| In English learning,reading is an essential skill that promotes the acquisition of knowledge and exchange of information(Dlugosz,2000).Nowadays,many colleges offer the professional curricula in English,namely English for Specific Purposes(ESP).ESP reading materials with professional characteristics become the important part in college students’ study.However,for many non-English major students,it is difficult for them to understand the contents in their professional books which are written in English as well as the knowledge which is taught in English on account of the lacking of practicing English skills.Besides,in the actual English teaching,the main focuses are still on vocabulary and grammar.The results are that students are lack of the ability of using reading strategies,and their understanding of articles is often fragmental.Thus,helping these non-English major students who learn the ESP course to understand their professional English reading materials better becomes an important issue.In order to improve learners’ reading comprehension,effective reading strategies and supportive tools are being widely considered.Concept mapping reading strategy has been found by many researchers that it can enhance learners’ reading comprehension.Concept mapping reflects the process of thinking,and it is also one of the meta-cognitive learning strategies.Through the representation of students’ thinking process,students can find out their reading problems,and then they can improve their reading strategies in time.Also,they can be trained to get into the habit of combining new knowledge with existing information in the process of ESP reading,and that can help them to understand the reading materials better.With the help of concept mapping,instructors can know about what the students think while reading,and then they can take pertinent measures to improve students’ English reading score and their usage of reading strategies,especially for non-English major students who do not have the professional English reading training like English major students.Nowadays,with the development of technology,computer has become an important element of language learning,being used as a medium to facilitate language learning.With the help of computer,limitations of the traditional paper-pencil method of constructing concept mapping get remedied.The computer-assisted method is more effective in helping students to construct concept mapping.It is also more effective in facilitating the constructing of concept mapping.Besides,it can reproduce the process of students’ thinking much more clear and vivid.In this study,the author adopts both quantitative research method and qualitative research method,aiming to find out the effects of computer-assisted concept mapping strategy on non-English major students’ ESP reading comprehension.The research question consists of two aspects: one is the influence on the reading score,and the other is the influence on the usage of English reading strategies.The author has two major findings.Firstly,computer-assisted concept mapping strategy has positive effects on non-English learners’ ESP reading score.Secondly,computer-assisted concept mapping strategy has great influence on the usage of English reading strategies,especially in the aspects of Listing,Inferring,Summarizing,and Reviewing.There are lots of researchers make studies on the topic that the effects of concept mapping on learners’ English reading.However,most of the researchers adopt the traditional method of constructing concept mapping in this field.Different from them,the author adopts computer-assisted concept mapping strategy,and chooses the software Inspiration,which is easily to operate,to help accomplish the research.Besides,this thesis mainly explores the effects of computer-assisted concept mapping on ESP(English for Specific Purposes)field,which is quite different from other researches.The research contents are original,and the research objects are more specific. |
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