Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1 Background of the Present Study
English is an important subject for senior high school students in China.Reading, as one of the literacy skills can not be more important in language learning.After all, English is a foreign language to the high school students and reading is theessential way of increasing the language input, not mention that reading counts muchin the college entrance examination. However, how to improve high school students’English reading skills has been a hot issue that needs all the teachers, scholars and thewhole society to pay enough attention to it. It has been well recognized that studentsshould learn English vocabulary well, know the English grammar well, and read andwrite English well too, since learning any language includes those aspects. Surely, inorder to learn English well, those aspects need to attached great importance to, but theteaching practice and effect have demonstrated that it is not adequate to help studentsmaster the foreign language by way of more emphasizing the language form, underwhich paradigm meaning or content is in service of the language form. Therefore, thecontent itself is often ignored or not paid enough attention to. Psychological studieshave shown that the foreign language learners, who have formed their worldknowledge through their L1 can be more motivated to learn if the content isintellectually challenging, which can help them develop their cognition, comparedwith the learning task is more focused on the language forms. In one word, acontent-based teaching and learning a foreign language can not only help studentsmaster the target language but also enlarge their understanding of the world and improve their cognition.
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1.2 Purpose of the Present Study
In recent years, many second language teachers and scholars have discussed theeffective influence of CBI on reading comprehension, but few of them aredemonstrated with the help of empirical research. Considering that CBI was held asan efficient way of teaching English in China. Therefore, “what is the real effect ofCBI”, especially “What is the effect of CBI in the reading teaching of high schoolstudents” has been a very hot issue. Furthermore, the study of CBI had been done inmany non-English majors in higher education like universities and colleges. The studyof it on high school students is very rarely conducted.Therefore, this study aims to have an exploration of such a teaching approach of CBI in high school to examine its effect on senior high school students’ readinginterest and comprehension. The way of combining CBI and reading teaching isdiscussed, and furthermore, an empirical study is designed and carried out, in order toexplore the effect of CBI in improving the reading comprehension and interest ofSenior High School students’.
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Chapter 2 Literature Review
2.1 Theoretical Foundation
CBI has been used in a wide range of language learning settings. For the lastforty-one years, its popularity and wider applicability have increased dramatically inthe past twenty-six years. A number of researches and theory foundations account forthe rise of popularity of CBI. The researches which support CBI span the range fromthe studies in second language acquisition like Krashen’s input hypothesis, Swain’soutput theory and Cummins’ Framework of Language, educational and cognitivepsychology theory like discourse comprehension processing theory, cognitive learningtheory and the motivational theory. The former three are often used in the thesis whichare about CBI language teaching, thus, this thesis pave its way in emphasizing theimportance of the last three. Discourse comprehension processes research and text coherence research havedemonstrated that in terms of thematically organized material, the more coherentlyinformation is presented, the easier it is to remember and lead to improved learning(Singer, 1990). In particular, if the text information which directly defines andsupports the topic of discourse in the text, it will be easier to learn and to recall.Moreover, if the information has more connections to related information, it willpromote better learning. The various ways that information in the text isinterconnected also helps learners use the information in the new situations theyencounter (Spiro et al., 1987).
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2.2 Content-Based Instruction
Content-based instruction (CBI) has been regarded as an approach, whichfocuses on both language skills and content mastery. In order to have an all-sidedunderstanding of it, more specific aspects need to be discussed. In Mohan’s Knowledge Framework, he holds that any social activity iscombined with knowledge (theory) and action (practice). He also argues that languagelearning is supported by two elements，which are not inseparable: Language rules astheory and language use as practice. The process of language theory and language practice establishes and enriches one’s knowledge framework.He regards language learning as a kind of social activity within different kindsof discourse contexts. A person can learn the language only by decoding throughcontextualized content messages. During the process of this language activity, aperson can learn the language as well as the content. The relationship between contentand language is stated as follows:“If code can be divorced from message, content could not; if form can bedivorced from function, functional grammar will not exist; if language can bedivorced from discourse, larger units of discourse can not exist” (Mohan, 2001, p.144)
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Chapter 3 Research Methodology........36
3.1 Research Questions.........36
3.2 Research Subjects.....36
3.3 Research Instruments......37
3.3.1 Pre-test and Post-test......37
3.3.2 Questionnaires....38
3.3.3 Interview.......39
3.4 Content-Based Teaching Procedures and Examples.......39
3.5 Data Collection and Analysis......43
Chapter 4 Results and Discussion........44
4.1 Results.....44
4.2 Discussion.....51
4.2.1 The Effects of CBI on Students’ Reading Comprehension........52
4.2.2 The Effects of CBI on Students’ Reading Interest.........54
Chapter 5 Conclusion....56
5.1 Major Findings....56
5.2 Pedagogical Implications......58
5.3 Limitations of the Study........59
5.4 Suggestions for Further Researches....... 60
Chapter 4 Results and Discussion
4.1 Results
In this section, with the data analyzed by SPSS 16.0, the test and questionnaireresults are presented. Also the interview results are categorized and presented. The results of the pre-test and post-test are shown in the following part.According to the features of the data collected, Independent Samples T-test and PairedSamples T-test are chosen to analyze the data of the tests. The data of the results of pre-test in both classes are analyzed by SPSS 16.0 totestify whether there is any difference in reading performance between the two groupsof subjects before the treatment. The results includes the Group Statistics and theIndependent Samples T-test as showed in table 4.1 From the Group Statistics, the average score of EC is 20.56, while CC is 21.06,0.5 higher than EC. There is no obvious difference between the two classes. From theIndependent Samples Test, the Levene’s Test for Equality of Variances shows that thep-value is 0.519, which is far above 0.05, therefore, the data from the Equal variancesassumed line is what should considered. It is obvious that the value of T is -0.829, thevalue of df is 124, and the p-value is 0.409, which is above 0.05, it indicates that thestudents’ reading proficiency in two classes is almost in the same level. Althoughthere is a slight difference between EC and CC, there is no statically differencebetween them before the treatment. Therefore, the students in two classes can bechosen as the experiment subject bearing almost the same English reading level.
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Conclusion
This three-month study does have some findings, which can contribute to theunderstanding of the CBI effects on students’ reading comprehension and theirlearning interests. The research results and findings have a rich implication forEnglish language teaching and learning, especially for reading instruction. Andcertainly this study has its limitations and more needs to be considered in the futurestudies. From the three-month study, the author has two major findings concerning thereading comprehension ability and reading interest of the students in the experimentalclass.The first of the major findings is that the students in the experimental class dohave an improvement in their English reading comprehension.During the process of teaching, the teacher finds that the content teaching plan iswelcomed by most of the students. In the first part of the content teaching plan, thekey terms, concepts and facts are pre-taught. The corresponding background, which isneeded in the comprehending of each text, is activated. For example, when teachingthe violence of nature and natural disaster, the key terms which may block thestudents’ understanding of the reading text is selected and the background of anysimilar kind of tornados or hurricanes are activated to stimulate the students to thinking of their past experience of such nature disasters no matter they are directexperience from their living environment or indirect experience from the media andthe Interne. In this part, the students’ background of the text is stimulated and thevocabulary and the background of the text are waved together which can ease theirmind and anxiety towards the reading task.
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Reference (omitted)