The Effect Of Reading For Discussion Model On Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition And Text Comprehension

Many foreign language teaching methods,approaches and models have been proposed by scholars at home and abroad to improve classroom teaching efficiency in the past several decades.The reading for discussion model(RfD model)proposed by Wu Shiyu,a Chinese scholar,is a novel foreign language teaching model.It aims to help students to create a platform for meaningful interaction among them after finishing reading activities,where they can interact with others to gain meaning on the basis of reading,so as to promote their English language competence.Compared with traditional teaching model,RfD model is more conducive to improving students' ability of reading comprehension,speaking and vocabulary use,so that students can enhance their English language competence to a greater extent in the zone of proximal development.In order to verify the effectiveness of RfD model in foreign language teaching,the present study focuses on the effect of this model on incidental vocabulary acquisition(IVA)and text comprehension.By carrying out experimental classroom teaching activities and taking the traditional teaching model as a comparison,this thesis explores the effect of RfD model on IVA and text comprehension.This study aims to address the following two questions:(1)What is the effect of RfD model on incidental vocabulary acquisition(as measured by immediate vocabulary knowledge test)and retention(as measured by delayed vocabulary knowledge test)?(2)What is the effect of RfD model on text comprehension(as measured by immediate reading comprehension test)and retention(as measured by delayed reading comprehension test)?The subjects of this experimental study are 84 second year English majors from Henan University of Technology,among whom 42 subjects are selected as theexperimental group and the rest of 42 subjects are in the control group.The two groups complete the same immediate and delayed tests on vocabulary of form-meaning connections and text comprehension.Both tests data are analyzed by software SPSS16.0 and R.The results show that:(1)In the immediate vocabulary tests,RfD model can promote IVA,but there is no significant difference between RfD model and traditional teaching model on the effect of IVA.In the delayed word retention tests,RfD model promotes the retention of IVA,and particularly in terms of word retention effect,it is better than traditional teaching model.(2)In the immediate reading comprehension tests,RfD model can promote text comprehension,but there is no significant difference between RfD model and traditional teaching model on the effect of text comprehension.In the delayed retention of reading comprehension tests,RfD model promotes the retention of text comprehension,and particularly in terms of retention effect,it is better than traditional teaching model.This study finds that RfD model can enhance IVA and text comprehension significantly,which not only enriches IVA research,but also contributes to the development of foreign language teaching methods.