摘要
阅读是现代社会中人们生存和发展所必须具备的一项社会文化技能,它是以英语为二语/外语的学生的基本技能。在我国,英语教学缺少自然习得语言的社会环境,英语阅读就成为语言学习的主要输入方式之一。而在国内外各种语言测试中,如CET、TEM、TOEFL、IELTS、中考、高考等,阅读所占的比例很大,阅读能力的高低是检验学习者语言技能的主要标准之一。所以,阅读教学对于我国的英语教学意义重大。而泛读是阅读的一种方式,泛读教学是阅读教学的一个重要组成部分,并且对诸如阅读、词汇、语法、写作、听力等英语技能的提高有显著的影响。可是,即使这样,目前大学英语泛读教学却仍然处于一个被忽略的位置,或者仅仅被当作精读教学的一种辅助教学。
除此之外,泛读教学的选材长期以来一直是个引起诸多争议的问题。尽管在如何测定材料可读性、如何实现材料真实性问题上人们难以达成一致,但在所选材料应能向学习者提供适量新鲜、有用且符合其阅读目标的信息这一点上,专家们的意见却相当统一。
当前泛读教学中广泛使用的泛读课本尽管各具特色,各有所长,但却几乎都存在各种不尽人意之处。在当今各领域信息不断涌现、更新,竞争日益激烈的形势下,泛读课本中所选用的材料、所含信息在成书时己显陈旧,而且一经成书就使用多年,这使得材料的时效价值大打折扣。同时,由于选材时编者往往是以教师为中心,忽视了学生的阅读目的和需求,因此常常拘泥于语言的难度控制而忽略阅读行为的情感因素,很难使教材具有学习者真实性。这导致教材中选用的真实材料在实际使用中无法显出其真实性。
针对泛读教学选材问题,笔者认为英文《21世纪报》为学习者提供的信息具备新颖性、适合性、实用性、时效性、趣味性,符合高校学生阅读目标,有助于扩大学生词汇量,有利于学生通过国家英语四六级考试,有利于培养学生阅读技能。鉴于上述原因,笔者认为可以将其作为大学英语泛读教材。为此,本研究采取采用定量和定性两种研究方法。
在定性研究中,笔者通过在泛读教学过程中对学生泛读活动、学生对泛读教材的看法和态度、学生泛读选材取向的观察并通过非开放式问卷调查分析学生需求,通过收集的第一手资料,得出英文21世纪报作为大学英语泛读教材的适切性的结论。通过对英文21世纪报的分析,得出其作为大学英语泛读教材的实用性、可行性的结论。
在定量研究中,笔者以华中师范大学辅修英语专业2006级2个平行班70名学生为实验对象(其中一个班为控制班,另外一个班为实验班),在验证了两个班学生英语水平尤其是阅读水平相当的情况下,在实验班进行了为期3个月的报刊教学的实验,而在控制班用现行教材进行常规教学。实验结束后,对两个班统一进行了后测。实验班和控制班在前后测考试中的各项得分被逐一输入电脑并运用SPSS12.0软件进行数据分析。此准实验证实英文21世纪报作为大学英语泛读教材的有效性。
本研究得出的结论是:与传统的教材相比,在高校英语泛读教学中使用21世纪英文报更能激发并增强学生的阅读兴趣和动机,从而有效提高学生阅读能力乃至整体英语水平。
但将英文21世纪报应用于大学英语泛读教学是个探索渐进的过程,必须考虑到教师的的素质和学生的水平,同时也要借鉴现行教材的优点。
本实证研究对促进大学英语泛读教学改革具有一定的启示。
As a socialcultural skill, reading is of great importance for people to live and develop in modern society. For many students, reading is by far the most important of four skills in learning a second language, particularly in English as a second or foreign language. Owing to the lack of authentic English learning environment in China, reading is a major channel for students to be exposed to the target language. In most English tests at home and abroad, like CET, TEM, IELTS, TOFEL, etc, reading accounts a large proportion; reading ability is regarded as a major indicator of a learner's English level. As a result, it is not surprising that the teaching of reading is crucial in the English language instruction in China. Extensive reading is a kind of reading which means reading in quantity and intends to develop good reading habits, to build up knowledge of vocabulary and structure, and to encourage a liking for reading. And research indicates extensive reading has a positive effect on the acquisition of vocabulary, grammar, writing ability, listening ability, etc. However, for a long time, extensive reading in college English teaching is neglected, or it is only regarded as a supplementation of the intensive reading.
What's more, material selection has long been one of the controversial issues in teaching of extensive reading. Although an agreement on this issue is hard to reach, one point has so far been commonly accepted that reading materials should provide learner readers with sufficient new and useful information relevant to their reading goals.
Currently available extensive reading textbooks are undoubtedly well designed to present all kinds of authentic materials, but they still share some disadvantages. In an era characterized by information explosion and fierce competition, the materials in the extensive reading textbooks tend to be outdated when the books are published and ready for use. Therefore, they do not have great appeal to the learner readers. Moreover, once the books are made, it is hard to add new materials to them. In addition to these disadvantages, one more factor that is responsible for the textbook's lack of appeal is that the material selection is mainly bookmaker-centered rather than learner-centered with little regard to learner readers' reading goals. In practice, it is very difficult for such materials to become learner authentic. As a result, the textually authentic materials appear to be unauthentic to the learner readers during the reading process.
For selection of the extensive reading material, the author maintains that the popular 21st Century Weekly can provide its readers with fresh, updated, interesting and readable news stories. It fulfills the objective of college English reading and is helpful to enlarge students' vocabulary, pass the CET4 and CET6, and promote students' mastery of reading skills. In view of this, the author proposes that 21st Century can be adopted as the extensive reading material. To test this hypothesis, both the quantitative research and the qualitative research are adopted.
The qualitative research includes the author's observation of students' opinions about the extensive reading material and a questionnaire was used to conduct the learners' needs analysis. From the outcome of the questionnaire, it is found students like reading interesting and updated news stories; 21st Century just fulfills their requirements. It is appropriate to apply it as the extensive reading material; the qualitative research also includes the analysis of the 21st Century to prove that it is feasible to be applied as the extensive reading material.
The quantitative research refers to the quasi-experiment research with subjects from the 2006 grade students who take English as their minor from Huazhong Normal University. A pretest was administered to the two classes. The class with slightly higher mean scores is defined as the control class (CC) and the other as the experiment class (EC). Based on the confirmation that these two classes are similar in English language proficiency, 21st Century as the extensive reading material was applied into teaching the experiment class while the current textbook was adopted in teaching the control class. This teaching experiment lasted for about three months. At the end of the experiment, a posttest was administered in these two classes. The results of EC and CC in the pretest and the posttest were then fed into computer for SPSS analysis.
The conclusions drawn from the research are that compared with the current extensive reading textbook, the application of the 21st Century to the extensive reading teaching is more effective in strengthening students' learning interest and promoting their reading proficiency or even their overall English level.
However, the application of the 21st Century to the extensive reading teaching should be an explorative and gradual process during which teachers' expertise, students' language proficiency should be taken into consideration. Meanwhile, the merits of the current textbook deserve attention.
This empirical study grants some insights into the college extensive English reading teaching and research.
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