A Study Of The Project-Based Approach On English Majors’ Reading Instruction

English reading plays an irreplaceable role in English education. Reading deserves significant attention from English educators, not only because its score proportion is increased gradually in various kinds of tests, but also because it is a major means of language input. Present English reading teaching is still stuck in traditional “three-step” teaching mode. The disadvantages of the traditional teaching approach have blocked the students’ English reading progress. Therefore, it is urgent to work out a feasible and effective teaching mode to increase students’ English reading interest and proficiency.Project-based approach(PBA) is a student-centered and teacher-dominated learning model, which puts students into the real situation through the “project”. According to the characteristics of the implementation of the project-based approach, students can construct their own knowledge actively. However, few investigations have been made on the application of project-based approach to the English reading teaching, especially for English majors. It is the reason why the topic is chosen in the thesis. This study attempts to apply project-based approach in English reading teaching to answer two questions(1) What are the effects of project-based approach on students’ reading proficiency?(2) Can project-based approach improve students’ reading interest and motivation? A four-month experiment was conducted and 60 sophomores of English majors from Bohai University were the subjects of the experiment. The experimental class(EC) with 30 students adopted PBA in the English reading class, while the control class(CC) with 30 students adopted the traditional “three step” teaching approach. Experiment, questionnaires and a semi-structured interview were used as instruments. The data was analyzed by SPSS 20.0 to examine the effectiveness of project-based approach.The findings showed that compared with the traditional method, project-based approach could arouse students’ reading interest and motivation more effectively. In addition, project-based approach could improve students’ reading proficiency than traditional teaching method. At the end of the thesis, some pedagogical implications, further researches and limitations in the study were discussed.