This study investigated the effect of the self-questioning strategy on English as a Foreign Language(EFL)for tenth-grade students’reading comprehension.A quasi-experimental design with two groups was employed.The res...This study investigated the effect of the self-questioning strategy on English as a Foreign Language(EFL)for tenth-grade students’reading comprehension.A quasi-experimental design with two groups was employed.The researcher randomly assigned two whole sections of grade 10 from Al Samtt Secondary school for Boys,a public school,Directorate of Education in Irbid(AL Kora Directorate of Education).First,the experimental group of 25 students selected and second the control group of 25 students was selected.To achieve the purpose of the study,a pre-/post reading comprehension test was designed.In addition,self-questioning strategywas used to teach the experimental group,whereas a control group was taught by the conventional teaching strategies,as suggested in the Teacher’s Book.Results showed that there were significant statistically differences between the control and the experimental groups in favor of the experimental group.Considering the research results,the researcher recommended to use self-questioning strategy on different EFL skills and different levels of students.Teachers also should enroll in in-service training courses that provide more information about the curriculum revisions and programs that focus on improving their questioning abilities.展开更多
This study examined the potential effect of Inquiry-Based Learning Strategy(IBL)on the tenth-grade students’reading comprehension.Two groups and a quasi-experimental design were used.Two complete sections of grade 10...This study examined the potential effect of Inquiry-Based Learning Strategy(IBL)on the tenth-grade students’reading comprehension.Two groups and a quasi-experimental design were used.Two complete sections of grade 10 students from a public Secondary School for Girls in Irbid was randomly assigned by the researcher.The experimental group of 30 students was chosen first,and then the control group of 30 students.A pre-post reading comprehension test was designed before and after the study in order to fulfill its goals.Additionally,the experimental group was taught using the IBL strategy,whereas the control group was taught using the traditional teaching methods recommended in the tenth-grade Teacher’s Book.According to the findings,there were significant statistical differences favoring the experimental group over the control group.In light of the findings,the researcher recommended employing the IBL strategy to students with various levels and EFL skills.展开更多
This article intends to shed some light on effective use of three reading strategies: skimming,scanning and studying for non-English-speaking middle school students.The article also presents some advice for the teache...This article intends to shed some light on effective use of three reading strategies: skimming,scanning and studying for non-English-speaking middle school students.The article also presents some advice for the teacher's consideration when designing and preparing reading materials.展开更多
The role of grammar in language teaching has always been the question that researchers debate.In recent years,grammar knowledge has been distinguished in the foreign language acquisition research,namely the implicit k...The role of grammar in language teaching has always been the question that researchers debate.In recent years,grammar knowledge has been distinguished in the foreign language acquisition research,namely the implicit knowledge and the explicit knowledge(Dai Manchun 2005;Gu Qiyi 2005).As to the reaserch of implicit and explicit grammar knowledge as well as their measurement,it is easy to find that many scholars have studied the role of two different kinds of grammar knowledge in second language development.But the research on the role of implicit and explicit grammar knowledge in second language reading comprehension is too few,not to mention the research on the role of implicit and explicit grammar knowledge in English reading comprehension in the senior high school.The purpose of this study is to find the relationship between implicit and explicit grammatical knowledge and English reading comprehension ability of senior high school students.In addition,since the vocabulary is important to reading comprehension,this factor will also be considered in the study.展开更多
The present paper is a correlational study of Junior college students' achievement test and reading comprehension test based on students' interests.Through the case study,students' interests should raw muc...The present paper is a correlational study of Junior college students' achievement test and reading comprehension test based on students' interests.Through the case study,students' interests should raw much attention while teachers choose textbooks or teaching materials or design teaching plan.展开更多
Background:Proficient literacy skills and reading comprehension are crucial skills for participation and success in everyday life.One group that regularly falls short in demonstrating good reading skills are people wi...Background:Proficient literacy skills and reading comprehension are crucial skills for participation and success in everyday life.One group that regularly falls short in demonstrating good reading skills are people with dyslexia.This group suffers from a range of visual deficits including the pattern of ocular movements,and distorted,blurred and reversed(or mirrored)vision of letters during reading.However,only recently designers started to develop affordable and easily implementable remedies that are supposed to reduce the visual symptoms of dyslexia such as specific dyslexia fonts.These fonts incorporate properties aimed at improving the visual and behavioural reading performance of people with dyslexia by using larger intra-and inter-word whitespace,unique letter shapes and no serifs.To date,empirical evidence about the efficacy of these fonts is contradictory,and their effects on adult dyslexics’eye movements and cognitive processing during longer reading tasks remains elusive.Methods:To bridge this gap,we measured the eye movements of adults with and without dyslexia during the reading of a set of standardised texts from the international reading speed texts(IReST;Trauzettel-Klosinski&Dietz,2012)reading battery coupled with validated comprehension questions.These texts and questions were presented either in the traditional font Times New Roman or the specific dyslexia font OpenDyslexic.Results:Here,we found that OpenDyslexic led to improvements in reading comprehension in dyslexics and non-dyslexics.These improvements were larger for dyslexics.Contrarily,participants’reading speed was unaffected by OpenDyslexic.Our eye-tracking data showed that OpenDyslexic resulted in a higher number of eye movements,reduced visual search intensity,and longer median fixation duration across participants.Particularly,median fixation duration,as a measure of cognitive load,was predictive of reading comprehension across groups.Among dyslexics,OpenDyslexic yielded increases in visual search intensity and visual ease in the form of decreases in median fixation duration and fixation to saccade ratio as well as a smaller number of falsely programmed forward saccades.Conclusions:Our findings illustrate that OpenDyslexic results in a different visual reading strategy.These findings provide empirical evidence for the efficacy of OpenDyslexic in longer standardised texts and suggest its use in everyday documents,education materials,and online sources.展开更多
According to the understanding of English learning process and the surrounding educational environment,it is found that most English learners have not received the training of morpheme awareness,and English teachers h...According to the understanding of English learning process and the surrounding educational environment,it is found that most English learners have not received the training of morpheme awareness,and English teachers have hardly cultivated their students’morpheme awareness.In English learning,it is found that English morpheme awareness plays a role in promoting English learning.It can be seen from the relevant literature that the identification of English morphemes is very important for English learners’language acquisition and development,and has attracted the attention of researchers at home and abroad.This paper mainly studies the influence of morpheme awareness on junior middle school English learners’reading comprehension.展开更多
Reading is a major way to learn a foreign language.In the past,reading is regarded as a passive process to receive information.The key point of reading is to comprehend.It requires learners to think,judge and reorgani...Reading is a major way to learn a foreign language.In the past,reading is regarded as a passive process to receive information.The key point of reading is to comprehend.It requires learners to think,judge and reorganize the information according to one's own experience and to create meaning for the context.展开更多
Reading competence is one of the basic skills of language acquisition.The teaching of reading skill has been attached great importance to in College English education in China.For decades,people have made efforts to i...Reading competence is one of the basic skills of language acquisition.The teaching of reading skill has been attached great importance to in College English education in China.For decades,people have made efforts to improve the classroom teaching effects through various means,one of which is that of communicative approach.This paper attempts to explore the design of reading comprehension exercise through a case study in the light of communicative theory,thus providing an alternative to the conventional reading course teaching method.展开更多
In the process of developing English reading ability,vocabulary is one of the basic English abilities.In the School of Foreign Languages,Sichuan Technology and Business University,because of the guidance and supervisi...In the process of developing English reading ability,vocabulary is one of the basic English abilities.In the School of Foreign Languages,Sichuan Technology and Business University,because of the guidance and supervision of their teachers,in the first or the second year of their college,many students have shown great enthusiasm towards English learning,and taken initiative in reciting TEM-4 vocabularies,which in turn,leads to the passing of TEM-4.Nonetheless,after entering the second semester of junior year,their English learning becomes more flexible,and they would like to spend more time in their internships or part-time jobs.When TEM-8 is in the offing,some seniors even would choose to take the examination without preparation.In view of this,seniors in the School of Foreign Languages are chosen as the subjects to explore the effects of vocabulary size on English major seniors’reading comprehension and provide reference for them.In this study,subjects are the seniors of class 1,2016 English major who have passed TEM-4,and the quantitative research method is adopted.All the subjects involved in this study need to take two tests.One is the vocabulary size test,in which the vocabulary size testing software(embedded in BaiCiZhan v7.0.2)is used to test the quantity of subjects’recognition vocabulary.And the other is TEM-8 reading comprehension test,which is used to test the students’reading proficiency.In addition,some subjects are selected as the interviewees to know their feelings about the tests.After the tests,SPSS 20.0 will be used to make a linear regression analysis on the subjects’vocabulary size and the their reading performance.The finding is concluded as follows:On the premise that subjects’vocabulary size reaches the requirement of TEM-4,there is still a significant correlation between students’vocabulary size and their reading performance.展开更多
To improve students' critical thinking is considered as a top priority by a growing number of educators.While there exists a comparable amount of research examining students' critical thinking skills,less is k...To improve students' critical thinking is considered as a top priority by a growing number of educators.While there exists a comparable amount of research examining students' critical thinking skills,less is known about students' tendency to use these skills.Specifically,little is known about what influence critical thinking disposition has on students' academic achievement.English reading comprehension,which has been an important composition in students' English achievement,may be an important factor in developing this disposition.The current study examined the characteristics of students' critical thinking disposition and their English reading comprehension as well as exploring the correlation between the two factors mentioned above.The current study involved in 125 sophomores in English major from Jiangsu province.The results indicated that students in current research performed best in Maturity (M=37.46,SD=3.57),followed by Inquisitiveness (M=36.64,SD=4.31),Analyticity (M=34.86,SD=3.70),Truthseeking (M=33.86,SD=4.08).In contrast,they performed worst in CT Confidence (M=33.17,SD=4.57),followed by Systematicity (M=33.49,SD=5.10) and Open-mindedness (M=33.50,SD=3.67).Students scored highest in Attitude and View Category as the mean was 0.8257,followed by Reasoning and Judgment Category (M=0.8128),Induction and Generalization Category (M=0.7612),Theme Topic Category (M=0.6844),Semantic Comprehension Category (M=0.6789),while scored lowest in Fact and Detail Category (M=0.5818).There existed a positive correlation between critical thinking disposition and reading comprehension achievement (n=109;r=0.300;p<0.01).展开更多
Reading texts serve as an influx of comprehensible input for English learners. Graphic organizer is a decent way of demonstrating the discourse structures or organizational patterns of a text, which will enormously fa...Reading texts serve as an influx of comprehensible input for English learners. Graphic organizer is a decent way of demonstrating the discourse structures or organizational patterns of a text, which will enormously facilitate reading comprehension. This study would give a literature review on the impact of graphic organizers on English reading comprehension. Finally, some suggestions were proposed for future studies. Hopefully, the review will shed some light on reading studies and instructions in an EFL pedagogical context.展开更多
This review focuses on beginning-level,K-12,L1 English learners,and considers their reading comprehension of texts written in Chinese characters and literacy development.Instructional approaches,materials design,and t...This review focuses on beginning-level,K-12,L1 English learners,and considers their reading comprehension of texts written in Chinese characters and literacy development.Instructional approaches,materials design,and teaching and learning strategies related to reading texts in Chinese characters in these settings are reviewed.This review includes both empirical studies and think pieces that appeal to prior empirical work in L2 Chinese reading to understand what Chinese as a Second Language scholars research,discuss,and advocate about reading comprehension for L2 learners mainly at beginning levels of K-12 education.This literature review therefore includes a variety of source materials:empirical research,research-informed advocacy and think pieces,and action research studies by Chinese language instructors.The article concludes with observations about the state of research and current recommendations in Chinese as a second language reading comprehension.展开更多
Machine reading comprehension has been a research focus in natural language processing and intelligence engineering.However,there is a lack of models and datasets for the MRC tasks in the anti-terrorism domain.Moreove...Machine reading comprehension has been a research focus in natural language processing and intelligence engineering.However,there is a lack of models and datasets for the MRC tasks in the anti-terrorism domain.Moreover,current research lacks the ability to embed accurate background knowledge and provide precise answers.To address these two problems,this paper first builds a text corpus and testbed that focuses on the anti-terrorism domain in a semi-automatic manner.Then,it proposes a knowledge-based machine reading comprehension model that fuses domain-related triples from a large-scale encyclopedic knowledge base to enhance the semantics of the text.To eliminate knowledge noise that could lead to semantic deviation,this paper uses a mixed mutual ttention mechanism among questions,passages,and knowledge triples to select the most relevant triples before embedding their semantics into the sentences.Experiment results indicate that the proposed approach can achieve a 70.70%EM value and an 87.91%F1 score,with a 4.23%and 3.35%improvement over existing methods,respectively.展开更多
Opinion question machine reading comprehension(MRC)requires a machine to answer questions by analyzing corresponding passages.Compared with traditional MRC tasks where the answer to every question is a segment of text...Opinion question machine reading comprehension(MRC)requires a machine to answer questions by analyzing corresponding passages.Compared with traditional MRC tasks where the answer to every question is a segment of text in corresponding passages,opinion question MRC is more challenging because the answer to an opinion question may not appear in corresponding passages but needs to be deduced from multiple sentences.In this study,a novel framework based on neural networks is proposed to address such problems,in which a new hybrid embedding training method combining text features is used.Furthermore,extra attention and output layers which generate auxiliary losses are introduced to jointly train the stacked recurrent neural networks.To deal with imbalance of the dataset,irrelevancy of question and passage is used for data augmentation.Experimental results show that the proposed method achieves state-of-the-art performance.We are the biweekly champion in the opinion question MRC task in Artificial Intelligence Challenger 2018(AIC2018).展开更多
This paper reports on a study of the relationship between learning strategies and reading comprehension. To establish the variables, a learning strategies’ questionnaire was administered to about 200 students in the ...This paper reports on a study of the relationship between learning strategies and reading comprehension. To establish the variables, a learning strategies’ questionnaire was administered to about 200 students in the second-year of a non-English majors degree course in a university in Changchun. Their learning achievement was established by their scores on a reading comprehension test. The relationship between learning strategies and achievement was then examined through the SPSS 8.0 statistical analysis system. It was found that cognitive strategies were the strongest predictor to reading achievement and four other variables (metacognitive strategies, social-affective strategies, reading habits and examination strategies) also demonstrated a significant relationship with reading achievement to differing degrees. Among these variables, social-affective strategies were the only negative predictor. In addition, a significant difference existed between the high-score group and the low-score group in the use of cognitive strategies, metacognitive strategies and examination strategies.展开更多
With the arrival of the new millennium,the demand fortalented people with both professional knowledge and excellentlanguage abilities is getting stronger and stronger.For business major students,reading is paramount i...With the arrival of the new millennium,the demand fortalented people with both professional knowledge and excellentlanguage abilities is getting stronger and stronger.For business major students,reading is paramount inBusiness English teaching and learning.And their reading abilityis often assessed by a text of reading comprehension.However,from my experience as a college teacher ofBusiness English,I have noticed some problems among studentswho have little knowledge of business.They seem to readBusiness English materials at a slower rate and with lessunderstanding than general English materials.Then there is the question:is Business English reading"simply"a problem of language competence? Or are there anyother more important factors?This article is an investigation into the effect of backgroundknowledge on Business English reading comprehension.Thestudy attempts to assess to what extent L2 readers might beaffected because of their lack of a background schematapresupposed by the author by comparing the test results of twopassages comparable in language lightness or heaviness.Morecomparable passages like these can be used in investigating intothe rival effects of background knowledge and linguisticcompetence.The implications of comprehension theory for L2pedagogy are discussed and suggestions for Business Englishteaching is put forward.展开更多
IntroductionTeaching English reading in a non-English speaking situation is a very.challenging job.Despite greatefforts made,not much effect is shown.As the importance of reading comprehension is once againstressed,al...IntroductionTeaching English reading in a non-English speaking situation is a very.challenging job.Despite greatefforts made,not much effect is shown.As the importance of reading comprehension is once againstressed,all the teachers and language workers in the college English world in China have been trying todeal with the issue of how best to teach reading comprehension.During the past few years,someimprovement has been made in this field.As ESL workers,we have been teaching English to Chinese medical students,and have also had theexperience of teaching English to Spanish speakers in the USA.What impresses us most is that no matterwhat native language our students speak,they are all very well motivated to learn English in order to meettheir specific needs.Our goal is not only to improve their English language competence,but to makethem become efficient English readers.展开更多
Background:Individuals with dyslexia present with a variety of reading related deficits including text comprehension,reading speed and word encoding.While previous literature addresses individual components of group d...Background:Individuals with dyslexia present with a variety of reading related deficits including text comprehension,reading speed and word encoding.While previous literature addresses individual components of group differences,the present study compares individuals with dyslexia and normal readers on a variety of eye tracking components,as well as behavioural reading measures.The applied nature of this research allows for a comprehensive understanding of how individuals with dyslexia perceptually encode and process written texts.Using type font(i.e.,Times New Roman vs.OpenDyslexic;a font created to elevate visually specific characteristics of dyslexia)as a mediator,we investigated the group differences in eye movement patterns,text comprehension and reading speed between normal readers and individuals with dyslexia when reading standardized and validated texts designed for a grade six reading comprehension level.Methods:Our 73 participants included 38 normal reading controls and 35 individuals with dyslexia.Participants were administered the symbol search and coding subtests of The Wechsler Adult Scale of Intelligence.Participants then read ten texts from the International Reading Speed Texts:five texts in Times New Roman and five in OpenDyslexic,while binocular eye movements were recorded using a SR Research Eyelink 1000.Results:We found that irrespective of font type,when compared to controls,individuals with dyslexia demonstrated increased re-reading of texts[i.e.,regressions:CI(−0.99,−0.66),Hedges’s gs=−0.83]and number of saccades per trial[CI(−1.42,−1.08),gs=−1.25]as well as increased median fixation duration[CI(−1.15,−0.82),gs=−0.98].The control group had increased reading speed[words per minute:CI(1.48,1.84),gs=1.65],visited less interest areas[CI(−1.48,−1.13),gs=−1.31],and had fewer directional deviations from the horizontal-axis[CI(−0.49,−0.18),gs=−0.33].We found an interaction between text comprehension and font type,with both groups having improved performance with OpenDyslexic.However,results did not show a main effect of group with respect to text comprehension.Conclusions:The lack of group differences in text comprehension illustrates that high-functioning individuals with dyslexia are able to comprehend these elementary level texts,irrespective of font type.However,the erratic nature of their eye movements combined with a slow reading speed suggest that individuals with dyslexia read texts in a different manner;achieving the same understanding as normal readers.Our results suggest that reading speed differences act as compensatory methods in our sample of individuals with dyslexia.展开更多
文摘This study investigated the effect of the self-questioning strategy on English as a Foreign Language(EFL)for tenth-grade students’reading comprehension.A quasi-experimental design with two groups was employed.The researcher randomly assigned two whole sections of grade 10 from Al Samtt Secondary school for Boys,a public school,Directorate of Education in Irbid(AL Kora Directorate of Education).First,the experimental group of 25 students selected and second the control group of 25 students was selected.To achieve the purpose of the study,a pre-/post reading comprehension test was designed.In addition,self-questioning strategywas used to teach the experimental group,whereas a control group was taught by the conventional teaching strategies,as suggested in the Teacher’s Book.Results showed that there were significant statistically differences between the control and the experimental groups in favor of the experimental group.Considering the research results,the researcher recommended to use self-questioning strategy on different EFL skills and different levels of students.Teachers also should enroll in in-service training courses that provide more information about the curriculum revisions and programs that focus on improving their questioning abilities.
文摘This study examined the potential effect of Inquiry-Based Learning Strategy(IBL)on the tenth-grade students’reading comprehension.Two groups and a quasi-experimental design were used.Two complete sections of grade 10 students from a public Secondary School for Girls in Irbid was randomly assigned by the researcher.The experimental group of 30 students was chosen first,and then the control group of 30 students.A pre-post reading comprehension test was designed before and after the study in order to fulfill its goals.Additionally,the experimental group was taught using the IBL strategy,whereas the control group was taught using the traditional teaching methods recommended in the tenth-grade Teacher’s Book.According to the findings,there were significant statistical differences favoring the experimental group over the control group.In light of the findings,the researcher recommended employing the IBL strategy to students with various levels and EFL skills.
文摘This article intends to shed some light on effective use of three reading strategies: skimming,scanning and studying for non-English-speaking middle school students.The article also presents some advice for the teacher's consideration when designing and preparing reading materials.
文摘The role of grammar in language teaching has always been the question that researchers debate.In recent years,grammar knowledge has been distinguished in the foreign language acquisition research,namely the implicit knowledge and the explicit knowledge(Dai Manchun 2005;Gu Qiyi 2005).As to the reaserch of implicit and explicit grammar knowledge as well as their measurement,it is easy to find that many scholars have studied the role of two different kinds of grammar knowledge in second language development.But the research on the role of implicit and explicit grammar knowledge in second language reading comprehension is too few,not to mention the research on the role of implicit and explicit grammar knowledge in English reading comprehension in the senior high school.The purpose of this study is to find the relationship between implicit and explicit grammatical knowledge and English reading comprehension ability of senior high school students.In addition,since the vocabulary is important to reading comprehension,this factor will also be considered in the study.
文摘The present paper is a correlational study of Junior college students' achievement test and reading comprehension test based on students' interests.Through the case study,students' interests should raw much attention while teachers choose textbooks or teaching materials or design teaching plan.
文摘Background:Proficient literacy skills and reading comprehension are crucial skills for participation and success in everyday life.One group that regularly falls short in demonstrating good reading skills are people with dyslexia.This group suffers from a range of visual deficits including the pattern of ocular movements,and distorted,blurred and reversed(or mirrored)vision of letters during reading.However,only recently designers started to develop affordable and easily implementable remedies that are supposed to reduce the visual symptoms of dyslexia such as specific dyslexia fonts.These fonts incorporate properties aimed at improving the visual and behavioural reading performance of people with dyslexia by using larger intra-and inter-word whitespace,unique letter shapes and no serifs.To date,empirical evidence about the efficacy of these fonts is contradictory,and their effects on adult dyslexics’eye movements and cognitive processing during longer reading tasks remains elusive.Methods:To bridge this gap,we measured the eye movements of adults with and without dyslexia during the reading of a set of standardised texts from the international reading speed texts(IReST;Trauzettel-Klosinski&Dietz,2012)reading battery coupled with validated comprehension questions.These texts and questions were presented either in the traditional font Times New Roman or the specific dyslexia font OpenDyslexic.Results:Here,we found that OpenDyslexic led to improvements in reading comprehension in dyslexics and non-dyslexics.These improvements were larger for dyslexics.Contrarily,participants’reading speed was unaffected by OpenDyslexic.Our eye-tracking data showed that OpenDyslexic resulted in a higher number of eye movements,reduced visual search intensity,and longer median fixation duration across participants.Particularly,median fixation duration,as a measure of cognitive load,was predictive of reading comprehension across groups.Among dyslexics,OpenDyslexic yielded increases in visual search intensity and visual ease in the form of decreases in median fixation duration and fixation to saccade ratio as well as a smaller number of falsely programmed forward saccades.Conclusions:Our findings illustrate that OpenDyslexic results in a different visual reading strategy.These findings provide empirical evidence for the efficacy of OpenDyslexic in longer standardised texts and suggest its use in everyday documents,education materials,and online sources.
文摘According to the understanding of English learning process and the surrounding educational environment,it is found that most English learners have not received the training of morpheme awareness,and English teachers have hardly cultivated their students’morpheme awareness.In English learning,it is found that English morpheme awareness plays a role in promoting English learning.It can be seen from the relevant literature that the identification of English morphemes is very important for English learners’language acquisition and development,and has attracted the attention of researchers at home and abroad.This paper mainly studies the influence of morpheme awareness on junior middle school English learners’reading comprehension.
文摘Reading is a major way to learn a foreign language.In the past,reading is regarded as a passive process to receive information.The key point of reading is to comprehend.It requires learners to think,judge and reorganize the information according to one's own experience and to create meaning for the context.
文摘Reading competence is one of the basic skills of language acquisition.The teaching of reading skill has been attached great importance to in College English education in China.For decades,people have made efforts to improve the classroom teaching effects through various means,one of which is that of communicative approach.This paper attempts to explore the design of reading comprehension exercise through a case study in the light of communicative theory,thus providing an alternative to the conventional reading course teaching method.
文摘In the process of developing English reading ability,vocabulary is one of the basic English abilities.In the School of Foreign Languages,Sichuan Technology and Business University,because of the guidance and supervision of their teachers,in the first or the second year of their college,many students have shown great enthusiasm towards English learning,and taken initiative in reciting TEM-4 vocabularies,which in turn,leads to the passing of TEM-4.Nonetheless,after entering the second semester of junior year,their English learning becomes more flexible,and they would like to spend more time in their internships or part-time jobs.When TEM-8 is in the offing,some seniors even would choose to take the examination without preparation.In view of this,seniors in the School of Foreign Languages are chosen as the subjects to explore the effects of vocabulary size on English major seniors’reading comprehension and provide reference for them.In this study,subjects are the seniors of class 1,2016 English major who have passed TEM-4,and the quantitative research method is adopted.All the subjects involved in this study need to take two tests.One is the vocabulary size test,in which the vocabulary size testing software(embedded in BaiCiZhan v7.0.2)is used to test the quantity of subjects’recognition vocabulary.And the other is TEM-8 reading comprehension test,which is used to test the students’reading proficiency.In addition,some subjects are selected as the interviewees to know their feelings about the tests.After the tests,SPSS 20.0 will be used to make a linear regression analysis on the subjects’vocabulary size and the their reading performance.The finding is concluded as follows:On the premise that subjects’vocabulary size reaches the requirement of TEM-4,there is still a significant correlation between students’vocabulary size and their reading performance.
文摘To improve students' critical thinking is considered as a top priority by a growing number of educators.While there exists a comparable amount of research examining students' critical thinking skills,less is known about students' tendency to use these skills.Specifically,little is known about what influence critical thinking disposition has on students' academic achievement.English reading comprehension,which has been an important composition in students' English achievement,may be an important factor in developing this disposition.The current study examined the characteristics of students' critical thinking disposition and their English reading comprehension as well as exploring the correlation between the two factors mentioned above.The current study involved in 125 sophomores in English major from Jiangsu province.The results indicated that students in current research performed best in Maturity (M=37.46,SD=3.57),followed by Inquisitiveness (M=36.64,SD=4.31),Analyticity (M=34.86,SD=3.70),Truthseeking (M=33.86,SD=4.08).In contrast,they performed worst in CT Confidence (M=33.17,SD=4.57),followed by Systematicity (M=33.49,SD=5.10) and Open-mindedness (M=33.50,SD=3.67).Students scored highest in Attitude and View Category as the mean was 0.8257,followed by Reasoning and Judgment Category (M=0.8128),Induction and Generalization Category (M=0.7612),Theme Topic Category (M=0.6844),Semantic Comprehension Category (M=0.6789),while scored lowest in Fact and Detail Category (M=0.5818).There existed a positive correlation between critical thinking disposition and reading comprehension achievement (n=109;r=0.300;p<0.01).
文摘Reading texts serve as an influx of comprehensible input for English learners. Graphic organizer is a decent way of demonstrating the discourse structures or organizational patterns of a text, which will enormously facilitate reading comprehension. This study would give a literature review on the impact of graphic organizers on English reading comprehension. Finally, some suggestions were proposed for future studies. Hopefully, the review will shed some light on reading studies and instructions in an EFL pedagogical context.
文摘This review focuses on beginning-level,K-12,L1 English learners,and considers their reading comprehension of texts written in Chinese characters and literacy development.Instructional approaches,materials design,and teaching and learning strategies related to reading texts in Chinese characters in these settings are reviewed.This review includes both empirical studies and think pieces that appeal to prior empirical work in L2 Chinese reading to understand what Chinese as a Second Language scholars research,discuss,and advocate about reading comprehension for L2 learners mainly at beginning levels of K-12 education.This literature review therefore includes a variety of source materials:empirical research,research-informed advocacy and think pieces,and action research studies by Chinese language instructors.The article concludes with observations about the state of research and current recommendations in Chinese as a second language reading comprehension.
基金National key research and development program(2020AAA0108500)National Natural Science Foundation of China Project(No.U1836118)Key Laboratory of Rich Media Digital Publishing,Content Organization and Knowledge Service(No.:ZD2022-10/05).
文摘Machine reading comprehension has been a research focus in natural language processing and intelligence engineering.However,there is a lack of models and datasets for the MRC tasks in the anti-terrorism domain.Moreover,current research lacks the ability to embed accurate background knowledge and provide precise answers.To address these two problems,this paper first builds a text corpus and testbed that focuses on the anti-terrorism domain in a semi-automatic manner.Then,it proposes a knowledge-based machine reading comprehension model that fuses domain-related triples from a large-scale encyclopedic knowledge base to enhance the semantics of the text.To eliminate knowledge noise that could lead to semantic deviation,this paper uses a mixed mutual ttention mechanism among questions,passages,and knowledge triples to select the most relevant triples before embedding their semantics into the sentences.Experiment results indicate that the proposed approach can achieve a 70.70%EM value and an 87.91%F1 score,with a 4.23%and 3.35%improvement over existing methods,respectively.
基金Project supported by the China Knowledge Centre for Engineering Sciences and Technology(No.CKCEST-2019-1-12)the National Natural Science Foundation of China(No.61572434)。
文摘Opinion question machine reading comprehension(MRC)requires a machine to answer questions by analyzing corresponding passages.Compared with traditional MRC tasks where the answer to every question is a segment of text in corresponding passages,opinion question MRC is more challenging because the answer to an opinion question may not appear in corresponding passages but needs to be deduced from multiple sentences.In this study,a novel framework based on neural networks is proposed to address such problems,in which a new hybrid embedding training method combining text features is used.Furthermore,extra attention and output layers which generate auxiliary losses are introduced to jointly train the stacked recurrent neural networks.To deal with imbalance of the dataset,irrelevancy of question and passage is used for data augmentation.Experimental results show that the proposed method achieves state-of-the-art performance.We are the biweekly champion in the opinion question MRC task in Artificial Intelligence Challenger 2018(AIC2018).
文摘This paper reports on a study of the relationship between learning strategies and reading comprehension. To establish the variables, a learning strategies’ questionnaire was administered to about 200 students in the second-year of a non-English majors degree course in a university in Changchun. Their learning achievement was established by their scores on a reading comprehension test. The relationship between learning strategies and achievement was then examined through the SPSS 8.0 statistical analysis system. It was found that cognitive strategies were the strongest predictor to reading achievement and four other variables (metacognitive strategies, social-affective strategies, reading habits and examination strategies) also demonstrated a significant relationship with reading achievement to differing degrees. Among these variables, social-affective strategies were the only negative predictor. In addition, a significant difference existed between the high-score group and the low-score group in the use of cognitive strategies, metacognitive strategies and examination strategies.
文摘With the arrival of the new millennium,the demand fortalented people with both professional knowledge and excellentlanguage abilities is getting stronger and stronger.For business major students,reading is paramount inBusiness English teaching and learning.And their reading abilityis often assessed by a text of reading comprehension.However,from my experience as a college teacher ofBusiness English,I have noticed some problems among studentswho have little knowledge of business.They seem to readBusiness English materials at a slower rate and with lessunderstanding than general English materials.Then there is the question:is Business English reading"simply"a problem of language competence? Or are there anyother more important factors?This article is an investigation into the effect of backgroundknowledge on Business English reading comprehension.Thestudy attempts to assess to what extent L2 readers might beaffected because of their lack of a background schematapresupposed by the author by comparing the test results of twopassages comparable in language lightness or heaviness.Morecomparable passages like these can be used in investigating intothe rival effects of background knowledge and linguisticcompetence.The implications of comprehension theory for L2pedagogy are discussed and suggestions for Business Englishteaching is put forward.
文摘IntroductionTeaching English reading in a non-English speaking situation is a very.challenging job.Despite greatefforts made,not much effect is shown.As the importance of reading comprehension is once againstressed,all the teachers and language workers in the college English world in China have been trying todeal with the issue of how best to teach reading comprehension.During the past few years,someimprovement has been made in this field.As ESL workers,we have been teaching English to Chinese medical students,and have also had theexperience of teaching English to Spanish speakers in the USA.What impresses us most is that no matterwhat native language our students speak,they are all very well motivated to learn English in order to meettheir specific needs.Our goal is not only to improve their English language competence,but to makethem become efficient English readers.
文摘Background:Individuals with dyslexia present with a variety of reading related deficits including text comprehension,reading speed and word encoding.While previous literature addresses individual components of group differences,the present study compares individuals with dyslexia and normal readers on a variety of eye tracking components,as well as behavioural reading measures.The applied nature of this research allows for a comprehensive understanding of how individuals with dyslexia perceptually encode and process written texts.Using type font(i.e.,Times New Roman vs.OpenDyslexic;a font created to elevate visually specific characteristics of dyslexia)as a mediator,we investigated the group differences in eye movement patterns,text comprehension and reading speed between normal readers and individuals with dyslexia when reading standardized and validated texts designed for a grade six reading comprehension level.Methods:Our 73 participants included 38 normal reading controls and 35 individuals with dyslexia.Participants were administered the symbol search and coding subtests of The Wechsler Adult Scale of Intelligence.Participants then read ten texts from the International Reading Speed Texts:five texts in Times New Roman and five in OpenDyslexic,while binocular eye movements were recorded using a SR Research Eyelink 1000.Results:We found that irrespective of font type,when compared to controls,individuals with dyslexia demonstrated increased re-reading of texts[i.e.,regressions:CI(−0.99,−0.66),Hedges’s gs=−0.83]and number of saccades per trial[CI(−1.42,−1.08),gs=−1.25]as well as increased median fixation duration[CI(−1.15,−0.82),gs=−0.98].The control group had increased reading speed[words per minute:CI(1.48,1.84),gs=1.65],visited less interest areas[CI(−1.48,−1.13),gs=−1.31],and had fewer directional deviations from the horizontal-axis[CI(−0.49,−0.18),gs=−0.33].We found an interaction between text comprehension and font type,with both groups having improved performance with OpenDyslexic.However,results did not show a main effect of group with respect to text comprehension.Conclusions:The lack of group differences in text comprehension illustrates that high-functioning individuals with dyslexia are able to comprehend these elementary level texts,irrespective of font type.However,the erratic nature of their eye movements combined with a slow reading speed suggest that individuals with dyslexia read texts in a different manner;achieving the same understanding as normal readers.Our results suggest that reading speed differences act as compensatory methods in our sample of individuals with dyslexia.
