高中英语科普文阅读教学研究：窄式阅读路径

本文是一篇教学论文，本研究尝试在高中英语科普文阅读教学中应用窄式阅读策略，试图发现窄式阅读对学生的科普文阅读兴趣和阅读能力，以及整体阅读能力的影响。研究对象为某高中一年级两个班的 100 名学生，其中实验班和参照班各 50 人。研究为期三个月，采用前测、后测、以及调查问卷等工具展开研究。

Chapter One Introduction

1.1Background of the Research
This part is about background of the research including importance of reading Englishpopular science text and situation of English popular science text teaching.
1.1.1 Importance of Reading English Popular Science Text
Today, the development of science and technology has been deeply integrated intopeople’s lives, and scientific literacy has become an important part of people’s generaleducation. In order to learn the development of science and technology and accumulatescientific knowledge, people need to read scientific texts, including some foreign ones. At thesame time, with the globalization of the economy and the enhancement of internationalexchanges, people will be involved in the reading of scientific and technical texts.
For students, English as a language course also conveys knowledge of foreign culture,society, science and technology, history and so on. They can use English as a tool to acquirescientific and technological knowledge, cultivate scientific logical thinking, and developscientific literacy by reading popular science texts in high school textbooks. At the same time,National High School English Curriculum Standards (2017) highlights the importance ofpopular science text reading for high school English learning.
First, the Standards formulates that popular science texts should be reflected in thecourse design. Popular science texts are set in practical English category which functions tobuild students’ language skills, and meet their interests and academic research or employmentneeds. So, reading popular science texts has a strong practicality that may play a guiding rolein students’ future life.
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1.2Purpose and Significance of the Research
1.2.1 Purpose of the Research
At present, there are many relevant researches on narrow reading theories at home andabroad. But narrow reading seems to have not been effectively used in the study of Englishpopular science text reading in high school. Based on the previous theoretical and empiricalresearches, this study aims to apply narrow reading to English popular science texts teachingin high school in order to develop the existing researches on narrow reading and popularscience teaching, and to promote teachers’ understanding of narrow reading theories andpopular science texts teaching. This study also hopes to help students read popular sciencematerials more effectively, arouse their reading interests, and then improve their overallreading ability.
1.2.2 Significance of the Research
As for teachers, many teachers are accustomed to traditional methods to teach popular science texts. They rarely guide students to learn scientific and cultural backgroundknowledge, accumulate scientific vocabulary, and acquire the features of the texts. If they usenarrow reading theories, they will fully analyze the popular science texts, and then share theelected ones to their students. Besides, they will focus in their teaching on scientificvocabulary, background knowledge, grammatical features, and text structure of popularscience reading texts. The study tries to provide teachers with some teaching implications forEnglish popular science texts.
As for students, this study attempts to investigate their problems in reading popularscience texts and use narrow reading theories as solutions. First of all, students are expectedto acquire not only vocabulary and grammar but also scientific knowledge and principles.Secondly, reading popular science texts tends to be beneficial to expand their knowledge,train their logical thinking and improve their scientific literacy. And because English popularscience text reading has a strong interdisciplinary nature, the knowledge, common sense, andprinciples achieved in this reading may be transferred to other subjects such as history,geography, and chemistry.
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Chapter Two Literature Review

2.1 The Related Definitions
The related definitions of narrow reading and English popular science texts will beintroduced. The first is definitions of narrow reading which includes its concepts and mainfunction. The second is definitions of popular science texts which includes its concepts andcharacteristics.
2.1.1 The Definitions of Narrow Reading
Krashen first proposed the concept of narrow reading in 1981. Narrow reading meansthat readers reading on the same topic, books by the same author or in the same genre, whichis believed to be more conducive to foreign language learning. In The Case for NarrowReading, Krashen (2004) once again elaborated on the effectiveness of narrow reading. It isbased on the idea that the acquisition of both structure and vocabulary comes from largeamounts of exposures in a comprehensible context, that is, readers acquire new structures andwords when they understand the messages and their encoded information. He also pointedout that narrow reading facilitates this process in several ways. First, because each writer hashis own expressions and writing styles, and each topic has its own vocabulary and discourse.So, narrow reading can provide a built-in review for readers. Second, background knowledgeis a tremendous facilitator of comprehension. As readers gradually accumulate the relevantbackground knowledge in the process of narrow reading, it is easier for them to understandarticles of the same topic.
“The first few pages” effect (Yang, 2001) illustrates a similar point of view. It says thatreaders may feel very difficult when reading the English materials on the first few pages. Butthe materials will become easier and easier to be understood with the ongoing of reading.The reason for this is that in the early stage of reading, readers, in most cases, do notunderstand the content of a new material, its background knowledge, and its author’s writingstyle. As their reading goes on, they are likely to apply the knowledge accumulated in theprevious reading to their further comprehension.
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2.2 Researches on Narrow Reading Abroad and at Home
Many linguists and educators at home and abroad have contributed to the developmentof narrow reading, including theoretical researches and empirical researches.
2.2.1 Researches on Narrow Reading Abroad
So far, a number of empirical studies abroad have demonstrated the effectiveness ofnarrow reading.
Lamme (1971) did a three-year study to investigate the relationship between children’sreading ability and reading habits as they moved from the fourth and fifth grades to the sixthgrades. Children were asked to keep reading records for three years, and the records werecompared with their reading test scores. In his study, he finds that children’s readingcomprehension scores are positively correlated with the reading proportion of works writtenby one author.
Krashen (1981) first proposed the concept of narrow reading and distinguished it fromintensive reading and extensive reading. Intensive reading refers to reading an articlecarefully. Extensive reading refers to reading a large number of different types or topics ofarticles. Narrow reading is a strategy that improves learners’ reading ability by reading worksof the same style, and the same topics, or the work of one author.
Feitelson, Kita and Goldstein did a study in 1986 that illustrated reading number ofseries-format stories tends to improve first graders’ ability of decoding, comprehending andusing language. Children of experimental class concentrated on reading the same seriesstories for the last 20 minutes of a school day and children in control classes continued theirusual reading activities. The experiment is carried out for six months and the result showsthat children of experimental class outscored children of control class.
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Chapter Three Theoretical Basis......................................19
3.1 Input Hypothesis................................19
3.2 Schema Theory........................... 21
3.3 Relevance Theory................................. 22
Chapter Four Research Design............................... 25
4.1 Research Questions..............................25
4.2 Research Subjects................................ 25
4.3 Research Instruments....................................26
Chapter Five Results And Analysis...............................34
5.1 Analysis of Results of Questionnaire.........................................34
5.2 Analysis of Results of English Popular Science Text Reading..........................41

Chapter Five Results and Analysis

5.1 Analysis of Results of Questionnaire
The questionnaire consists of 15 multiple-choice questions which can be categorizedinto four parts. The first part contains three questions (1-3 questions) to investigate highschool students’ basic understanding of English popular science texts. The second part (4-7questions) aims to find students’ attitudes towards English popular science text learning. Thethird part (8-10 questions) aims at investigating students’ interest in reading English popularscience texts. The fourth part (11-15 questions) aims at investigating the current situation ofteaching and reading English popular science texts, such as reading difficulties students haveencountered and teaching problems.
In order to find out the change of students’ attitude and interest in English popularscience text reading, the author conducted a pre-test questionnaire and a post-testquestionnaire for 50 students of experimental class. The content and requirement of them arethe same. 50 questionnaires were distributed, and 50 valid ones were returned. The results arecalculated by percentage and the data analysis is as follows:
The three questions of the first part are about the students’ basic perception andunderstanding about English popular science texts.

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Chapter Six Conclusion

6.1 Major Findings
The research results show that narrow reading can change students’ attitude to readingpopular science texts and enhance their reading interests. It also can improve students’English popular science text reading ability and their overall English reading ability.
Narrow reading will cultivate students’ interest in popular science text reading. From thedata analysis of the questionnaire, narrow reading seems to play a positive role in students’reading interest and attitude. Because narrow reading reduces students’ reading difficulty byaccumulating repeated vocabulary and background knowledge, so it tends to stimulate theirinterest and improve their confidence in English reading.
Narrow reading improves students’ English popular science text reading ability fromthese aspects. First, the recurring scientific vocabulary in narrow reading allows students toexpand their vocabulary in context. Second, with gradual reading on the same topic, studentstend to enrich their background knowledge constantly which makes it easier for them tounderstand the texts concerning one topic. Third, students will become familiar with itsdiscourse pattern, and thus develop a scientific thinking mode. Fourth, because narrowreading provides a new method of English reading, students are likely to read popular sciencetexts actively after the class, and develop a good English reading habit.
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