通過中學生的興趣提高中學生的閱讀能力 IMPROVING THE MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENTS’ READING ABILITY THROUGH THEIR INTERESTS

致謝

此篇dissertation的完成，我特別感激我的導師，他給予了我極大的幫助和耐心，使dissertation順利完成。我也感謝XX教授,他為我們寫了“實際工程設計”,使我們的很多觀念得到落實,之前，XXX教授的演講也提升了我們的自信心。對于在dissertation寫作過程中給予我極大幫助的同學和朋友，再多的感謝都是不夠的。最后,謝謝我的父母與我分享我的煩惱,挫折,最終完成這個項目讓我感到幸福來之不易。
 

Acknowledgment

I am mostly grateful to my supervisor XXX, whose help and patience made this project get off the ground and come to a close smoothly.I am also grateful to Professor XXX, who wrote “Practical Project design” for us and gave us good before the project got off the ground, and Professor XXX, whose speech had promoted our self-confidence.No amount of thanks will be adequate for my students without whose willing participation in the project implementation it would have remained in my mind.Last but not the least, thanks are given to my parents who have shared with me my worries, frustrations, and hopefully my ultimate happiness in eventually finishing this project.


摘要

本文從英語語言教學的角度出發， 研究了中學閱讀方面的問題。 與同類研究相比，本文旨在突出研討中學英語教學中總計教學的重要性。我們的主要研究目的包括如何利用興趣有效提高中學英語閱讀興趣愛好水平， 本文共由四個部分組成。我們首先簡單介紹了閱讀教學中的一般情況， 然后提出了興趣愛好理論用以驗證興趣愛好同閱讀之間的關系。 此外， 我們還討論了必要的背景知識和閱讀技巧與閱讀理解和速度之間的關系。最后我們得出了利用興趣，掌握必要的背景知識和閱讀技巧，可以提高學生的閱讀水平的結論，以此結束了全篇的討論，本項研究發現以上三個要素是影響中學生閱讀能力的主要因素，本項研究可望對相關研究產生積極影響，這些影響主要體現在通過上述三個因素的控制，我們可以設計一種整合型的教學方案，促進和發展中學閱讀教學，提高學生的閱讀能力。
 

關鍵詞： 英語閱讀, 學習動機, 背景知識, 閱讀技巧,語言教學
 

Abstract

I examine the reading issue from a language teaching perspective. Different from previous research, this paper wants to emphasize the importance of motivation in the study of reading at a middle school. In what follows, I want to know how to enhance the ability of students in reading (reading skills, speed and result). There are four parts in this paper. I start with a brief introduction to reading, then we propose a motivational theory to testify the correlation between interest and reading.#p#分頁標題#e#
 

An additional discussion of necessary background knowledge, reading skill and speed in reading is also provided. We end the study with the conclusion that students’ reading comprehension can be greatly enhanced by their motivation development, mastering of the necessary background knowledge and skills. I found in our research that there are three major factors influencing learners’ reading ability. Based on these findings, it may be conduced that if we want to improve students’ reading ability, we have to first deal with the issue of motivation development, necessary background knowledge and reading skills. Some useful implications obtained from this study include that due attention should be paid to the interplay of the above-mentioned three factors.
 

Key Words: language teaching; motivation; reading training;background knowledge; reading skills.
 

Contents

1. Introduction--------------------------------------------------1

2. Literature Review-------------------------------------------1

3. Problem Analysis--------------------------------------------1

4. Project Objective--------------------------------------------2

5. Project Hypothesis------------------------------------------2

6. Project rational----------------------------------------------3

7. Reading Lesson Design ------------------------------------4

8. Project implementation------------------------------------5

9. Data Analysis ------------------------------------------------6

10. Evaluation----------------------------------------------------8

11. Conclusion ---------------------------------------------------8

Appendix A Questionnaire One for problem Analysis---9

Appendix B Worksheet-Note-----------------------------------10

Appendix C Worksheet-guessing the meaning-------------11

Appendix D Worksheet-Filling in the blanks---------------12

Appendix E Questionnaire Two-the post-trial

questionnaire------------------------------------------------------------13

Appendix F Teaching Material------------------------------14

Bibliography-----------------------------------------------------15
 

1. Introduction

In learning a language, especially a foreign language, reading is a very important link. We can get information from passages through reading; I have taught English in middle schools for three years. In final exams, the marks of reading are about one third of all the marks. But most of the students are afraid of reading. They are so nervous that they don’t want to read the passages as soon as they see them. So they do worse and worse in reading. Some students can’t do reading tasks well because of their limited vocabulary, some because of the absence of necessary knowledge background, still many of them don’t have the inferring and judging ability according to the context while reading. They know every word of the sentence. Let alone the real meaning according to the whole passage.#p#分頁標題#e#


Of course, others can’t understand because they don’t know the real meaning of a certain word in the sentence. That is to say, they haven’t mastered the word which may have more than one meaning. All these factors lead to their ability to understand the text. So they feel dull to do reading tasks. They can’t intentionality read. How to enhance the reading ability through organizing reading class well is very important. How to enhance the effect of teaching, training the reading ability is an important question. Some scholars pay a lot of attention to the theory of reading. Much work has been done about these questions: what elements do reading comprehension involve? What’s the relationship between the background knowledge and the language in reading, etc.
 

2. Literature Review

Usually reading is taught passively. The students are not keen on it.
 

They just read it because they have to. Generally teaching of reading can be divided into three kinds. They reflect the three stages of the development of reading theory.
 

Firstly “bottom-up” pattern was produced in the 1960s. It was in accordance with the article. It was from lower words decoding to obtaining information. The representative figures were D. labergem, S.T.Samuels, P.B.Goughect. The second is “top-down” pattern, which was formed in the end of 1960s and the beginning of 1970s. It was in accordance with cognition. I stressed the effect of the readers’ background knowledge in reading. It is thought that reading is a process choosing, predicting, testing and versifying. It was a game of psycho-linguistics. The representative figures were K.S.Goodman, F.Smith, T.Hudson etc. The third one is “interactive” pattern. It was proposed by D.E.Rune in 1977. It is thought that reading is not only a process of “bottom-up” or “bottom-down” scheme is the basis of reading. Of course, each pattern has its own benefit.
 

3. Problem analysis

Before I begin to design my new teaching plan, I would like to find out the reason why some of my students feel that it is difficult for them to do reading comprehension. I try to find the answers from three respects: the teacher, the students and the class size, and we should choose the right teaching materials, neither too difficult nor too easy for them.
 

3. 1. The teacher’s side

I have taught English for three years. After reflecting on my teaching experience, I find most of my classes were taught by old-fashioned teaching methods by which I myself learned English. That is to say when I was a student, my teacher used these methods to teach me and now I use them to teach my students. In class, I spend much time in explaining the meaning of the sentences, new words and grammar points. When I listened to the recording of my lesson I found I did most of talking in class. I found I did not give much time to my students to practice what they learned and give them few opportunities to read. I did not realize the problem until I learned the course English Language Teaching Methodology. “Traditional methods of learning a foreign die hard. (Alexander.94) That is true.#p#分頁標題#e#
 

3.2. The students’ side

From Questionnaire One (see appendix A), I know what the students think of the reading task. The following are the main reasons why they do not like reading the text.
 

Some weak-learners lacked confidence. They think their English is poor and they do not quite understand some words and sentences in the text, even if they know the words. They lack logical, assuming and reasoning ability, so they can’t understand the txt exactly.
 

Some students lack the necessary historical and geographical knowledge, even if they can read the passages, they can’t do the multiple correctly.
 

Many students told me that when the content of the text was not familiar to them, they felt that they didn’t want to touch it. Some do not think it is necessary to read in class. They think they only learn the basic language knowledge, and they needn’t do more reading. A few students think reading in class is a waste of time. The teacher should tell them more important things about reading strategies in class.

3.3. The size of the class

The class size of 39 students might have some negative effect. It is impossible to give every one the chance to tell the meaning of the passage. The few chances for students to read may be given to those who do not want to read while the other may never have the chance to practice reading, they may do irrelevant things in class while others are learning. All these reasons make the students unable to read on their own initiative, so the reading class hasn’t got any effectiveness.
 

4. Project objective

Enhance the interest in reading and reading ability by initiative reading. If they aren’t interested in it. They won’t calm down to read or do any reading comprehension exercises.
 

5. Project hypothesis

It is hypothesized that the students’ reading ability is increased by initiative reading. If they wouldn’t like to read, how can they get the correct meaning about it!
 

6. Project rational

Of course there are many factors in initiative reading. I especially mention the three factors below.
 

6.1. Interest---the firstly important factor of initiative reading

Interest is very important in learning English. Interest is very especially important to English. This is because there is to many things to remember. What’ more, they live in a native language environment, they can get less information through English. So it is difficult to keep the interest in English. It’s impossible to learn English well without adequate interest. Einstein said “Interest is the best teacher”. We can classify interest into three kinds: direct, and stable. We must arouse the students’ interest from various aspects. For example: the situation of society, using real object tools and stick figures, choosing the humorous passages, English parties etc. Through these ways, I can arouse the students’ interest in English and make them learn English imitatively.#p#分頁標題#e#
 

6.2. Necessary background knowledge will promote initiative understanding

It is not uncommon that sometimes when you take up a text in a foreign language, you recognize every word but still fail to grasp its meaning. What is problem? Where does the difficulty lie?
 

Let’s look at the following example.

Defender Zhang, China’s league champions Dalian Wanda, scored his header at the 24th minute of the second half from a corner kick. (China Daily, 4-10-1997) To understand the above passage, the reader needs to have a certain amount of background knowledge in the field of football in order to understand such terms as “defender,” and “header”, and also the rules of the game, for “he second half” and corner kick”, otherwise, it may not make much sense. The background needed to interpret a given test is called “schema”. It originates from all the particular experience the reader has had. It is an organized structure as well, including the relationship between its component parts. “Schema” plays a very important role in understanding a given text. Many pre-reading activities are designed with this purpose in mind. The teachers usually spend time in activating the students’ existing schema or providing it if it didn’t exist, before teaching a text. For example, if the students are going to read a story about Henry Kissinger, the teacher may try to activate their relevant background knowledge by asking such question as : “ How much do you know about Henry Kissinger?”


They may respond by saying something they know about his their life, his political career as a diplomat, especially his role in the improvement of Sino-American relations, and so on, the students ten might be told what sort of test it is in order to predict what sort of information there will be in the text. So, if it is a biography, we expect to find details of Kissinger’s birth and parent. If it is an article criticizing his political decisions, we would probably not expect that sort of information, but a more specialized account of his political activities. Asking students to predict the contents from the topic and from the test type are examples of the structure they are familiar within certain types of texts.
 

6.3. The initiative reading ways---skimming, scanning and inferring.

Skimming is not careful reading; the reader usually moves his eyes over the text very quickly just in order to get the gist of it or to decide whether it is worth reading more deeply or not. Skimming enables readers to look efficiently for something that interests them without spending too much time reading what is unnecessary or interesting. Scanning means locating specific information you, the reader, want from the text, you do not necessarily follow the order of information in the passage but can go back and forth to read the part of the text to your purpose, it is a time and energy saving activity, which should help you increase your reading speed and efficiency. Inferring means making use of syntactic, logical and cultural clues to discover the meaning of unknown elements. These may be the writers opinions and attitudes which are not directly stated in the text. Making inferences while reading usually helps the reader to achieve a better understanding of the text. One point worth mentioning is that inferences must be made with care and supported by evidence.#p#分頁標題#e#
 

7. Reading lesson design

Timetable of the project design

Based on the rational, the passage How Carl Mari Studied in Senior English for China (SEFC) Book 1B was used as my language material. New tasks are to be designed and new teaching models are to be used with the aim of providing students with a chance to catch the main idea successfully. Since it is a large class, I must pay attention to the following factors.
 

1) Asking more students to say something about the famous men to arouse their interests.

2) Give some information about Karl Marx.

3) From some groups to discuss the questions.

4) Use various types of task and reading strategies to get efficient result.
 

I will give the students some sayings of Marx’s and ask more them to arouse the students’ will to read. I use some interesting activities to stimulate the students’ interest, providing them with a chance to use their imagination and creative ability I give more background information about the text to the students. In this stage, students are asked some questions to see how much information about the text they have known. Sometimes pictures or maps are shown for them to guess what will happen in the text or what the text that they are to learn is about.
 

The students begin to read the text and come to the next page-reading. In this stage students are to read the text several times using different ways: skimming, scanning, and then closing reading, each time they will be given different questions, so that they can understand the text better while reading. Take the passage How Carl Marx Studied for example, the first two question are: what foreign languages did Carl Marx study? And what work did Marx do? Then the scanning questions were: In what country was Carl Marx born and what was his native language? Etc.
 

Some other activities are used in the stage, such as guessing the meaning of new words and expressions in the text, making notes, listening to the tape of the text, some exercises on grammar points and so on. I choose a common class to have the experiment, They are about seventeen and in Grade One of Senior High School. They have mastered some basic knowledge of English, but for some reasons, some of them are not good at English and they aren’t interested in it, either. They especially have difficulty in reading. To enhance their interests and make them read initiatively. I design this reading class. I try to help the students to have a great improvement through my reading course.
 

8.Project implementation

Project implementation isn’t so easy, so teachers must do a lot of preparations for pre-reading， while-reading and after-reading.
 

#p#分頁標題#e#

Week 1

8.1Preparation for reading

Before students begin a few text, I would like to talk something about some famous men to stimulate their interests. We are learning English, we often have a great deal of difficulty in learning foreign languages. Marx can grasp several foreign languages, do you know how Marx studied foreign languages? In this way I arouse the students’ motivation to learn the text.
 

In order to learn the text, the background knowledge is necessary, so I will spend a few minutes explaining it. Usually I ask them some questions or ask them to talk about the pictures on the book. When I taught the passage How Carl Marx studied, my question was “What do you know about Karl Marx?” I ask the students to tell me everything they knew about Karl Marx: his homeland, his native language, his books, his best friend, his grave and so on. Sometimes I ask them some questions to help them. By the end of this activity, I believe that the students get more information about Karl Marx.
 

Week 2

8.2. Reading Stage

Then we come to the reading stage. In this stage, I use diverse activities to ask the students to read the text. In this way, they will be familiar with the content of the text quickly and they will learn how to catch the main ideas of a text from general to specific. The activities include skimming, scanning and note making.
 

Skimming

Firstly, I give students two minutes to read the text and ask them to find the answer to the question. Usually the question is given right above the text in the book. Sometimes I add one or two questions which mean to help students find the main idea better. I give my students a tip and ask them to use it often. That is to read the first and last sentence of one paragraph to guess the answer they are looking for. When students find the answer, I always encourage them to put their hands and answer the question. I also encourage them to pick out the words they can not pronunciation well or anything they feel difficult to understand while reading. When students have different answers to the question, for example, what work did Marx do? I always give them some time to argue or discuss and ask them to give evidence to support their views.
 

Scanning

In this activity, I design some questions for septic information. Usually, I write these questions on the projector and ask the students to answer orally in pairs. Then I ask some students to give their answers in class.
 

Making notes

Firstly, I write the headings on the blackboard with yellow chalk. Take MORE INFORMATION ABOUT KARL MARX( SEFCBOOK 1B) for example, I write the following words on the blackboard:

Name: Lived in: wrote 2 articles about:

Born: Moved to London in: Studied(languages):#p#分頁標題#e#

Studied at: Wrote(books): political idea:
 

Then I tell the students to find the information from the text. Then I ask the students: “ Where and when was Marx born?” I collect the information from the students and write. “May 5, 1818, Germany” on the blackboard with white chalk. I draw the students’ attention to the fact that we require notes, not sentences. Then I tell them to find all the information by themselves. While the students are doing this task. I go around in the classroom to see if they do the task according to what I have told and stop some of them from writing sentences. After that I ask them to check their notes in groups of four before collecting the notes from them. At the end of the activity I write the right information on the blackboard (see Appendix B).
 

In order to deal with the words and language problems that the students mentioned, in the reading stage I also use some other activities to help them.
 

Guessing meaning of the new words and phrases

I select some new words and phrases that may affect my students’ understanding of the text. I put them in the left column there are words and phrases that have the similar meaning that is familiar to the students. I write them in a haphazard order on parents ahead. Then ask the students to mach the words and phrases in the left column with those in the right. The students should do this task in pairs before I collect the answers in class (See Appendix C). The task is usually done after skimming.
 

Phrase practice

Firstly, I write the phrases on the blackboard or projector and I read a sentence using the phrase slowly and clearly. Secondly, I ask two or three students to repeat the sentence and ask another student to put the sentence in to Chinese. Thirdly, I say a second sentence with the same phrase and do the second step again. Then I give the students a Chinese sentence and ask them to put it into English. Finally, I ask the students to make a sentence by themselves using this phrase.
 

Week 3

8.3.Post---reading test

To test the students if they have grasped the text, I ask the students to do the filling blanks exercise.

Fill in the blank of the short passage

The short passage in fact usually is a summary of the text. For example, “ Karl Marx was born in ____. When he was young, he ____to leave his…” (See Appendix D)
 

9. Data analysis:

I use two questionnaires at different time in this project to see if my design can prove my hypotheses. Questionnaire 2 is designed partly based on Questionnaire 1 in the research so that comparisons can be made to see the improvement after the implementation.
 

There are the same three questions used in two questionnaires to get the students’ general opinion about reading. (See Appendix A and E) The questions deal with three aspects: degree of interest, help and difficulty in their reading work. The followings are the three questions:#p#分頁標題#e#

Question 1: Do you like the reading activity?

Question 2: Does the reading activity give you much help in your English study?

Question 3: Is it difficult for you to read a text?
 

After comparing the results of the two questions, I find that there had been some improvement in different degrees after the implementation stage. The results of the two questionnaires are presented in Table 1.

Table: Comparison of the results of three questions in questionnaires.

Very------------------------------------------not at all

In order to have a clearer view of such a change, I draw a figure forest aspect and compare, the results of the two questionnaires.

Figure 1. Comparison of degree of interest

Interest: From the graph, we can see clearly that 43% of students like reading after the implementation. The number of the students who is interested in reading increases 20 percent.
 

Help: If I add the percentage of the students choosing 4 and 3 together in Questionnaire Two, I may conclude that 80% of the students think reading is helpful to their English study.
 

From Figure 2 below I find the number of the students who agree that reading is very helpful increase from 17% to 21%.
 

I also notice that there are three students who have negative view on reading.
 

Difficulty: There is a drastic improvement in this term. The result shows that using the new teaching procedure can help the students to overcome their difficulty in reading. Figure 3 below shows the percentage of the students who leave comfortable in reading decrease from 75% to 53%. And 23% more students felt that it is easier to read after the implementation. Before the project implementation only 1/4 of the students though they had not much difficulty in reading. After the new teaching procedure employed, about half of the students found reading work is not as difficult as before.
 

Figure 3. Comparison of degree of difficulty
 

10. Evaluation

In class I try to arouse the students’ motivation to read the text. I talk with them about the things they care about, the persons they are familiar with. I intentionally set up some tricks about the content of the text. I ask the students to find the answer and the ending of in the text. This makes the students practice reading skills. They employ skimming, scanning, and inferring to read the text. These help them to become efficient readers. More and more students don’t feel afraid of reading any more. They feel that it is very interesting. They read the text actively and participate in reading the text. They can get more information and learn more knowledge not only in English, but in many other things.#p#分頁標題#e#
 

The problem we find in our students’ reading is caused by many factors. After analyzing the problem by adopting some scientific methods such as the analytic method, cause analysis, questionnaires and observation, I hypothesize that using new teaching procedure can help the students overcome their difficulty and increase their reading ability. From the comparison of the result I find the students’ interest in reading has risen. Through the above project research, we can conclude that reading is difficult for the students, but if we use proper methods to stimulate them and teach them the necessary background knowledge and reading skills, we will have a better result in this field. We can ordain the students into efficient readers.
 

Of cause there are still some problems. I shall further analyze the problem using the scientific methods I have learned from Practical Project Design (Gu Yueguo 1999) and design some new tasks to solve the oroblem. I will use the knowledge I have learned from the project and other courses in CCTV University to go on researching the problems in my classroom teaching in the future.
 

11. Conclusion

Reading plays an important role is language learning for Chinese students. Reading is for learning and information, which can help extent learners’ general knowledge of the world; Reading serves readers immediate needs or wishes; Reading is for entertainment or pleasure. Reading is the ability to understand the written words and respond to them in proper ways. Reading ability is very important.

Through the project, we can see that initiative reading is very helpful to enhance the reading ability of the students’. My students interest’ interest in reading has been increased. Students can read the text in their own initiative and can understand the meaning of the given text and they own become efficient readers.
 

Bibliography

1.《English Language Teaching Methodology 1》 Gu Yueguo 1999 Beijing Foreign Language Teaching and Researching Press

2. 《English Language Teaching Methodology 2》 Gu Yueguo 1999 Beijing Foreign Language Teaching and Researching Press

3. 《Practical Project Design》 Gu Yueguo Beijing Foreign Language Teaching and Researching Press]

4. 《Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching》 Richards J. C.London Cambridge University Press 1984

5. 《 Senior English Textbook 1B》 1996 Beijing People’s Education Press

6. 《A New English-Chinese Dictionary 》 1993 Shanghai Translation Press

7. “課程、教材、教法”劉道義《英語課的任務和教學目的》 1997年第3期

8.《 應用心理語言學 》王初明 1990 湖南教育出版社

9. 《試論中學英語教學的文化導入》 葛炳芳湖南師專學報1998年第3期

10. 《試論影響外語習得的若干重要因素》 戴煒棟等外語教學理論系列文章#p#分頁標題#e#

11. 《How to Simulatc English Learning Interest 》 Shi Aichang 1996 年

12. “高中英語閱讀課文教學模式探討” 黃遠振《Foreign Language Teaching in School》 1998 第11期

13. “高中英語閱讀策略與教學方法的研究” 杜萍《Foreign Language Teaching in School》 2002年第4期

14.《 外語教育心理學 》 李月娥 1996年 南寧, 廣西教育出版社

15. “初中英語教學中的‘呈現’設計” 謝彩云 何偉《中小學英語教學與研究 》 1999年第3期

16. 《現代英語教學》 舒白梅 1996年

17. “高中英語閱讀課教學活動小議” 潘玉蘭 馬永雙《中小學英語教學與研究》 2001年第4期

18.《英語閱讀論》 胡春洞 戴忠信 1998年廣西教育出版社

19. “ 圖式理論和英語閱讀理解” 羅容《中小學英語教學與研究 》2001年第6期

20. “淺析英語閱讀理解中的語境線索” 沈建葆《中小學英語教學與研究》 2001年第9期
 

A: Questionnaire One for Problem Analysis

1. 你喜歡閱讀嗎? ( )A很喜歡 B比較喜歡 C一般 D不喜歡

2. 你認為閱讀對你的英語學習( ) A有很大幫助 B有幫助 C沒什么幫助 D一點沒幫助

3 當進行閱讀時，我覺得( )A很困難 B有些困難 C不太困難 D不困難

4 你認為有必要在課堂上進行閱讀嗎?A有 B無所謂 C無必要

5我在閱讀中感到困難的是( )A不認識單詞 B語法不熟 C沒有掌握必要的閱讀技巧 D沒有背景知識 E其他

6你希望在閱讀上老師給你什么幫助( )A翻譯生單詞 B解釋新語法 C多給一些背景知識

7 你認為如何提高自己的閱讀能力( )A課前預習，有所準備 B多背單詞 C多作閱讀，多看文章 D其他

8 我喜歡閱讀，因為( )A能使我獲得很多課外知識 B能使我得到享受C能提高我的英語能力 D其他

9 我不喜歡閱讀，因為( )A太浪費時間 B生詞太多，讀不懂 C沒興趣 D其他
 

Appendix, Worksheet----------note

Read the passage in Lesson 82 and 83 again Write notes in the space below:

Born: _________________________________________________

Students: Lived in: _______________________________________

Moved to London in: Wrote (books): ________________________

Wrote articles about: _____________________________________

Studied (language): _______________________________________

Political idea: ____________________________________________
 

Appendix C

1. flood a. Make

2. in danger b. A wall built to keep back water

3. protect c. To save from water

4. dam d. To be covered with water

5. rescue e. In great troubles#p#分頁標題#e#

6. (sth) date from f.(sth) be built
 

Appendix D:

Worksheet--------Filling in the blanks Karl Marx was born in____. When he was young, he____ to leave his homeland for____ reason. He had to from one country to another. At last he came to England and____ London the base for his revolutionary work. Marx____ some English before he came to London, but he ____ his English was limited. He working hard to improve it. He made ____ rapid progress before long he could write articles in English. Engles wrote him a letter to _____ him for it. Engles’ letter had greatly _____ him,and from then on, Marx _____ even harder at his English. He mastered English _____well______ he could wrote one of his freast works The Civil War in France in English. When Marx was in his fifties, he ______to learn Russian, because he thought it was important to study the situation in Russia. At the ______ of six months, he had learned ____to read articles and reports in Russian. Marx set us a good examples in learning foreign languages.
 

Appendix E:

Questionnaire Two---the Post-trial Questionnaire

1. 經過這一段時間的閱讀訓練，你喜歡閱讀嗎?(　　)

A很喜歡 B比較喜歡 C一般 D還是不喜歡

2. 你認為閱讀對你的英語學習( )

A有很大幫助 B有幫助 C沒什么幫助 D一點沒幫助

3.當你在閱讀時，你覺得 ( )

A比以前更困難 B沒有變化 C不象以前那樣困難了 D不困難

4. 你認為自己的閱讀能力(　 ) A提高很多 B提高一點 C沒有什么提高 D 一點沒提高

5. 你認為閱讀對提高英語能力( )

A幫助很大 B有幫助 C幫助不大 D沒有幫助

6. 閱讀課文時，你覺得背景知識對閱讀理解( )

A影響很大 B有影響 C影響不大 D 沒影響

7. 你認為閱讀技巧對閱讀理解的效果和速度影響( )

A很大 B一般 C不大 D沒影響

8. 閱讀后，你喜歡(　　　)

A作多項選擇題　　B做補全單詞題　　　C 做判斷正誤題　　　D 與人用英語討論內容
 

Appendix F

How Marx Learning Foreign Language Karl Marx was born in Germany, and German war his native language. When he was still a young man, he was forced to leave his homeland for political reasons. He stayed in Belgium for a few years; then he went to France. Before long he had to move on again. In 1849, he went to England and made London the base for his revolutionary work.
 

Marx had learned some French and English at school. When he got to England, he found that his English is too limited. He stared working hard to improve it. He made such rapid progress that before long he began to write articles in English for an American newspaper. In fact, his English in one of these articles was so good that Engels wrote him a letter and praised him for it. Marx wrote back to say that Engels, praised had greatly encouraged him. However he went on explaining that he was not to sure about two things—the grammar and some of the idioms.#p#分頁標題#e#
 

These letters were written in 1853. In the years that followed, Marx kept on studying English and using it. When he wrote one of his greatest works, The Civil War in France, he had mastered the language so well that he was able to write the books in English.
 

In the 1870’s, when Marx was already in his fifties, he found it important to study situation in Russia, so he began to learn Russian. At the end of six months he had learned enough to read articles and reports in Russian.
 

In one of the books, Marx gave some advice on how to learn a foreign language. He said when a person is learning a foreign language, he must not always be translating everything into his own language. If he does this, it shows that he has not mastered it. He must be able to use the foreign language, forgetting all about his own. If he can not do this, he was not really grasped the spirit of the foreign language and can not use it freely.