articles rich in background knowledge for students extracurricular reading. After a period of training, students can understand more, and their reading ability will enhance significantly.2)readers should pay more attention to foreign culture backgrounds so as to improve their reading ability. Culture is the essential factor in understanding a text. Chinese students may fail to understand English passage because they just think in their own Chinese way. If they know the English author always writes the topic sentence first and then he gives an example to support his idea, they can get a right understanding. And they should know that in mainstream American culture, the ideal form of communication is direct rather than indirect. For this reason, English writers give the topic sentence directly at the beginning of the paragraph. This is different from Chinese way of thinking. 3)Cultural factors help the right understanding of the passage. A wrong concept on a word may also hinder students from understanding, to understand a text does not mean only to know the rough idea, but the cultures that contains in the passage. The more Chinese students know the culture of the target language, the more they can understand the text.4)Cultural factors influence the right understanding of the passage.There is also some cultural knowledge that may cause confusion and hinder students from understanding the whole text. “Texts also involve some cultural differences that may confuse students when the author writes you should listen with interest, his approach to achieve this purpose is: focusing your eyes on the speaker.” 19R62 But Chinese may take it as a pronoun.So it can be seen that if a reader has little cultural knowledge, he is not a successful reader. Coady says that background knowledge becomes an important variable when readers notice, and that students with a western background usually learn English faster than those without such a background. “Cultural factors play an important role in the composition. Therefore, students must be aware of cultural differences and form cultural bounded schemata to facilitate reading.” 4. Stim