The Application Of Input Theory To College English Reading Instruction And Learning

For all the second language learners, reading is an effective means of learning English as well as one of the main English learning purposes. Thus, reading is universally and officially acknowledged to be a prior language skill. With the progress of English language teaching in China, the Ministry of Education revised the National Syllabus and published a new one in 1999, which has set higher demands on students' competence in their practical application of English language. In Syllabus, it designates that "to help students lay a solid foundation on language, master better methods of language learning and improving their cultural accomplishment so as to meet the requirements of the social development and economic construction."Mainly based on theories of reading, Krashen's Input Hypothesis and other theories related to input research, this thesis first discusses the possible accesses to the English input and standards of high-quality input. Accompanying the language input is the cultural and affective input. In the light of the detailed discussion on the combined effect of the three factors on reading, the author has worked out an effective approach to reading instruction and learning, i.e. comprehensive input-based approach to English reading instruction and learning (CIERIL). This new approach emphasizes the comprehensive input in terms of language, culture and affect, the sources of the input can come from the textbooks, teacher's talk, newspapers and magazines etc.In order to confirm its applicability in practice, a one-semester experiment was conducted. The teaching result demonstrated that the scores of the Experimental Class in reading comprehension were higher than that of the Control Class. To further make sure about the significance of the experiment, their scores were put into the computer, and SPSS 11.0 was used to analyze them. The result indicates that the differences of the two classes are significant statistically. So we can reach the conclusion that this integrated approach to reading is not only applicable but also effective in the process of improving the ability of second language learners' reading comprehension. Finally, some implications are pointed out, which may be useful in the College English teaching and learning, as a reference.