英语专业毕业论文-How to Improve the Students’ Abilities of English Reading.doc

project title: how to improve the students abilities of english readinginvestigatorliu jundegansu radio & tv universitysubmitted on 27th may, 2011in fulfillment of the coursepractical project designacknowledgementim mostly grateful to my supervisor miss wang for her constant encouragement and guidance. she has walked me through all the stages of the writing of this thesis. without her consistent and illuminating instruction, this project would have got off the ground.second, i would like to express my thanks to my students without whose willing participation in the project implementation it would have remained on paper. last my thanks would go to my beloved family for their loving considerations and great confidence in me all through these days. i also owe my sincere gratitude to my friends and my colleagues who gave me their help and time in listening to me and helping me work out my problems during the difficult course of the thesisabstractthis research presents a detailed report of the project implemented to improve the students reading abilities. on the assumption that better reading habit can help the students read efficiently and thus motivate the students interest. so a four-week program was adopted to improve their english effectively.methodologically, three methods are used, and they are analytic method, cause analysis and questionnaire survey.key words: reading ability; students interest; reading skillsmain headings of the project report1.introduction2.problem analysis2.1 the analytic method2.2 cause analysis2.3 questionnaire survey2.4possible solutions3.project rationale4.project objective5.project hypothesis 6.project design 7.project implementation8. project evaluation9. conclusionreference:appendix:a. the timetable of the projectb. the questionnaire for problem analysisc. teaching notesd. diaries 1. introductionduring my middle school teaching, ive found some problems: sometimes, i like to provide the students with a lot of knowledgewords, phrases, grammar, usages and so on, but i didnt notice how to improve students abilities. so the students were not interested in english and the classroom atmosphere was getting less and less active. a few students couldnt know or read many words in a sentence, so they were afraid of reading. some students couldnt understand the whole sentence that i gave them in reading comprehension. i have observed them for a long time. i decided to teach them the abilities of reading skills in my classroom teaching to make the learners more motivated. by teaching the knowledge to the students and helping them keep up their english interest, i improved my english teaching method at the same time.2.problem analysisin my teaching, i didnt pay more attention to how to improve students abilities. the students were less and less interested in learning english; they lack the motivation to study, so i interviewed them and found that:firstly, some students couldnt know and read many words in a sentence, so they were afraid of reading. and these students were also afraid the others laugh at him. they didnt know how to learn english well, and they lost the interest and confidence in it. secondly, some students had some difficulties in reading english, for their poor vocabulary. they hoped that when they did english reading after the teacher or under more concrete direction of the teacher. thirdly, most students felt overloaded because of heavier homework assignments.i collected the information through analytic method, cause analysis and questionnaire survey. 2.1 the analytic methodsome of my students dont like reading english. the phrase “some of” make me think of the other side of the issue: some of my other students do like reading english. this, in turn, makes me think of these:1. why some dont, while others do?2. who are the some that dont? and who are the others that do? moreover, “my students” is in contrast with “my colleagues students”, this prompted me to make a chain of reflections. what about some of my colleagues students? is it also the case that they dislike reading english, either? if, on the other hand, all of my colleagues students like reading english, then my problem is actually caused by myself, not by my students. perhaps my lesson plan is poorly designed 2.2 cause analysisthe teachers side: that is myself. is it because the reading is poorly designed? is it because my classroom teaching cant motivate the students?is it because the teachers teach them a good way in training english reading?the students side:at first, a few students cant understand many words, so lack interesting in reading english.is it because they do not like reading english?is it because they do not know the reading is important and necessary in learning english?is it because they are not motivated?is it because they have some difficulties to solve the questions?is it because they do not like practice reading?is it because they have a lot of schoolwork and homework to do?the class size: my class has 59 students. the class size is too large. the classroom is always very noisy. i think more of the top students than the problem students. the classroom management: if i provide clear reading aims to the students or not. and if i check their answers to the reading comprehension, motivate them and draw their attention in the class or not. of all the causes, i think that the teacher is mainly responsible for the failure. i want to know what my students think about the problem. 2.3 questionnaire survey i designed a questionnaire to find out why it should be so. i handed out questionnaires to my students. after they finished it, i found out the facts. after collecting questionnaire, i found most of my students could not use reading strategies. they are lack of reading skills. three fourths cant infer the underlying idea between the texts. almost none of them have recognized the text structure before understanding it. i should be responsible for that. before i only told them to read more and more, but i have never trained them these skills by practicing reading.2.4 possible solutiontaking the above factors into consideration, the following solutions were proposed: make up the students confident.enrich the related the knowledge of the background language and the social culture. guide and train the students in their english reading.3.project rationale (1) the role of reading in class and its purpose: reading skill is a very important ability. most knowledge is acquired by reading. reading occupies a very important position. students should read, and then they can understand the materials. i would like to give reading the purpose of enriching knowledge, making it as close real-life as possible. this means that the students should feel relaxed and interested in english reading.(2) the role of the students: i would like to feel that learning is a collaborative endeavor and not a competitive one. they should come to realize that they can learn about many things from all kinds of materials they read. if they feel interested in reading, they can benefit from them.(3)the role of the teacher: the teacher has many roles in the teaching practice, not just that of evaluator. i would like to act as a materials provider, an instructor and an allover controller. i would like to spend much time to help my students with their reading. and i would like to choose and provide them appropriate materials as many as i can.(4) the type of classroom reading used: i think classroom reading comprehension depends on the level of students.4.project objective the object of my project is to develop the students confidence and improve their abilities of english reading. meanwhile, enhance learners interest in english reading.5.project hypothesisit is hypothesized that if reading exercises are better designed, then the learners will understand completely. different students have different ways of learning, but most of the students still follow the teachers words to read and memorize. if they master the usage of the words, they will use the certain skills to listen, speak and write. in this way, it can motivate their interest and abilities in learning english. on the other hand, if they are interested in some places that they like aspects. so during the reading times, choice reading is very important. for the beginning, we should choose easy and interesting materials, reading books for them.6.project design 6.1 be confident and active in readingduring the time of doing practice teaching, i found the fact that some students had no self-confidence in reading. before reading, they feared that they could not understand the passage. when they met with new words，they would feel so nervous as to lose the courage to go on reading it. these students were defeated not by their weakness in english but by their lack of confidence. so i encourage them to know the confidences were very important in reading. in my teaching, i often offer them some pictures or some words that related the reading passages. in order to make the students feel confident in reading, i told them the people reading were no need to feel any pressure. but just try to get the information they need or to enjoy reading themselves. in addition, a good reader should also try to communicate with the author actively. try to guess the authors real meaning between the lines and dont force your own thoughts upon the authors. even if there are some new words, that doesnt matter so much. you dont have to know the exact meaning of every new word; just try to guess the meaning of the word from the context. so i encourage my students to guess, if they didnt know the exact meaning of the new words.6.2 enriching students vocabulary one thing that often interferes with students reading is their poor vocabularies. therefore, we should train at all stages of learning to enrich their vocabulary. so in class or out of class, we should ask the student to recite words as much as possible. but they shouldnt recite words by chinese meaning. they should recite them by their similar pronunciation, letters and so on. by this way, not only studying the new words, but also reviewing the old words that they have studied. this method can help them to recite the new words, also to group words. we should ask the students getting the forms of the new words and learning the meanings of the words in english; we should also make the students get a strong memory of the words and using the words. this word acquisition theory not only manifests the inner rule or vocabulary learning but also reveals the three important aspects of vocabulary learning: word form, word meaning and word usage. 6.3 providing reading materials my students are third-year students. they are facing graduation. after receiving so many complaints about poor english reading, i designed an adequate number of activities to test my hypothesis. i think students reading ability will be evidently improved through our patient and sincere cooperation.out of class, in order to make sure that my students could like reading english better, i decided to provide them with lots of materials to encourage them to learn english. for 13 or 16 years old student, they were more interested in strange things, so i offered some novels about closing to real-life to them. i thought the materials were very useful for helping the students to expand their creative thought and learn more.in the class, i showed various reading skills to the students. they should develop a correct method of reading. that was to train himself to read attentively (not to read back) and silently (not to read aloud), sentence by sentence, not word by word. when they met a new word, it needed to guess the meaning from the context. consulting the dictionary from time to time not only affected ones reading speed and the comprehension of the reading material, but also got the reader frustrated.according to this method, i always allowed them to do like that. in order to become a good reader, the student should be read often and read a lot, and should be learned more about foreign culture on first language in english.6.4 the three stages of english reading how can we improve our way of teaching? one way is to teach reading in three stages: pre-reading, while-reading, and post-reading. each stage has a different goal and deals with different reading strategies. the overall aim is to train the students to be efficient readers in the foreign language. other aspects have to be considered as well though, such as the students interest and motivation. an interesting text can arouse the students will to read, but to us often have no choice in the texts we have to teach. in that case, the activities must stimulate the students interest by challenging us, providing them with a chance to use their imagination and creative ability, and encourage them to use the language and information gained from the text.when i taught how to do reading comprehension task, i gave them three steps to do it. firstly, read english article after reading questions and multiple choices as soon as possible, underline the key words.secondly, put the questions into the context exactly, in the most situations, the questions are designed according to the context one after another, which is very well distributed.lastly, read four multiple choices carefully, making sure the relation between the question and multiple choices, after that, choose the answer. 7.project implementation my students are third-year students. they are facing graduation.it took four weeks for me to implement my project. for each week i am scheduled to do like these.(1). teaching notes: to see appendix c.(2). diary-keeping: to see appendix d. i want to know if the hypothesis has been proved by the four week use of varied reading techniques skills. that is, if my students abilities of english reading increased or not. i have three sources of data that help me find it out. all the details of my subject implementation were carefully maintained. 1) the previous interview i did with my students for the cause analysis of my initial problem.from the interview i know that i should give more reading skills and reading method to them. i should summary the main idea of the reading passage from the students and help them use the target language more. i draw the students attention to the reading comprehension by offering some pictures and background language that relate the passage. and then i find that the students can get with me easily. from then on, the students are quite satisfied with what i have done for them.2) classroom observations i took in my diary.my students became more active than before. they are willing to using the method that i provide to them. they even feel the english reading is very interesting. it is easier for them to read the passages and understand the author idea, and increase them abilities of english reading. 3) the comparison of the final reading work between the control and the target group.look at the students notes for the passages that i give to them. i found the target group is much better than the control group. they had more interest than the control group. they all had fewer mistakes than before in english reading comprehension. from comparing the first model test paper and the second model test paper, i found the first score rate is 45%, the second score rate is 62%. the last comparison may be compared after the graduation paper. i think it will be more forceful. lets look and see.from the above analysis im sure the students abilities will be increase and they will have more interest in english reading.the activities are arranged to be finished within four weeks.week 1: activity 1reading material：for use with learning english, student book 6, lesson 25.aim: to train the students abilities of interest reading.instruction: students listen to the teachers explanations carefully and then finish the reading.procedures: step1. pre-reading stage: in order to arouse the students interest in the topic or type of text, to motivate students to read the text by providing a purpose for reading and to prepare the students for the content of the text. the teacher shows the pictures in the students book, and divides them into groups of three or four to discuss the some questions. this activity arouses the students interest in reading the text. (1).what would you do if you found some money on the street?(2).how do you deal with when you friend fought with you?step2. while-reading stage: the teacher is not there to explain or translate the text to them so that they dont have read it themselves. neither is the teacher there to punish those students who have yet developed efficient reading strategies. there may be a lot of unknown vocabulary in this text, try to ask the students to read the text, and discuss some questions in pairs. it can help the students get the main idea of the text and only deal with a few key words or those that can be worked out from the context. the teacher asks the students to read the text and discuss in pairs the following questions:(1).who did danny buy the shirt for?(2).how much money did brian lose? (3).why did danny and brian fight? (4).whats happing between danny and brian? (5).how do you think they solve their problem?step3. post-reading stage: it has two aims: one is to consolidate or reflect on what has been read in the text; the oth