Research on English Reading Teaching

1、Research on English Reading TeachingThrough Multimedia Networks in Vocational Schools ABSTRACTAs always an indispensable and important part in Chinas educational system, vocational schools have been bearing the fateful tasks that they not only teach their students how to do with their studies, but a

2、lso teach them how to learn and have a good mastery of skills so as to serve society and realize self-development. Therefore, on this point of both students base in knowledge and ability, and the specific cultivating orientation as well, the English teaching and learning of vocational schools is dif

3、ferent from that of other ordinary high schools / middle schools.With the continuous development of multiple media technology, the mode for our English learning has begun transforming from the traditional way to a new one, one striking characteristic of which is that the use of multiple media techno

4、logy and networks. It is well known that reading comprehension in English learning plays an important role in developing students abilities of language analysis, understanding and application. So the author will in the thesis, based on the features of vocational schools and beginning with the studie

5、s of traditional method in English reading teaching, analyze the feasibilities of using multiple media technology and networks in such teaching by comparing the advantages and disadvantages of traditional and new teaching modes. And we will, with the help of the meta cognition theory, research and a

6、nalysis the problems we often come across in the English reading teaching. This article will discuss how to use multiple media technology and networks more properly and effectively in future reading teaching. The last but not least, the author hopes that the text will be a little helpful and complem

7、entary for English teaching research. Key Words: Vocational Schools Multiple Media Reading Comprehension Meta cognition Theory.1. An overview of vocational school English teaching in ChinaAs we all know that vocational education, as one of the major components of the educational system in China, is

8、very important to our educational work. The Characteristic of vocational school needs the appropriate teaching methods. English is an essential course for the students in vocational school not only to graduate, but also for future development. Because the 21st century is an era of knowledge economy

9、and information, the development of information and multimedia has brought huge challenge to English teaching and to English learning, simultaneously it has also brought the opportunities. Moreover, the rapid development and application of multimedia network technology provides a platform for Englis

10、h reading teaching through multimedia networks in vocational schools. The emergence of multimedia network courseware in the teaching of English reading greatly improves the students abilities to access the information, it creates a real situation which stimulates students interest in learning, it pr

11、ovides the independent study and the team cooperation study opportunity for the students, it also cultivates the students communicative competence and cross-cultural awareness in the study.1.1The policy background of English teaching in Chinese vocational school1.1.1Reading is highly valued. The pro

12、posal for the reform of vocational education method by the Ministry of Education was put forward in 1985 to emphasize the importance of reading. Judging from our actual situation and specific problems of the Chinese students, we find that the abilities of listening and speaking are hardly to be impr

13、oved without reading practice, let alone writing or translation. Thus the idea of setting a high value on reading is in line with the reality.1.1.2 Emphasis on reading, combining with listening and speakingThe English teaching program in 1999 advocated the priority of reading, writing and translatio

14、n, with fair focus on listening and speaking. The motivation of this proposal is that, as an language, English knowledge must be used on the foundation of reading, and its main application is to communicate with people. Therefore, if there is no communication, the essence of English study will not e

15、xist.1.2 Characteristics of Chinese vocational school English education 1.2.1The object of vocational school English education As one of the symbols of the cultivation of high-quality and comprehensive talented persons, vocational English is widely favored in the educational field. The quality of En

16、glish teaching is very important to the reputation and development of vocational school, and it is also a key factor for the vocational school to cultivate students who can face the challenge of market economy and adjust to the advances of the times. So it is of great significance to research into t

17、he present situation of vocational English teaching in order to identify existing problems and of course to find out the solutions in the end. The students source and object of English education of vocational school are from two ways: one of them is the students who have gone through the NEMT (Natio

18、nal Matriculation English Test), they have studied English for several years and have gained some basic English knowledge. But their overall English study abilities are not good enough to fully meet the demands of the current vocational English teaching; the other one is the students who come from t

19、he society, they come into the vocational school through entrance exam, most of them have not studied English systematically and their English acquisition is much lower than that of first type of students. Therefore, it is difficult for them to develop their interest in English study.1.2.2 Study bac

20、kgroundGenerally speaking, students in vocational school are not good at English and their learning background is poor, which makes them can hardly learn effectively by themselves. Many of the students want to learn independently but they can not find a suitable way. They are fear of English learnin

21、g because of the psychological pressure, so their oral expression is terrible. According to the statistics relating to vocational education: 60% of the students in the vocational school are poor in English especially in reading and writing, 30% of the students have basic English learning background

22、before they get into vocational school, but they do not show much interest in English study in this school, so their English is getting poorer and poorer; and there are also 10% students of them have good English learning background and they are interested in English, but under the overall environme

23、nt of vocational school, their abilities of learning are improved slowly and even keep still. But actually, I am afraid the exact situation of vocational English learning is more pessimistic than the statistics showed us.1.2.3 Study habits and motivationsUnder the examination-oriented education of c

24、hina, the students are used to the passive learning mode, they will not study initiatively unless they are made to. Whats more, when they get into the vocational school, they can no longer feel the pressure of entering a higher school, so they lose the orient in study and get lazy. Most of them do n

25、ot have clear study goal, and they dont know what they want to do in the future, they also do not have Long-range objective and short-term goal. Whats worse, some of them cannot understand and position themselves correctly, which causes them to lose their study confidence.1.3 The present situation o

26、f vocational school English education in China1.3.1 The educational model is traditional, the teaching media is backwardTeachers are likely to use "spoon-feeding" teaching method in the class, attaching most of their focus on vocabulary, grammar, phonetics. Students are supposed to concent

27、rate on what the teachers say , just as audience. Students are lack of real training and this seriously dampened the students study English enthusiasm, and it is difficult for students to achieve the goal of truly mastering English. On one hand, very few modern educational technologies are used in c

28、lassroom teaching, the use of the audio, video, TV and network are uncommon, teachers and students use of courseware are also not involved. On the other hand, the improvement of the teaching conditions is not effectively enough. Both of the two elements have passive effect on the enhancement of stud

29、ents synthesizing capacity in the vocational school.1.3.2 Value knowledge instruction but contempt ability developmentMost of the vocational schools have not got improvement on teaching concept, method or content. The model in vocational school is unitary, students reading ability may have been enha

30、nced, but the listening and the speaking abilities are not enhanced at all, no wonder they cannot satisfy the actual societys needs. There could be many factors leading to this result, one of the most representative reasons is the exam-oriented education which is almost used in all Chinese vocationa

31、l schools. Students under this institution only have one reason to study, they study English not for the communication but for passing the exams, thats why they do not have much interest or motivation in study.1.3.3 The lack of teachers and the insufficiency of investment In most Chinese vocational

32、schools, English teachers treatment is not good, because of the lack of the opportunity to learning further, some teachers have to is engaged in the concurrent job in order to gain some extra income. In the situation of insufficient investment in teaching field, some teachers do not have professiona

33、l dedication and the teaching faculty is unstable. Some teachers choose to change their jobs to enhance their conditions. However, teachers in vocational school have too much work to do so that they do not have enough time to do their own research, their theoretical acquisition remains limited witho

34、ut any improvement, all these above make the vocational teachers do nothing but dull teach.1.3.4 The huge regional difference of teaching qualityOur country is vast in territory, the development of local economy, culture, education is not balanced. The key schools in developed area have better teach

35、ing conditions so they can attract more outstanding students, simultaneously they can organize better teaching faculty. On the contrary, in the economically backward areas the ordinary vocational schools do not have so many opportunities. After the expansion of admission, this phenomenon is becoming

36、 more obvious.2Difference between the multimedia teaching environment and traditional teaching environment2.1 Effects of multimedia teaching There are some differences between the multimedia teaching environment and the traditional teaching environment, for example, students in the multimedia enviro

37、nments may enjoy the effects of multimedia, which means that teachers can take advantage of multimedia to show students the information in many different methods such as words, pictures and voice. As a result, the information will be accepted and deposited by students in many different forms, such a

38、 multimedia representing method will bring the students with better cognitive effect, and this kind of cognitive is very important to the students to do their comprehensive reading task. 2.2 Vicinity and combined effectsAll kinds of multimedia information will create a phenomenon called vicinity and

39、 combined effects: when the words and pictures information come from the vicinity space and succession timely, the information which represents different representative forms will be combined perfectly both in space and time, so the students abilities to process information will be more improved and

40、 of course get the better effect. But there will be some negative effect. If the students draw too much attention to some single pictures or information details, it will make some obstacles for them to get the integral-structure. And it will also make the students feel confused when they try to esta

41、blish their own knowledge system in the environment which is full of so much linguistic and nonlinguistic information.2.3 Group effectsAccording to the theory of constructivism, ones beforehand knowledge and the life experience are precious wealth. Therefore, much importance should be attached to te

42、aching knowledge and skill in the applicative circumstances and to learning in certain backgrounds, so that the learners can establish the relationship between themselves and the real world. The communicative purpose of English study can only be fully reflected under the language situation which is

43、real or almost real. At present the multimedia technologies are the most effective tools to establish real situation. And the network system is able to display identical documents such as audio, video, images, the animation and text in one media form, therefore, the teachers can design this class by

44、 using the function of the multimedia network to enrich the content of the English course and dissemination the effects.2.4 The new media brings the new vitalityIn accordance with the theory of constructivism, it is very important for the learners to understand the context of comprehensive reading i

45、f they can learn from the environment around them. According to the experiences during the teaching program, the students who have different learning abilities, knowledge structure, thinking method and style of cognition can complement each other if they can cooperate in discussion, communication. O

46、n the other hand, learning together can also fuly play the English communicative function, help the group make their study goal clear. The magnanimous network resources can also provide the students with expansive scope in cooperative study. Under teachers conscious guidance, in the scene establishe

47、d through the multimedia networks, students can perform conversation, discuss with each other and enhance their abilities to analyze and solve the problems. In this way, students cooperative spirit and interests are greatly motivated.2.5 Reading comprehension in multimedia environment 2.5.1What is r

48、eading comprehensionReading comprehension is one of the most important and common parts of peoples knowledge acquisition as well as a vital method in foreign language teaching. The student can not only contact with many different kinds of language which are reflected by various linguistic phenomena

49、but also can expand students vocabulary, strengthen their capabilities to understand language, and enhance their abilities in comprehension and expression, consequently, which will be advantageous in the development of their listening, speaking and writing. However, viewing the present situation of

50、the teaching of reading comprehension in China, we find that the performance of the teaching is not quite satisfactory. Take the vocational school English teaching as an example, many teachers havent changed their traditional thoughts of taking the students as passive receptors instead of the object

51、 of new teaching method. And some teachers have not realized the essence of the process of English reading and the true goal of English teaching and learning. Thus the lack of correct teaching goal and method is a common phenomenon in Chinese vocational schools. So many students can not gain any pro

52、gress in English reading comprehension so that they lose their motivation and finally it results in decreasing students interest and confidence in learning English. 2.5.2 Narrow Reading TheoryAccording to Krashens(1982) Narrow Reading Theory, as reader gradually understand the topic of a context thr

53、ough reading comprehension, the accumulation of the background knowledge of this context can make them understand this context more clearly and more deeply, meanwhile ,their interest will arise. At the same time, since the words appear over and over in the context, the readers will be familiar with

54、this vocabulary so that they can decrease the uncomfortable feeling while reading and relieve their pressure caused by the unfamiliar vocabulary. As a positive result, the reader can decode this context more easily, simultaneously, they can use the background knowledge which they have learned from t

55、he reading before, in the top-down information processing process, to relative accurately constructs language quickly. It is actually one of the biggest advantages of multimedia reading study. In order to take good use of this superiority, In the network multimedia environment ,The perfect English r

56、eading study process demands that the readers utilize the knowledge and the strategy which they grasped as more as possible. And the accurate understanding of the context is the final aim to do all this above. The whole process of this comprehension includes many kinds of psychological activities su

57、ch as the reader's monitoring, adjustment, appraisal, summary and so on. So, in order to get this effect, the reader should take advantage of the metacognition theory as more as possible. The so called metacognition theory in reading comprehension means that readers have known the knowledge whic

58、h look the reading comprehension as the process of recognition .The main part of this process involves many factors which can have effect on the following aspects: such as the reading comprehension the reader gets, the readers ability of self recognition on the reading comprehension , the result the

59、 reader wants to get through this reading task and the confidence the reader maintains to get his expected goal. The task knowledge in reading comprehension includes readers understanding of this context content, goal, demand and so on, and of course the necessary understanding about the context which has just been read. The reader must also carry on the massive metacognitive monitoring behavior, carry on the effective management and the regulat