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The Effect Of Input Quantity On Reading Proficiency

Posted on:2006-01-20Degree:MasterType:Thesis
Country:ChinaCandidate:D X WeiFull Text:PDF
GTID:2155360152481314Subject:English Language and Literature
Abstract/Summary:PDF Full Text Request
The main purpose of this study was to test the influence of more input on students' reading proficiency and their English proficiency. English input mainly comes from reading and listening, this study aims at testing the effect of more input on students' reading proficiency and English proficiency by offering supplementary reading materials in different quantities out of class. Reading is an important course for college students, especially for English majors, this has been required in syllabus for English majors, reading occupies a sizable proportion in all kinds of tests for people wanting to go abroad, and the experiences of overseas Chinese students show the importance of reading. However, because of some limitations, college students cannot be exposed to a large quantity of reading materials. The author took Krashen's Input Hypothesis as the theoretical framework and comprehensible input was revised as comprehended input. The study was conducted in order to achieve the following purposes: (1) to increase their reading proficiency and their overall English proficiency; (2) to develop their interests in reading; and (3) to help them develop good study habits. Participants: all the participants were chosen randomly from one hundred freshmen of 2003 English and Medicine double majors, and experimental group and control group consisted of 30 students respectively, which was composed of 12 males and 18 females, and the author taught them intensive reading. The experiment lasted one semester (the first semester) and it was done in two stages. The first stage lasted 2 months in which the author offered experimental group a lot of 'authentic' reading materials which were various in style and in content in order to arouse their interests in reading and develop their good study habits. The second stage lasted one month, in which reading materials with exercises were delivered to them in order to make sure that they would read them. Every week, they read more than two-thousand-word materials and all the supplementary reading materials were handed out to them free of charge. Instruments: At the end of the semester, before the final test, the author and other four teachers set one test paper referring to the sample test paper in teacher's reference book1 and the sample tests ofBand 2 in, the editions of the proficient tests of Band 1-8 for English majors, the two groups took part in the test, their score of each part of the test paper and their total score were put into the computer in order to test the reliability of the test paper by the test paper analyzing system software of Xun Yang Medical College (designed by Wei Wen-fang of the computer center of Xun Yang Medical College), the result was got as follows: p=0.65, p value was between 0.6 and 0.8 which showed it was neither difficult nor easy and it could be used to test their proficiency. Based on the reliability of that test paper, another test paper was set for intensive reading for the final test by the author and other four intensive reading teachers. The two groups took part in the test for intensive reading at the same time and their scores of the final test paper were put into the computer and Independent -Samples t-test was performed by SPSS 10.0. Results were as follows: The average score of reading comprehension of the experimental group was 30.9and that of the control group was 29.2, p=0.046 (p<0.05) showing the significant differences in these two groups. The average total score of the experimental group was 74.63 and that of the control group was 71.46, p=0,041 (p<0.05) showing the significant differences in them. The scores of reading comprehension and the total score of the experimental group were both higher than those of the control group, which indicated that both the reading proficiency and language proficiency of the experimental group had been increased by reading a larger quantity of materials. In order to test whether the purpose (2) and purpose (3) had been achieved, the author did it by the means of observing and analyzing summaries written b...
Keywords/Search Tags:comprehensible input, great exposure, authenticity, reading proficiency
PDF Full Text Request
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