Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1 The background of the research
English is an international language, and it is the official language in most of the countries all over the world. As a result, English becomes a preferred second language to learn for billions of people as we have to communicate with the outside world by using English as the interlanguage most of the time. Chinese education has always laid much stress on learning English. Chinese students are required to learn it from Grade 3 in primary school till they graduate from college. During the long journey of English learning, all learners face a nightmare, that is, they have to take part in English tests from time to time and high scores are very important as they need better scores to get into a better school in the future. An English test is usually formed by three dimensions in China which includes listening, reading and writing. Among the many English tests in China from primary school to university, the reading comprehension part is always the most important as it holds the most points compared with the other parts. For instance, the reading comprehension part takes up 30 points out of 150 points in the senior high school entrance examination of Qiandongnan State, Guizhou Province. That is to say, this single part holds one fifth of the total points. It is no doubt that English teachers pay more attention to reading in their teaching for students’ better development. And the students’ reading ability must be good, too. However, the author has worked as an English teacher in a rural junior high school. The things she saw and heard can lead to a conclusion that the reading ability of the students tells another story.
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1.2 The objectives and questions of the research
This thesis aims to investigate the existing problems of English reading in Zaima Middle School and study whether the interactive reading model can improve students’ reading comprehension ability. The research questions are as follows.
(1) What are the existing problems of English reading in Zaima Middle School?
(2) Is the interactive reading model effective to improve students’ reading ability in Zaima Middle School? If yes, what reading strategies do the students enhance?
There are five chapters in this thesis.
The first chapter is the introduction. It introduces the background, objectives, questions, significance and structure of the research.
The second chapter is literature review. To start with, it presents the definitions of reading, then introduces the three reading models which are the bottom-up model, the top-down model and the interactive model. Next, there are the reviews on the interactive model both at home and abroad. Finally, it introduces the theoretical bases of the interactive reading model ---the schema theory and the constructivism theory.
The third chapter is the research design. It presents the questions, subjects, instruments and procedures of the research. Besides, it also shows the procedures of reading teaching in the experimental class and the control class.
The fourth chapter is the results and discussion of the research. There are two questionnaires and two tests in the research. The collected data of the two questionnaires and tests are analyzed by the author in the chapter.
There are also results and discussion of the class observation. The fifth chapter is the conclusion. The author writes about the findings, the implications and limitations of the research. In addition, she also mentions the prospects for future study.
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Chapter 2 Literature Review
2.1 The definitions of reading
The noun “ reading ” derives from the verb “ read ” which means to look at and understand the meaning of written or printed words or symbols in the Oxford Dictionary. Reading plays an essential role in our daily life. We enrich our knowledge reserve and broaden our horizons through reading. ( NiuLu,2020 ) In addition, We read to get the information and knowledge we need most of time. What’s more, reading helps us save our time. For instance, if we want to know facts about ancient times or other cultures, we do not need to travel back to the past which the technology today also not allows us to do so or go to other countries because we can read the information we want from books or Internet. As a saying goes in China, “ Without going outdoors, a scholar knows all the world’s affairs.” It is because in ancient China, only scholars had the ability to read since others did not have chances to learn to read. Readers may all encounter some situations in their reading process. For instance, when they read, there are some new words in the text which prevent them from understanding. Or, sometimes, they are familiar with the expressions in the text but they cannot get the points of it. What’s wrong? Isn’t reading to read the printed words? Then, the meaning floats on the words. Yet, if we want to complete a perfect reading, it is not enough to just look at the written language. It is more than that.
Figure 2.1 From Rumelhart, 1977, Toward an Interactive Model of Reading
2.2 The bottom-up reading model
In the mid-nineteenth century, Gough put forward the bottom-up reading model.He describes, “ Graphemes are perceived as forming words, words forming sentences, sentences forming paragraphs and so on. In other words, reading process is from letters to sounds, to words, to sentences and finally to the meaning. ” (1972) From the above, it is easy to find that the bottom-up reading model considers reading comprehension as a linear process. The model lays emphasis on comprehending the reading material word by word, but ignore the importance of the context. As a result, some readers can’t get the points of the text though they are familiar with every single word in it. As the the reading comprehension is regarded as a linear process in the model, the processes are as follows. To start with, readers perceive the features of the letters in the source text. Then, readers are apt to associate these features, in turn, to recognize letters. Next, they unite the letters to recognize spelling paradigm. Then, readers connects the paradigm with words, and then continue successively on sentences and paragraphs. Finally, processing is achieved.
Wang Huijing and Li Xia (2011) point out that in the bottom-up reading model, we need to master the new words and structures first. In addition, they believe the model is a fundamental process to use in reading but it should be enhanced by other additional ideas and strategies.
Zhang Huaitao (2014) believes the bottom-up model is based on the reading texts. Readers continuously integrate the input information from the moment that they look at the written language till they get the meaning of it.
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Chapter 3 Research Design ·························· 19
3.1 Research questions ······························ 19
3.2 Subjects ······································· 19
3.3 Instruments and methodology ··························· 19
Chapter 4 Results and Discussion ····························· 32
4.1 Results and discussion of the Questionnaire 1 ···························· 32
4.2 Results and discussion of the pre-test ········································· 39
4.3 Results and discussion of class observation ································ 40
Chapter 5 Conclusion ···························· 48
5.1 Findings of the research ························ 48
5.2 Implications ······································· 49
5.3 Limitations and prospects ······························· 50
Chapter 4 Results and Discussion
4.1 Results and discussion of the Questionnaire 1
Before the experiment, a questionnaire was conducted in both the control class ( 50 students ) and the experimental class ( 50 students ) in order to investigate students’ current reading conditions and the situation of the English reading class. The data of the questionnaires were analyzed afterwards. The results are shown as follows.
Table 4.1 The students’ interest
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Chapter 5 Conclusion
5.1 Findings of the research
Firstly, the author finds out the existing problems of English reading in Zaima Middle School through Questionnaire 1. Besides, a large number of the students do not have much interest in English reading class. And their reading comprehension ability is poor. A lot of them hardly ever use reading strategies and tools like dictionary in their reading process. In addition, the teachers are used to adopting the bottom-up model in reading teaching. They pay much attention to vocabulary and grammar but neglect to develop students’ reading strategies and introduce the background knowledge to help students gain a better understanding of the reading material. What’s more, the reading class is more like a one-man show of the teachers as they usually present it by himself/herself but seldom have discussions or ask questions. As a result, the students get used to just listen carefully to the teacher and take notes in class instead of being a part of it and understand the text actively.
Secondly, we can draw a conclusion that the interactive reading model plays an effective role in English reading after the experiment according to the analyzed data of the tests. The data shows that there is significant difference in reading comprehension ability in the experimental class before and after the experiment. Moreover, according to the collected data of the Questionnaire 2, almost all the students like the interactive reading model and a lot of them hope the teacher can keep applying it in reading class in the future. Besides, a large proportion of them think the model increases their interest in English reading from the compared data of the two questionnaires and enhances their reading speed. What’s more, it is very obvious that the percentage of using reading strategies like skimming and scanning has increased by comparing the data from the two questionnaires.
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