Chapter One Introduction
1.1 Research Background
Reading has been regarded as the major source of language input and is an efficient strategy to get information and one of the main factors to influence the development of other English skills, namely, listening, speaking and writing, so it is worth a lot words about how to teach reading. but student’s low interest in reading and old-fashioned instructional methods always fail the expectation of development in students’ reading competence. Though language teachers and specialists have tried very hard to search for new ways to change such a situation, lack of systematic theoretical guidance still makes the evolution bear little fruit at all. No methods can fundamentally overcome the shortcomings of traditional reading instruction which is characteristic of teacher-centered, passive reception and grammar-focused or meaning-focused only. A look at the history of foreign language methodology, it is not hard to find language teaching at a certain time is dominated by a particular method or approach which is generated under a particular social background and then is replaced by another one. For instance, the grammar-translation method grows with the popularity of reading classics to develop humanity. This pedagogy relies on intensive learning of grammar and vocabulary to satisfy people’s needs to read classics. However, it falls and is replaced by the trend of adopting the communicative approach in the nineteenth century. During that period of time people learn foreign language not for humanity development, but for practical use in daily conversation instead, so oral practice, tasks, activities, interaction became the focus of the class. Today, we have entered a new era and the goal of teaching students reading is to get new information and to foster learners’ cognitive development, so leaning process is no longer treated as the passive acceptation of new information and it is an actively constructive process in the learner’s mind on the contrary.
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1.2 Significance of the Thesis
As mentioned before, reading as the most common and important way of foreign language input, foreign language teachers and experts always put much emphasis on thepursuit of teaching reading in a very efficient way and the newly revised College English Syllabus requ，英语论文，英语论文 |
