A Study Of The Relationship Between Reading Ability In Chinese And English Vocabulary In Senior English Reading

Improving students'reading ability in English is the important project of English teaching in senior high school. During my work, I find students'reading ability in Chinese and English vocabulary have effects on their English reading level. This essay tries to study the relationship between reading ability in Chinese and English vocabulary and pursue the ways of improving students'reading level.In the field of L2 reading study, Goodman et al proposed reading skill transfer theory. That is, reading ability in L1 can naturally transfer to L2 if the readers have a certain level of L2. The vocabulary is one of the important factors of L2.Besides, reading model theory is employed in this thesis, which discusses the reading process: In English reading, students first process in a bottom-up way through vocabulary. And then schema knowledge is used to understand the article in a top-down way.English vocabulary supports English reading as the basic part of language. Reading ability in Chinese helps students construct schema knowledge system, providing background knowledge for English reading.This study takes reading ability in Chinese and English vocabulary as independent variables while English reading ability as dependent ones. The relationship of the two can be expressed as"Reading ability in Chinese (+) English vocabularyâ†'Reading ability in English."This essay aims to answer the following two questions:1) Is there an association between reading ability in Chinese and English vocabulary?2) How are reading ability in Chinese and English vocabulary associated?The objects of this study come from Grade two in SuYuan Senior High School. The whole study process consists of three steps.Firstly, the students are tested respectively concerning their reading ability in Chinese,their English vocabulary and their reading ability in English. Secondly, the students are investigated for their bilingual reading situation. Finally, the related data and information are collected and arranged for analysis.The statistical data of the exams scores indicates that the formula mentioned above really exists. Students'reading ability in Chinese and English vocabulary are in a balanced connection state. Having been combined together by grade sequence, both of them, together with reading ability in English, have a directly proportional relationship.The results of the investigation prove that the common reading model is interactive model; reading ability in Chinese can affect the gaining degree of the background knowledge; the compensation effect of background knowledge has been accepted by most students. However, it will finally lose when students'vocabulary is limited. Sometimes it even interferes with students'reading judgment. Meanwhile, English vocabulary helps little with guessing meanings of the context.To sum up, reading ability in Chinese and English vocabulary affect the reading process together as important factors in senior English reading. However, threshold effect of English vocabulary is especially obvious.