Brought-along Effects Of Careful Reading And Extensive Reading On The Lexical Use By Senior High School Students In Their Topic-related English Compositions

This study seeks to examine the possible effects that different modes of reading(i.e.careful reading and extensive reading)may produce on the lexical use by senior high school students' in their topic-related compositions.Specifically,three questions were addressed:(1)What are the effects of careful reading on the lexical use by senior high school students in their compositions?(2)What are the effects of extensive reading on the lexical use by senior high school students in their compositions?(3)Are there any differences between the students of different proficiency levels in the effects of two modes of reading on their lexical use?In this study,a mini teaching experiment and a follow-up interview are conducted.16 senior high school students of different levels(4 high-level students,8 average students and 4 low-level students)were invited to participate in the study.An English test was given to make sure that the three-level students have obvious differences and are highly valid.Another writing test on the topic of WeChat was arranged to serve as a pretest.Later on,the three-level groups were averagely divided into two subgroups named careful-reading group and extensive-reading group,which separately conducted the two reading modes in the same given time.To be specific,the careful-reading group had to read two well-selected passages five times in an hour,whereas the extensive-reading group had to read up ten passages in an hour.Afterwards,they were requested to write on a topic about WeChat that is also rooted in the reading materials and similar to the writing topic given in the pretest.Then,a follow-up interview was carried out to get their feedback.In order to quantify and visualize the result,two experienced English teachers were invited to grade on the students' lexical use in terms of meaning,variety,variation and complexity with a reference to the accessing criteria.By comparing the scores of lexical use between pretest and posttest and based on the SPSS analysis of the data,the major findings are as following:(1)careful reading has positive effects on senior high school students' lexical use in their compositions,especially on lexical meaning;(2)extensive reading has positive effects on senior high school students' lexical use in their compositions,especially on variety,variation and complexity;(3)in both careful reading and extensive reading,it is the average students that made the greatest improvement in their lexical use in compositions.For all-level students,extensive reading seems to be more effective than careful reading in improving their lexical use.Therefore,the two reading modes both produce positive effects on lexical use in compositions,but with different emphases.