Study Of The Effects Of Suggestopedia On Non-English Majored College Students' English Reading Comprehension And Reading Anxiety

The New College English Curriculum,a result of further educational reform in China,states that college teachers should pay attention to the emotions of students and try to create a better learning environment.This makes it possible for teachers to bring students' initiatives into full play.And for non-English majors,reading comprehension accounts for 35%of College English Test Band 4 test,which shows vividly how important English reading is.Besides,it is fair to say the ability of reading is part and parcel of English learning as a whole,with the other abilities like listening,speaking and writing all being influenced by it directly or indirectly.Today,however,the status quo of English reading teaching for non-English college students defies any optimism.In many colleges,teachers are still using the traditional grammar translation method of teaching,which leads to a lack of interest in English learning among non-English majors and affects their reading performance too.The author thus has tried to apply a humanistic and effective instruction called Suggestopedia to the English reading classes.According to teaching experiments done in Former Soviet Union,America,Canada,Australia,German,French,Japan,Hungary,Spain etc.,the teaching efficiency of Suggestopedia has been doubled or even tripled.But in China,research on the application of Suggestopedia to English reading classes was much fewer and more theoretical.In order to provide more empirical data in this regard,the author has applied the principles of Suggestopedia in the traditional reading class and tried to explore the effects of Suggestopedia on non-English majored students' English reading comprehension and reading anxiety.Triangulation,one of the measuring methods was used here,which encompasses the pretest-posttest experimental design,questionnaire survey and semi-structured interview.The subjects were from a second tier university in Xi Xian New Area,where the author worked as a part-time teacher.Each class had 45 freshmen.The control class were composed of mass communication majors aged 18.23 on average while the experimental class were made up of students majoring in economics with an average age of 18.63.From September to December 2017,in the experimental class,the teacher has applied the basic principles of Suggestopedia to the English reading teaching process,while the control class remained to use the traditional grammar translation approach.Before and after the implementation of Sugggestopedic teaching,students in both classes have also been asked to finish a questionnaire on the basis of the Foreign Language Reading Anxiety Scale.Moreover,by the end of the experiment,students at different levels(high,middle and low)on English reading comprehension and English reading anxiety from the experimental class were interviewed by the author.After the data were collected,the author used independent sample t-test and paired samples t test to examine significant differences with SPSS 22.0.NVivo 10 was used to analyze the qualitative data from the interview subsequently.Here are the research findings:1.Suggestopedia has helped improve students' English reading comprehension,with the students in high level and low level making the greatest progress in their English reading comprehension scores.Based on the interviews,students reported their improvement as the result of increased reading interest,reading efficiency and their understanding of the reading materials;2.Suggestopedia has mitigated all of the students' reading anxiety,especially students with the high-level reading anxiety.Based on the interviews,students reported that they got a more positive view of themselves because they have found much potential of their own and more interest in English reading in a Suggestopedic teaching classs;3.Regarding the problems on chatting and task distribution in a Suggestopedic teaching class,the interviewed students put forward a few practical suggestions,such as designating a team leader,adding teacher's intervention,developing students' sense of autonomy and assigning individualized tasks.The first implication from this thesis was that teachers for non-English majors could try to combine the basic principles of Suggestopedia in the traditional English reading class.In this way could the students feel more relaxed and have more fun.And the second implication was that the teachers should recognize the unconscious learning process in English reading.By creating a relaxing and encouraging learning environment in the Suggestopedic class,it is likely for students to have a child-like acquisition and what they have learned on English reading would be better internalized and longer retained.