An investigation of non-English majors after-class English reading and their English proficiency 英语专业毕业论文.doc

an investigation of non-english majors after-class english reading and their english proficiencycontentabstracti摘要iii1 introduction11.1 background11.2 current situation11.3 purpose of the study21.4 significance of the study22 research design32.1 research questions32.2 research subjects32.3 survey instruments32.4 spss11.553 analysis and discussion53.1 the time non-english majors spend in english after-class reading53.2 the purpose and effects of after-class english reading63.3 reading methods and strategies73.4 relationship between extracurricular reading and english proficiency74 conclusion85 some recommendations for current situations95.1 learning strategies95.2 for individuals95.3 for teachers10reference11appendix 113appendix 215appendix 317abstract reading is an indispensable means for people to obtain knowledge, many foreign linguists through plenty of researches found that a lot of reading including recreational reading can extremely helpful for improving the ability in second language learning but how about the situation of chinese non-english majors extracurricular reading ,and what relationship between their extracurricular reading and their english proficiency ? for these questions this paper pay particular attention to the fellow questions(1)how long time the non-english majors spend in after-class reading？ (2)what is the purpose of non-english majors after-class reading?(3)what are the effects of non-english majors after-class reading?(4)what relationship between non-english majors extracurricular english reading and their english proficiencythe instruments adopted in this paper included two questionnaires and interviews.the questionnaire consisted of two parts the first part is the basic situation of investigators, the second part consists multiple choices. respectively research students reading material selection, reading methods, reading goals and reading effects.the interviews were based on the two groups of questions mentioned abovethere are six interviewees were asked questions essentially linked to the research questions，and most of them were open-ended，allowing the interviewees greater freedom to describe their experiences in their own wordsfor example，what do you usually do before reading(during reading，after reading)on your own?do you often plan(monitorevaluare)on your own? ?how do you feel about your own functions during the process of after-class reading?after the analysis we find that(1) the non-english majors didnt spend much time in english reading after class(2) a great majority have some certain purpose in reading (3) most students pay certain attention to their strategies while reading(4) there is a slight positive correlation between after-class reading time and english proficiency. finally we give some suggestions for students after-class reading摘要外语教学在我国己经历了相当长的时间，并取得了长足的发展。许多学习者投入了十几年的时间来学习英语但，收效却很不乐观。 许多国外语言学家通过研究发现,大量的阅读,包括消遣性阅读,对提高第二语言能力极有裨益，同时随着科技的深入发展，知识更新越来越快，迅速获取大量的信息就显得相当迫切而重要，而众所周知当今世界许多先进科技与知识信息都来自于国外，因此提高英语能力对于中国学生来说尤为重要，而对于在国内英语学习环境的学生而言，阅读就无可争议地成为最有效的途径。但现在中国非英语专业学生的英语课外阅读情况究竟如何,与其英语水平的关系又如何呢？针对这些问题,本研究随机选取了西北师范大学非英语专业的86名同学进行了调查，这86名受调查者分别来自于不同的学院及不同的系别，受调查者当中男女比例基本均衡，且文理科都有。经过第一轮的问卷我们还对其中个别学生进行了深入的访谈，确保研究结果客观合理具有一定可参考性。本调查采用问卷法和访谈法，分别对受调查者用于英语课外阅读的时间，阅读过程中是否采用基本阅读策略，他们的阅读目的，及他们的英语课外阅读时间与其英水平的关系进行调查分析通过调查我们发现(1) 非英语专业同学们用于英语课外阅读的时间依然偏少,阅读量较小。(2)部分同学阅读方法不当，在阅读中没有采用阅读策略的意识。(3)大部分同学都是进行有目的性的英语课外阅读，其中出于提高英语成绩的目的较为普遍。（4)非英语专业学生的课外阅读量与其英语水平呈微弱相关最后经过结果分析，本调查还针对目前非英语专业学生英语课外阅读提出了一些较为可行的建议，也给广大老师在英语教学过程中给予学生阅读方面的指导提出了一些建议。key words:non-english majors、after-class reading 、english proficiencyiii1 introduction1.1 background(1)study backgroundreading is an indispensable means for people to obtain knowledge .in 2006, university of electronic science and technology made an investigation of after-class reading conditions for non-english students, the results show that 71% of the students agree that reading is the main way of acquire knowledge which is a much higher percentage than classroom learning (30% ).meanwhile reading content and students proficiency largely depend on after-class work however, under the influence the examination-oriented education ,english education in our country are always stressed textbooks, grammar learning, while ignoring extracurricular english reading. although the quality of education has be promoted and the credit system has been put into practice in our universities, with the promotion of education quality, this situation has changed how the situation of chinese non-english majors extracurricular english reading whats the relationship between their reading and they english proficiency and teachers how to given guidance and assistance to their students, in order to solve those problem we conducted this survey(2)theoretical backgroundkrashen- input hypothesis(1982, 1985) think that the key factor which influence second language acquisition is to read a large number of meaningful and interesting contacts ,then she made clear that vocabulary and spelling acquisition comes from reading. bailey(1991) studied by questionnaire finds that the number of pleasure reading was positively correlated with reading ability. other studies also show that a lot of reading can not only improve the reading ability of second language learners, expand vocabulary but also improve their language skills and language proficiency. 1.2 current situationwhether we are in the classroom, or in social networks, you can see many students have extremity compliant and dissatisfaction for english. the impression for most of the students on the english is boring and difficult. in the classes many students prefer to sleep, play phone, distracted, and even numerous cases of truancy. only a few of students study hard. and do lots of practice especially the reading practice to improve their english proficiency but effect is very poor. in the final exam most students just by recite the answers of textbooks to have a good grade point, but their real proficiency is unsatisfactory.english education play a unique and essential role in the training of high-quality scientific and technological .therefore, the english proficiency of college students occupies an important position. so having analysis to investigate how to improve english proficiency, and what relationship between extracurricular reading and english proficiency is necessary.for this question, we specifically did a study following is some data analysis and statistics. 1.3 purpose of the studythe current foreign language teaching and learning in china is found to be time-consuming with low effectiveness and this has attracted great attentionin the university， reading teaching is still focused on teachers teaching rather than students learningit negleds their subjective initiative and thus produces passive learners，and ineffective teaching and learning to the to change this maximum situation, the best way available is to focus on the studentsall learning can in any case only be carried out by the students themselvesfocusing on the students means that students should take the dominant position，make the most of their extracurricular time，and take the responsibility of their readinglearn how to read effectively lays the basis for the successful reform in reading. 1.4 significance of the studyalong with the development of global communication，the coming of the information age，the english language has started to play all increasingly important role in our social and economic lifehowever，teacher-centered approaches and spoonfed methods have been prevalent for a long time in chinas contextbesides，in the chinese context，few empmcal researches have been done to determine how foreign language learners plan，monitor and evaluate their reading process or what they actually know about their learning process(xie，2000)it is important that students themselves should be given opportunities to think about their reading process so that they may become aware of their own behavior and how these behavior can influence efficiency of readingit is hoped that this study will result in a better understanding of the relationship between the reading ability learners hold and their behavior in readingsuch an understanding would assist teachers in adopting a more effidem teaching approach in class.2 research design 2.1 research questionsthis study main answer the following questions:(1)how long time the non-english majors spend in after-class reading？ (2)what is the purpose of non-english majors after-class reading?(3)what are the effects of non-english majors after-class reading?(4)what relationship between non-english majors extracurricular english reading and their english proficiency? 2.2 research subjectsthe research subjects of this study is the 66 non-english majors from northwest normal university , their age range from twenty to twenty-two -year-old ,average age is 21.32.among those people there are 42 girls and44 boys.form 1(the majors of the subject)majorjapanesetourism managementphysicaleconomic managementchinese linguistic literaturephysicsstudent numbecale16.28%26.74%12.79%9.31%12.79%22.09% 2.3 research instrumentsquestionnaire and interview（1）questionnaireconsisted of two parts the first part is the basic situation of investigators, the second part consists multiple choices. respectively research students reading material selection, reading methods, reading goals and reading difficulties. in order to avoid misunderstandings of language, questionnaire written in chinese.the items in the questionnaire concerning learners behavior for learner autonomy in learning efl reading include：sixteen statements pertaining to the subjects prereading behavior, such as making general arrangements for seizing reading opportunities，choosing reading materials，arranging time，setting reading objectives，and making preparations of prioritizing attention, identifying problems, etc. twenty statements focusing on while-reading monitoring, such as whether the subjects consciously utilize some common and effective reading strategic to aid their comprehension during reading, whether they are aware of their own comprehension and strategy use and make regulations promptly，and whether they know when they meet difficulty and how to solve it；and nine statements dealing with the subjects self-evaluation behavior after reading，chiefly evaluations on their performance，strategy，problems and reading effectives.（2）interviewout of the 33 subjects,6 subjects selected foe an in -depth qualitative studythe mean scores of the questionnaire were first calculated for all the subjectsand then two among the lowest，two among the moderate scorers and two among the highest scorers were chosen respectively，representing the different levels of autonomy the students displayed in doing after-class english readingthe six interviewees were asked questions essentially linked to the research questions mentioned above，and most of them were open-ended，allowing the interviewees greater freedom to describe their experiences in their own wordsthe interviews were based on the two groups of questionsone concerned the interviewees overall behavior involved in the management of their own readingfor example，what do you usually do before reading(during reading，after reading) on your own? do you often plan on your own? why or why not? the other dealt with the possible factors that may influence the interviewees after-class english readingfor example，what are the factories inhibiting or enhancing your autonomous learning of reading? what are the difficulties when you doing after-class english reading on your own? what do you think of the regular reading classes you have had? to what extent are you willing，?how do you feel about your own functions in the process of after-class english reading? in order that the interviewees could express themselves more freely and more clearly, the interview was conducted in chinese(see appendixlv)during the interview，discussion was encouraged to learn about the relevant issues.2.4 spss11.5software package for social science(spss is a powerful and reliable statistical analytical instrument to deal with data collected in applied linguistics.the present study adopts this package to carry out the data analysis3 analysis and discussion 3.1 the time non-english majors spend in english after-class reading questionnaire survey showed that every week the average time for textbooks learning is about 3.65 .the average time for extracurricular reading is 2.14. time spend in after-class reading significantly short than textbook learning form 2( the time spend in after-class reading and textbook learning)(1) the survey shows that the time students spend in english learning, and after-class reading are both short. the average time of english textbook learning is 3.65 , while extra-curricular reading is 2.14hours/ week. so, why they are unwilling or unable to spend more time on english?some students pointed that there are little interest in learning english, and another students mentioned their own professional is more important their have no time to learn english rather than extracurricular reading. although some students are interested in english, they cant find good material to learn so many of them have no choice but give up. (2) the survey also shows that students prefer to learn textbook rather than extracurricular reading because the final paper based on textbook . to learn textbook help improve test scores in addition teachers did not make any demands on extracurricular reading, nor any form of censorship, and whether extracurricular reading real benefit students english proficiency has not certain 3.2 the purpose and effects of after-class english readingform 3(1) purpose: table 3 shows that the vast majority of students in english reading have a clear purpose(only a few students have no definite purpose, while the majority of studentss primary purpose is to improve their english, but this is not the only purpose of their reading, nearly half of students wishing to enrich their lives through english reading,.(2) effect: 78% of the students think english reading can help improve reading skills. through extracurricular reading their reading comprehension become better and they can guess words and meaning of the phrase from context .they can seize the main idea easily most people also agreed that reading, especially read variety of newspapers, and magazines can expand their knowledge, their vocabulary and more authentic usage. 3.3 reading methods and strategies(1)reading methods and strategies directly affect the reading results. in reading process if we take appropriate methods we can use half power but achieved with fold-effect, if we not there will not improve our english proficiency.(2) when we reading take notes can help to expand our vocabulary, learn a word phrase usage, but survey shows 40.20% of students never take notes, they think taking notes is cumbersome, and they think they can remember most of vocabulary and usage after reading , these is no need for pen. although in the interview, majority of students admitted that they can remember some words in that moment, they will forget it after a few days. in 79 objects, only 5 people always take notes, write down the more important or special words and their usage, for future reference review.question 5 survey while reading whether students take notes or notneveroccasionallyalwayscontinuouslynumber4025165proportion0.465%0.290%0.186%0.058%from the surney we can see most students are interested in after-class english reading but they still lack of reading skills and reading planning, some students just blindness . 3.4 relationship between extracurricular reading and english proficiencyamong the students which participating in the survey, 60 people have participated in cet and know their results we use their scores as a measure to analysis their english proficiency, and then we analysis the correlation between textbook learning, extra-curricular reading time and their english proficiency following is the results.english proficiency, textbook learning, and extracurricular reading time expand vocabularyenrich knowledgeimprove reading abilityimprove logical analyzing abilityimprove writing abilitystudent number5158672426scale59.3%67.4%78.0%28.0%30.3%correlation with english proficiencyp the time for textbook.5813.050*the time for extracurricular.2968.047*from the table we can see that english textbooks learning has positive correlation with students english proficiency, students spent more time on the textbook learning their score will higher .but, this is not surprising, because in fact, the so-called textbook learning for exam is just look at on exam so it is naturally the more time, the more scoreson the another hand . the after-class reading and english proficiency just have weak positive correlation .so does this mean that many extracurricular reading can not to help to improve english proficiency? i dont think that, because use the score to measure students english proficiency is not exact although the level of the standard four tests have been widely promoted in the country , but its only one exam ,it has some uncertainties things and it can not fully represent the true level of students english proficiency.4 conclusionthrough the above investigation and analysis, we can see that in general , the non-english majors didnt spend much time in english reading after class , though a great majority did have some purpo