A Study On Reading Strategies And Teaching Efficiency In Vocational School English Classroom

Reading is one of the most important activities in which much time and great efforts are generally invested. It has always been a major target of English teaching to improve the students'ability of reading comprehension. How to help the students grasp reading skills and cultivate their reading ability in limited periods of time to achieve reading efficiency remains one of the principle problems of reading course. More recent studies show that students can be taught to use better strategies, and that better strategies can improve language performance. Teaching students how to apply reading strategies can enhance students'efforts to reach the successful result in greater self-confidence and improved proficiency.This thesis adopts the Psycholinguistic Model of Reading, the Schema Theory and the Learning Strategies, addresses the topic of performing Reading Strategies and Reading Efficiency in English Class. Among kinds of strategies three relative reading strategies in this study are derived: vocabulary, background knowledge, and making predictions.Sixty-four sophomores from Computer Department of Information Engineering Technology School were chosen as subjects in the study. There were thirty-two in experimental group (Group One) who received two months'reading training in reading class, while the other thirty-two in the control group (Group Two) were still required to follow the traditional EFL (English as Foreign Language). The reading strategy training consists of two stages: awareness training and task training (Strategies-based instruction on Language Skill).Results were analyzed by means of quantitative and qualitative methods. After careful statistical analysis of the experiment, significant difference was found between Group One and Group Two students. And the results have made it clear that applying reading strategy in English teaching and learning of vocational school has effectively improved Group One students'reading abilities.At last subjects'retrospective reports were designed to investigate students'attitudes towards their reading study after the experiment. And the findings of students'retrospective reports support the conclusion of the experiment as well.The major findings of the current study are as follows: reading strategies do play an important role in the effectiveness of reading comprehension and the employment of reading strategies affects reading outcomes in a positive way. It is obvious that students taught in the traditional EFL teaching method remain passive in classroom response. This is the most possible reason why some students'reading abilities have not made progress after two months'study under the instruction of traditional EFL teaching method. Therefore, the foreign language teaching method being utilized should be reexamined with new visual angle of learning strategy. Teachers should first raise students'awareness of the value and usefulness of reading strategy in EFL reading, and then provide strategy instruction to students as a part of the reading course. The specific use of the strategies demonstrates that students can easily understand what these strategies are and how to employ them in practice. Besides, teachers should provide students with enough opportunities to practice the use of these strategies so that these strategies can be used consciously and effectively. Therefore, it is necessary to carry out reading strategy instruction in our classroom teaching. This study implies that reading strategy is especially important in building students'reading ability and some kinds of strategy training is essential in education.