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1、中学英语阅读技能的培养与提高On Cultivation and Improvement of English Reading Strategies in Middle SchoolAbstract: With English more and more widely used in social communication, reading, as one of the four basic skills of language teaching and an aspect of communicative competence, has drawn more and more attent
2、ion in the English language circles. English reading is widely seen as an effective way in helping students study English and fundamentally improve their English language competence. English reading skills, therefore, are understood, as playing an important role in enhancing reading capability, whic
3、h also exercises impacts on other capacities of the learners including listening, speaking and writing. It can be claimed that whether the teaching of English reading is effective in middle schools largely affects the outcomes of English teaching. The paper mainly introduces some problems both in En
4、glish learning and teaching and factors of influence English reading in foreign language. According to the problems and factors putting the author aims at forward some solutions to problems in English reading. Key words: English reading; reading ability; reading comprehension; strategies摘 要：随着英语在社会交
5、际中越来越广泛的使用，阅读作为四项基本语言技能之一和交际能力的一个重要方面越来越受到重视。教学界对英语阅读的研究呈现出越来越浓厚的兴趣。在英语学习中,阅读是人们获取英语知识、提高英语水平的有效途径。英语阅读技能既是重要的语言技能,也是重要的学习技能,是发展其他语言技能的基础和前提。阅读教学在初中英语教学中占有重要地位。阅读教学的有效性直接关系到教学质量。但传统的以传授语言知识 为主、语言实践为辅的教学模式使阅读教学低效或无效。因此,对初中英语阅读教学有效性的研究具有现实意义。本文主要介绍了阅读教与学中普遍存在的一些问题和影响英语作为外语阅读的一些因素。并根据这些问题和影响因素提出了几点解决方案
6、。关键字：英语阅读；阅读能力；阅读理解；策略ContentsI.Introduction.1II. Problems in Middle School English Reading.1 III. Factors Influencing English Reading.2 A. Cultural background.3B. Reading habits. . .3C. Motivation. . . 4D. Vocabulary. . . 4E. Reading proficiency in mother tongue. . 4 IV. The Solutions to the Proble
7、ms in English Reading.5A. Solving the problems on cultural background knowledge 5 B. Cultivating good reading habits. . . . .5C. Arousing the students interests. . . . .6D. Enhancing vocabulary . . . .6E. Developing fast reading. . . .7V. Procedures for Teaching a Reading Lesson .8A. Pre-reading Act
8、ivities. . . . . .8 B. While-reading Activities. . . . .8C. Post-reading Activities . . . . . .9VI. Conclusion . . . . . 10Works Cited . .12 I. IntroductionMost of people believe that where there is no reading, there is no improvement in foreign language learning. It shows the importance of reading.
9、 Reading is also very important in foreign language teaching, the reasons of which are follows: firstly, students general knowledge depends on reading; secondly, reading is done in class as model for future writing; thirdly, reading texts also provide opportunities to study language, such as vocabul
10、ary, grammar, punctuation, or the way sentences, paragraphs, and texts are constructed; lastly, also is most important that reading comprehension cover large scores in students English test. So more and more learners research into teaching of reading in and out of China. A research shows that text c
11、omprehension requires both language knowledge and recognition of key ideas and their relationships. Language knowledge primarily involves vocabulary knowledge and grammar knowledge. There is a range of research that argues for a strong relation both between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehen
12、sion. Research on syntactic processing or word integration processes also suggests significant relationship between syntactic parsing abilities and comprehension abilities. Almost all reading researchers agree that background knowledge plays an important role in reading comprehension. A recent study
13、 by Meyer and Poor demonstrated that structure strategy training significantly improved recall from texts for both younger adults and older adults.Research has long been asserted that, in the classroom teaching practice, reading instruction should be engaged in dealing with items of grammar and new
14、vocabulary, thus ignoring the development of the students reading abilities. It is also asserted that reading ability will develop automatically through practice of grammar, vocabulary and structure. Under the cloak of this view, classroom practice focuses too much attention on decoding the meaning
15、of words, phrases or sentence structures rather than interpreting and understanding the message conveyed in the reading material. “Materials designed for reading tasks seem to be artificial since the intention is to draw students attention to items of structural usage rather than to the authentic fe
16、atures characteristic of real text, or what makes texts hang together”(Liu and Xiao 64-65). II. Problems in Middle School English ReadingDuring the time when I am an informal teacher in a middle school, I did some researches about English reading. According to these researches I found there are some
17、 problems in both learning and teaching in English reading.As for students, reading problems are at present very serious. First, the students are not so much exposed to the particular culture as a result of limited reading. The great differences between the Chinese culture and English culture may hi
18、nder learners from comprehending better and reading faster. Second, slow reading is a common disease, which can be shown from one of the authors surveys about the status of middle school students reading. Third, reading skills and strategies remain poor and undeveloped. Students tend to treat all te
19、xts the same way. They read everything word by word and focus too much their attention on detailed information and structural analysis. They have difficulty in dealing with new words and expression they meet across when reading. Translation still cannot be done away within reading. Fourth, students
20、lack of vocabulary is a big problem in their reading. Many students said that there are too many new words to understand in reading.For teachers, there are a few backwards in their teaching reading, which are summarized as follows: Firstly, some teachers have misconceptions of language essence. They
21、 pay little attention to treat the function of language as a cognitive tool. Secondly, the traditional teaching method is still active in reading teaching. Teachers spend most of the time explaining new words, phrases, structures and grammar rules, neglecting to analyze the organization and content
22、of the whole text. Consequently, the phenomenon of “seeing the trees without knowing the wood”（Marianne 102） often occurs in reading. Thirdly, the classroom teaching is not student-centered, and the creation of situation and meaning are often overlooked. Students are lacking in cooperative learning
23、and self-initiative study. Fourthly, modern educational technology cannot fully be employed in the teaching practice, which can only be used on some special occasions. According, we should get rid of unfavorable teaching concepts and adopt advanced educational theories to guide our teaching.III. Fac
24、tors Influencing English Reading From above paragraph we have known that there are many problems in English reading. What lead to these problems? We could find the reasons if we would on analyze carefully. Chinese people and English native speakers have different ways of thinking and modes of expres
25、s, owing to their respective and unique social practice and geographic environments. A. Cultural background“Language is a part of culture and also the carrier and the container of culture. Language and culture are closely related, each influencing and shaping the other”（Andrew 98）. To learn a foreig
26、n language implies to learn the culture in which it is spoken. Reading is a kind of verbal communication. The readers communicate with the author(s) through the text. In this way, culture factors are inherent to the reading act and therefore influence the readers control over the input. In the readi
27、ng process, we cannot understand or interpret a text without the influence of our previous social experience and social context in which the reading takes place. The text we read, the topic we are interested in as well as the way we approach are culturally constructed. The cultural factors play an i
28、mportant role in the process of English reading. Some cultural factors cause problems in reading directly so as to confuse students and hinder their understanding. Other culture misunderstandings may dangle in their mind and prevent them from grasping the real meaning. Culture and language are close
29、ly related to each other. As one way of communication, reading English materials reflect cultural differences through the language in written form. The readers should be aware of the cultural differences and try their best to accumulate background knowledge of all sorts.B. Reading habitsReading habi
30、ts also influence reading. A learner begins to read a foreign language by looking at each word to decode the word and keep it in working memory while the next word is being processed. As the reader reads more, he can decode words faster and remember them more easily. He can read in more words within
31、 the limed space of his memory. This then allows the reader to move from the word-by-word level of decoding to the processing of chunks of texts - short phrases or “ideas”. This is a vital stage in the learners development because he is no longer working with words; he is working with ideas. At this
32、 level he can make more effective use of background information about the topic to fill in non-comprehended parts of the text. “It is well known that we tend to remember ideas much better than actual words” (Rao 154). When we read for meaning, we do not need to read every letter or every word in eac
33、h sentence because each sentence helps you to guess what the next one will be. And normally when we read, our eyes take in whole phrases at a time: they do not move from word to word in a straight line, but flick backwards and forwards over the text. Therefore, attempting to read one word at a time
34、slows down reading so much that we lose the sense of what we are reading. The slow reader has problems: first, the volume of reading is reduced, and second, his comprehension suffers.C. MotivationThe motivation is the thing that can keep learners going. “A famous educationist states that Tell me and
35、 I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn” (Andrew 101). This is to say the more that learner is involved, the more he/she learns. Interest is the most active element in learning English and it is also the effective stimulant to learn. Interest can push people forward to learn and a
36、ct actively, and surely interest is a decisive factor, which influences ones motivation, attitudes and perseverance. However some students have lost interest in learning English, and most of them just kept silent and acted as audience during a lesson. They seldom spoke English or raised their hands
37、to answer the teachers questions voluntarily, and some even fell asleep. It seemed that they were attaching little importance to their English lesson. D. VocabularyVocabulary is very important for foreign language learners. It is not just beginners who need lots of vocabulary. All students need to w
38、ork constantly on building vocabulary. Although they take much pain in memorizing the words, the outcome is not ideal as they have expected. The students lacking of vocabulary appears to be a major obstacle in reading comprehension. Vocabulary is know as receptive vocabulary that reads recognize whe
39、n they see it but do not use when they speak or write. Usually, readers have a general sense of a words meaning but are not sure of its many meanings or nuances of meaning. “Productive vocabulary is the vocabulary that people actually use to speak and write. Like first language speaks, second langua
40、ge speaks have a larger receptive than productive vocabulary” (Liu 132).E. Reading proficiency in mother tongue Reading proficiency that a reader has in mother tongue also appears to be an important factor in the development of second language reading skills. In first language skill reader has the p
41、otential for using first language skills to enhance second language reading. There is a transfer of reading skills from the first language to a second language. Teaching reading skills in native language may facilitate the transfer. If someone has high proficiency in mother tongues reading, his/her
42、proficiency in second language is also high. To become better readers, students need to become aware of how they are reading and what they could do to improve comprehension. They need to develop their level of metacognitive awareness. “Meta means after or behind, and cognition means the act or proce
43、ss of knowing or perception. Thus, metacognition is understanding what is behind, what supports or informs readers knowledge and perception. In the simplest terms, it means understanding the processes of knowing, or how readers know and perceive” (Shu 145). IV. The Solutions to the Problems in Engli
44、sh ReadingEnglish as a language has its own formations and principals which are different from Chinese, so as a member of non-English-speaking country who learns English, one should strengthen the basic English linguistic knowledge such as vocabulary and sentence structures, and so on. To most of us
45、, we have a poorly fundamental linguistic knowledge, therefore there is a long way we need to go to make up this weakness. What is worse, we have been studied Chinese since we were pupils. Unlike Chinese as a mother language, we have not English learning environment to cultivate our English intuitio
46、n. So we should enhance our basic English linguistic knowledge by reading. “Because there is no basic language knowledge, there is no language application” (Wu 78). Reading is useful to enlarge vocabulary and enrich fundamental English linguistic knowledge. Reading not on1y enables a 1eamer to learn
47、 Eng1ish knowledge from book but also helps them consolidate their vocabulary and grammar. These vocabulary and grammar are the base of improving the other four English skills- speaking, writing, translation, and listening. As reading is so important for English learner that there is no doubt that a good reading ability is of great importance in English learning. Here are several ways to improve a learners reading ability.A. Solving the problems on cultural background knowledgeGenerally speaking, the areas of foreign language reading most influenced by background knowledge. So, teacher should