本文是一篇英语毕业论文，本研究证明，英语经典阅读能显著提高学生的英语学习兴趣、语言学习能力、思维发展和英语阅读能力。本研究旨在为高中英语阅读教学做出一些贡献。
Chapter One Introduction
1.1 Background Information
It is universally acknowledged that study in senior high school is an exceedingly essentialand critical period in students’ whole study life. As a key subject, English works greatly instudents’ various subjects. Teachers and students pay great attention to English leaning. ManyChinese students have trouble learning English due to its unique language characteristics andhuge difference from Chinese. Generally speaking, English learning contains severalsub-projects such as vocabulary, grammar, reading and writing. Among these projects, reading ismore prominent than others on account of its plentiful contents and different thinking qualities.Hence, it is self-evident that many teachers and students put the English reading on an importantstatus. Nonetheless, under the limitation of the utilitarian learning objectives, most studentscannot achieve the real English reading, instead of doing more exercises to increase their scores.What’s more, there are many problems in other aspects. For example, literal meaning can getmore attention from students but it cannot help widely in the connotation of the essay; whenstudents read an obscure article, they are not able to guess the meaning in terms of the context;their reading speed is relatively slow; sometimes they have trouble in understanding theviewpoints in English passages. In short, two major difficulties can be concluded. First, theutilitarian learning goals hinder students’ study; second, owing to lack of holistic grasp of thewhole reading passage, students cannot obtain the main meaning and thoughts quickly andcorrectly.
1.2 Purpose and Significance of the Study
The study aims to explore whether it is valid for English reading when putting Englishclassics into reading teaching. To be more specific, the research would like to see the actualresult of motivating students’ interest and improving their English reading ability by the meansof cultivating students’ English classics reading habits. In the first place, teachers had better tryto come up with a novel manner of introducing the new lesson so that students can realize thatEnglish is an interesting subject, and there are different learning methods to add fun to theirEnglish learning. Secondly, teachers hope English classics can give students more abundantlearning materials, which students can make use of to test their vocabulary reserve and applythese words to the real contexts. Thirdly, teachers also hope that through reading English classics,students can gradually form an English thinking, think from different perspectives and output more various and original ideas. In the process of reading classics, teachers want students toexpand their knowledge and simultaneously to cultivate their habits of thinking in depth. Toconclude, reading English classics can make great contributions to students’ learning andteachers’ teaching. It will enrich intrinsic teaching methods, reactivate students’ learning interestso that they can broaden their horizons in their spare time, and can also acquire sufficientknowledge of English language and British and American culture.
What’s more, in order to cultivate students’ development of the core literacy, the authorthinks it is a good way to make good use of English classics. With the help of classics, thingsabout foreign cultures can be understood easily and meanwhile deeply. Immersing themselves inreading classics, students can deeply experience different cultural connotations, expand theirhorizons and strengthen their cultural awareness. In the meantime, it can also cultivate students’learning ability, such as self-learning ability, cooperation ability and sharing ability. In a word,students won’t be disappointed as long as they are willing to pour their energy into the sea ofclassics.
Chapter Two Literature Review
2.1 English Reading Teaching
This section mainly demonstrates relevant information about English reading teaching,including the essence, the principles and the models of English reading teaching. The essentialviewpoints of this part are mostly concluded in terms of A Course in English Language Teachingwritten by Wang Qiang and Teaching and Researching English from Chen Zehang.
2.1.1 The Essence of English Reading Teaching
According to Day and Bamford, reading is the construction of meaning from a printed orwritten message (Wang Qiang, 2006). From my point of view, reading will help readers to havean abundant acquisition of various aspects of information through the medium of printed orwritten message, and can give such information more rich connotation. In this process, readersare not only reading the written words but also communicating with the author and gainingspiritual connection. In accordance with some study, it was the development of cognitivepsychology that brought out people’s comprehension of reading. Reading can be regarded as aprocess of obtaining information from written materials and influencing non-intellectual factorsof readers. Reading is a process of psychological activity in which the reader establishesmeaning in his mind by recognizing and understanding the literal symbols representing theauthor’s thoughts and opinions. It is a positive and dynamic cognitive process of constanthypothesis, confirmation, imagination and reasoning. It can be seen that reading is a positive,purposeful and creative psychological process. During such a psychological process, readersconstruct the meaning of the text with their own emotions, views and existing relevantknowledge by using the information provided by the text.
2.2 Classics in English Reading Teaching
As is known to all, English classics are greatly abundant language learning resources. Firstof all, English classics not only contain a large number of words and idiomatic Englishexpressions, but also have a huge reserve of rich and important British and American culturalconnotations. What’s more, reading English classics can help learners understand and master theample structures of the article more thoroughly, which is conducive to the construction of alogical and rich knowledge structure framework. Furthermore, language learners can learn moreauthentic language expressions and cultivate their English thinking by reading famous workswith real situation as background. Therefore, with such high-quality language input, languagelearners can be more actively influenced to achieve the best English learning effect. In view ofthe importance of English classics, many experts have conducted different studies on theapplication of literary works in foreign language teaching.
Chapter Three Theoretical Foundations....................... 16
3.1 Input Hypothesis.............................16
3.2 Context Theory.......................................... 17
3.3 Humanistic Education Theory.............................................. 19
Chapter Four Research Methodology...................................22
4.1 Research Questions.........................................22
4.2 Research Participants................................................22
4.3 Research Instruments...................................................23
Chapter Five Results and Discussion..................................................34
5.1 Change of Students’ Reading Ability...................................................34
5.1.1 Analysis of Results of Pre-test in EC and CC.....................................34
5.1.2 Analysis of Results of Post-test in EC and CC......................................36
Chapter Five Results and Discussion
5.1 Change of Students’ Reading Ability
This part will present the data of two tests (pre-test and post-test) to reveal thetransformation of students’ reading capacity after reading the English classics.
5.1.1 Analysis of Results of Pre-test in EC and CC
The outcome of the independent sample test of pre-test in the experiment class and thecontrol class is presented in Table 5.1 and Table 5.2.
Chapter Six Conclusion
6.1 Major Findings
This study attempts to explore the effect on students’ English reading capacity, thetransformation of English classics reading on students’ interest in English learning, and factorsaffecting the application of English classics in senior high school.
The first question is about the effect on students’ English reading ability, especiallystudents’ word-guessing ability. According to the results of the two tests, we can conclude thatreading English classics can enhance students’ English reading capacity, especially theirword-guessing ability. Through questionnaires for students and interviews for teachers andstudents, we can see that the improvement of students’ reading ability can be shown in all aspects,such as their vocabulary, reading skills, thinking quality and cultural awareness, especially theirword-guessing ability. In the whole process, students learn to guess the meaning of words byusing the context, learn to understand and analyze the contents of famous works by using variousactivities in class, and they can be able to output language, thus improving students’ expressionability. Whether the students’ reading ability has been improved or not is reflected in the readingperformance, but it is also obvious for the improvement of students in all aspects.
The second question is about the change of students’ interest in English learning after theEnglish classics reading lessons. According to the questionnaires and interviews, reading Englishclassics can improve students’ interest and attitude towards English learning, which is anessential basis for effective learning.
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