潘琳

Probing into Improving Students' English Reading Ability

——Enlarging Vocabulary

PAN Lin

Abstract This essay offers a detailed report of project intentionally designed to solve the problem that most of my students who in fact are poor in reading while they don't like reading practice. In the meanwhile， It is hypothesized that my students expand their vocabulary， then they will improve their reading ability. ?This hypothesis is verified by two weeks' classroom teaching with the newly-designed vocabulary practice aiming to improve students' reading activities. Methodologically， analytic method， Socratic dialogue， reason analysis and questionnaire survey of four methods.

Key words Probing; Expanding vocabulary; Improving; English reading ability

中圖分類號：G712?文獻標識碼：A DOI：10.16400/j.cnki.kjdkz.2016.01.025

1 Introduction

With the development of electronic times， audio and vision enjoyment becoming the first choice， many people believe that we are moving rapidly away from reading as a necessary life skill. But this is not the case at all. Good reading habit is always an important life skill ever since and it continues to be the cornerstone of both advanced education and future job seeking. For students， almost all subjects studying involve reading and reading daily necessary， it being either a stumbling block or a smooth path to pleasure and opportunity. That is why good reading habits are an important learning skill for the students.

I have been teaching the students who are sophomore （logistic major）. In my teaching I have found that there is the problem that most of students are poor in reading while are lack of interest in reading. By attempting to snowball students' vocabulary， I expect to solve the problem that has been troubling me for some time by means of the action research so that I can apply my knowledge and theory to teaching implement.

2.1Problem

1. The problem with my students in the teaching is that most of them are poor in reading and they don't like doing reading practice.

2.2 Problem analysis

2.2.1 Analytic method

During my teaching process， the problem is really a serious problem. Most of my students don't like doing the reading practice and most of my students are poor in reading. I have recaptured my analysis below：

Why our students don't like reading practice， while others do？

◇Who are the students that don't， while the others that do？

This prompted me to make a chain of reflections. I really want to know why it should be so， whether they think it important and necessary to practice reading or not？ If my students know the importance of reading comprehension then the problem might be due to me， not my students. Maybe I assigned my students to read to do was poorly organized or the topic was not novel. Now， I have finished the problem by the Analytic Method. Then I try to give it a further investigation by making a Socratic Dialogue.

2.2.2 Socratic Dialogue

Socratic dialogue is a process of asking yourself a series of intelligent questions about your problem， and trying to answer them at the same time. Through this process you discover the complexity of your problem. It was a very effective way to get ideas sorted out. It would help me to eliminate most of them as the actual cause of my problem.

Why is it that I can't get my students to do reading in English？

→What do I mean by "do reading "？ What sort of practice do I expect them to do？

Through Socratic Dialogue， I realize that the problem is probably caused by students' lack of interest or my impractical design of reading assignment. To make sure I moved on to do a cause analysis.

2.2.3 Cause analysis

The students' side：

Firstly， some students' vocabulary is limited， so they think they can't understand the meaning of the words. As a result， they can't understand the whole meaning of the passage. Secondly， some students have some difficulty in understanding the sentence structure， because their English is poor. Finally， the scope of most students' knowledge is narrow. For example， they are only familiar with a certain kind of topic.

2.2.4 Questionnaire： To see Appendix D

3. The Project Objective：

The objective of my project is to improve students' reading ability by enlarging their vocabulary.

4. The Project Hypothesis：

If my students have large stock of vocabulary， their reading ability will be improved.

5. The rationale of the project：

For students - I want students to recognize the role of expanding English vocabulary is very important. Learning vocabulary is the foundation for students to gain access to the vocabulary through various means.

6. Vocabulary Practice Design：

My hypothesis is that expanding my students' vocabulary can lead to improved reading ability. Moreover， my new assignment activity has a real information value so the students will have read and communicate willingly with a clear purpose. Then I will design three activities to be tried out in two weeks （Cover two weeks of teaching） to test the hypothesis. And these activities are reported as follows.

Week 1：

Activity 1 How to Be a Successful Language Learner

This activity is based on the Unit 1 of Getting goods moving （logistic English）

Purpose： to master 20 goals glossary in text， not only recite goals words but understand them and apply them.

Instructions： Students worked in groups. Students listen to the tape carefully and then read new words aloud and individually.

Procedures： First， students listen to the tape carefully （two times）. Then the teacher explained the new words and expressions， include synonyms， antonyms， prefixes， suffixes and match formation. Next， explained different usage of these words in the sentences. At last， I asked a whole class to read together.

For students： Students were going to read twenty goals words by themselves. First， the student should read aloud and identify with the same root word according to the phonetic transcription. Finally， students took out a piece of paper and pay more attention to the teacher's dictating the new words.

Vocabulary work exercises： to see the Appendix A（略）

Error-correction in class.

Week 2：

Activity 2 Vocabulary test

Purpose： to check if students have mastered the words' meaning in the original context and been aware of the words' collocation; to check if students can understand the target words in fixed time.

Instructions： Classroom- conducted tests and practice reading， writing.

Procedure： First， the teacher prepared a test and asked students to finish it in 35 minutes. Students must complete the papers separately， then the teacher explains the requirement of assignment， finally students hand in their papers at once.

For students： You will check the answer in your text paper. First， the students check by themselves， they can correct the errors in red pen. Then they will be asked to write their answer on the blackboard.

For example： What is the word "fast" means？ You can answer， "swift"， "steady"， unfading"， " dissipated" and so on. that in such contexts as "a fast cricket pitch，" "a fast friend，" "fast color，" and "fast woman，" you must guess the meaning from the context.

7. Control and target group：

In order to set up control and target groups. It took me two weeks to implement the project. Every week to ask each group of students to read or recite least 50 words. However， for the target group， according to the above experiments， students can broaden their vocabulary by reciting not only assigned words and expression in textbooks， but also increase the need for extra-curricular vocabulary， and apply these words. Although everything is remains the same as the control group.

8. Project implementation：

It took me two weeks to achieve my project. I will do these every week：

▲Lecture notes： to see Appendix B

▲Students' handouts： to see Appendix A

▲My students' handouts include： 1） Vocabulary exercises 2） Homework

▲Keep the Diary： to observe the response of students and my own. To see Appendix C

▲The questionnaire： To see Appendix D

9. Project finds and conclusion

The paper aimed to improve my students reading ability by enlarging vocabulary.

Three months ago， I was determined to solve most of my students didn't do enough reading of the key issues so they were poor in reading. In my study， four methods was used .there are analytic method， Socratic dialogue， cause analysis and questionnaire survey. From the action research， I have gained a lot of benefits. My teaching has been improved considerably with deeper insights to the teaching profession， more acute sensitivity to the vocabulary practice organization and more confidence in myself as a language teacher.

After the probe， my students have improved their reading ability and have learned pausing for a moment on each new word. Through practicing most of the students can try to guess what the word means from context clues， understanding the same word has different meanings in different sentences and through word parts etc. Most of students will feel more confident. According to some other related survey， the possible factors that have effect on students' reading abilities are inadequate understanding of the cultural background and complex grammatical structure. The focus of this paper is the relation between vocabulary and reading ability. So other factors will also be worthy of exploration in the future. I will continue with the reflection of the spiral cycle will lead me to the endless pursuit of the perfect teaching. The final report is over， but my action is not. In fact， I have just started.

Appendix A： Vocabulary exercises（略）

Appendix B： Teaching notes（略）

Appendix C： ?Diaries（略）

Appendix D： ?The questionnaire

The previous questionnaire survey： please respond to the statements as they apply to your study of English. If you disagree strongly agree， you can mark （SA）， If you agree， you can mark （A）， If you are not sure， you can mark undecided （U）， if you disagree， you can mark （D）， if you disagree strongly disagree， you can mark （SD）. Please don't take too much think， react quickly， tried not to change your response， after you choose them， please use a pen to mark your choice

The findings of the survey showed that students use different methods of reading. In fact， it isn't a scientific method， which not only affects the reading speed， but also affects the quality of reading. The form shows that most students lack of vocabulary. Therefore， I think that the students should realize the significance and necessity of reading practice. But they might run into difficulties that they cannot overcome， as a result， they lose confidence and interest.