An Empirical Research On Optimization Of Reading Teaching For English Majors Under The Network-based Environment

In the21century, English reading under the network environment has become an effective method used among college English majors in China. Compared with the traditional reading class, English reading learning under the network environment has incomparable superiority, which has been shown from the real teaching practice. As same as all the other teaching models, there are also some inevitable limitations in the model of English teaching under the network-based environment.Therefore, how to optimize English teaching under the network-based environment, further play its strengths and improve teaching effectiveness are naturally important issues for present teaching and research.Inspired by Theories of Reading, Schema Theory, Information, Communication Theory and Network Teaching Theory, the author makes the related research. A second-year English major class is selected as the subject, and the teaching experiment lasts a semester, that is a total of eighteen weeks of English reading curriculum practice which is under the network environment. The teaching procedure is as follows:English reading lessens for English majors are conducted at a multi-media language lab, where all computers of the teacher and students are connected to the Internet. Under the guidance of the teacher, the students have pre-reading work with the purpose of trying to find out the related background materials of the text from Internet before class for in-reading lesson learning and online reading group discussion. The post-reading assignments are also completed under the network. During the course of teaching, six tests, TEM4, would be held of online for English majors in order to examine whether the students’reading ability has been improved under the networked environment.The research adopts the percentage statistics, EXCEL, SPSS to analyze the results of questionnaires, the tests and the interviews separately. The results show that reading--teaching for English majors under the network-based environment is completely possible and totally welcomed by the students. That is, the students’interest and motivation for reading have been improved, their reading autonomy also has been demonstrated; their reading quantity has been expanded, for their reading strategies are fully used. Besides, their collaboration spirits can be cultivated step by step in the process of teaching and learning. As a result, the amount of reading is greatly improved, and the reading efficiency is also obvious. However, some limitations can still be found in the English reading teaching under the network-based environment, which should be future improved. Thus, three pieces of advice are made accordingly in the present thesis.The thesis puts forward four proposals:(1) putting emphasis on the role of non-linguistic factors;(2) putting emphasis on the timely evaluation in the reading process;(3) putting emphasis on individual needs first;(4) putting emphasis on students’reading strategy training.