A Study Of The Role Of Imagery In Teaching Of College English Reading

Reading is an issue which has received universal attention from researchers both at home and abroad. Traditional reading models and theories have made great contribution to the development of reading research and facilitated the teaching and learning of reading. However, these reading models and theories limit the focus on linguistic aspects, while ignore non-linguistic aspects, which plays equally important role in reading process. Dual Coding Theory (DCT), as a comparatively novel cognitive theory, gives equal emphasis to both verbal and nonverbal aspects in reading process. It assumes that cognition in reading consists of the activity of two separate coding systems of mental representation: verbal system and nonverbal system. Nonverbal system mainly deals with images. Numerable researches abroad have proved that imagery generation is effective in promoting reading comprehension and recall of information in first and second language environment. However, there are relatively few studies of imagery in English as a foreign language (EFL) environment.Employing DCT as the theoretical foundation, the present thesis intends to explore the role of imagery in the teaching of college English reading. Two parallel classes of non-English majors in ChangChun University were selected as the subjects, who were randomly categorized into experimental group (EG) and control group (CG), and received the pre-test and post-test. The collected data was quantitatively analyzed by SPSS14.0, implemented by qualitative analysis. It can be concluded from the results that:(1) Imagery generation can effectively promote college students'(non-English majors) reading comprehension and recall of information; (2) Those evoking more mental images perform better in reading than those evoking few mental images; (3) Imagery and affective responses are closely related; affective responses also play an effective role in promoting reading performance; (4) By comparison, it is known that imagery is more effective than affective responses in promoting the teaching of college English reading.In the light of the major findings, the following suggestions are made: teachers are suggested to choose reading materials that are concrete, similar to readers'personal experience, and that could arouse readers'interests; teachers could arrange preview tasks and provide related reading questions; teachers could instruct how to form images gradually by the aid of pictures, from sentence, paragraph to text, and encourage students to convert the dull abstract words into corresponding concrete language; or assign after-class reading activities by way of summarization and self-questioning to review the generated images, so as to promote reading comprehension and recall of information. Therefore, the current study brings new insight to the reform of college English teaching.