A Study On The Effects Of Summary Writing On Non-English Majors’ Reading Comprehension Ability

This research aims to investigate the effects of summary writing on non-English majors’ reading comprehension ability.The participants were two non-English major classes with a total of 60 students in their freshmen year from Dalian Maritime University and the two classes were the experimental group and control group separately.The research lasted for 22 weeks,covering two semesters.The experimental group received the summary writing instruction and practiced summary writing while the control group did not.In order to judge the effects of summary writing on participants’ reading comprehension ability,pre-test and post-test were conducted on the two groups.Results show that after 22 weeks,(1)compared with the control group,the experimental group improves significantly in the performance of reading comprehension;(2)the performance of the experimental group in the banked cloze,information matching and careful reading detail items improves significantly,but the performance of careful reading inference items does not change significantly;(3)reading comprehension performance of high,medium,and low performers changes to various degrees.Through the interview,the interviewees at different proficiency levels varies regarding to the extent of observing summary writing task demands,concerns and attitude towards summary writing.Therefore,the effects of summary writing on reading comprehension ability of the three proficiency groups are different.This research shed light upon English teaching.To improve non-English majors’reading comprehension ability,teachers can ask them to practice summary writing and integrate reading and writing,so that writing can improve reading and vice versa.