二稿

AbstractThe present study aims to highlight the important role that reading plays in the university English study.Compared with previous studies, the present study is a survey study. A questionnaire was adopted in this study. Students’ questionnaires re flect some difficulties when they are reading.Through the analysis and study of these difficulties, lexical problem, grammar, cultural background, mother tongue as well as reading strategies, hope to give college students some effective methods in English reading in the future, and to provide the basis for future teaching and teaching reform.Finally, from the questionnaire that has been carried out, analyze the statistics and summarize some countermeasures, stimulant students’ interests, cultivate students’ reading skills, input foreign culture and give them some reading strategies to solve the problem. It aims to help students develop good reading habits and improve their reading ability.Key words：University students English reading Influential factors Countermeasures摘要本研究的目的是为了进一步强调英语阅读在大学生英语学习中的重要作用。

探求影响大学生英语阅读的主要因素及其解决的对策。

与以往的研究相比，本研究属于调查研究，大学生的问卷调查反映了学生在英语阅读中遇到的困难，通过对词汇问题、语法问题、文化背景知识、母语的影响程度以及阅读技巧的分析与研究，希望给学生以后的阅读学习提供一些有效的方法，为以后的教学改革提供依据。

最后,从所调查的问卷，分别从激起学生兴趣、培养学生的阅读技巧、进行相应的外国文化输入以及对待不同文章的阅读策略方面总结了一些解决问题的对策，旨在帮助学生养成良好阅读习惯及提高阅读能力。

关键词：大学生英语阅读影响因素对策1 Chapter four 是论文的重点，这部分的内容太少，至少要写七八页。

最大的问题：你的分类过细，可以从哪些大的角度对获取的数据进行分析？再把大的角度分节分析。

使用柱形或饼形图把所占百分比表现出了，不能只是简单地用表格。

参照以前类似毕业论文的写作模式，修改。

2 文献综述部分及其它部分要注意不要过度抄袭，检测超过25%，是不能参加答辩的。

3. 按照学院的格式要求修改。

打印出一份完整的论文放到外语一楼我的邮箱里。

ContentsAbstract (i)摘要 (ii)Chapter One Introduction (1)Chapter Two Literature Review (3)2.1 The Definition of Reading (3)2.2 Factors Involved in English Reading (3)2.3Three Models of Reading (4)2.3.1bottom-up approach (4)2.3.2top-down approach (5)2.3.3interactive model (5)Chapter Three Research Methodology (6)3.1 Research Objective (6)3.2 Subjects (6)3.3 Instrument (6)3.4 Procedure (7)Chapter Four Results and Countermeasures (8)4.1 Results and Analysis from Questionnaire (8)4.2Countermeasures (10)4.2.1Reading strategies (10)4.2.2Stimulating Students’ Interest (10)4.2.3Cultivating Students’ Reading Skills (11)4.2.4Inputting culture (12)Chapter Five Conclusion (13)5.1 Major Findings (13)5.2 Recommendations for Future Studies (13)References............................ (14)Appendix............................ . (15)A Survey Study on the Analysis of Influential Factors in University Students English Reading and the CountermeasuresChapter One IntroductionWith the development and improvement of international exchange，English has become an essential tool for communication among people from different nations and regions. The present study is a survey study which attempts to emphasize the importance of English reading in university students’ study and to know some difficulties they meet when they are reading .It aims to summarizeproper methods and Countermeasures to help students improve their English reading ability.80 English major students were participated in this survey in the form of responding to a questionnaire.Reading is quite essential for language acquisition，especially in the environment of studying English as a foreign language. In present-day society，with the economic globalization，two-thirds of newspapers ,magazines and periodical spread in English all over the world. Therefore, English reading plays an very important role in college students’ acquisition of knowledge and analysis of English material increasingly. At present, reading is the major input of language During the learning process of college students, among the four language skills—listening ,speaking ,reading ,and writing, reading has accounted a lot. As Kristen(1985) said ,“reading is good for language acquisition ;it promotes better spelling, better writing skills, higher reading comprehension and more advanced vocabulary.”One’s reading ability is a major indication of his integrative language proficiency. But compared with a lot of theoretical research in English reading, survey studies are superior to theoretical studies. Survey studies on the Influential Factors.College Students English reading are quite inadequately conducted, both abroad at home.Studies abroad，they are based on the design of good experiment to demonstrate the limitations of existing theories. It aims to revise and improve the existing theories (Inagaki S,2002). In contrary, studies at home,English reading research focused on schema theory to guide English reading and English teaching, application of reading strategies and theory basis, the mental process of reading and so on(Yi,2003). In general, studies at home were more inclined to the worship of existing models andtheories, to apply them directly.Therefore, the studies abroad and at home are firmly state theories rather than practice. And the existing studies do not carry out.The present study is a survey study on the influential factors in college students’English reading .With the help of a questionnaire, the present study attempts to find out the difficulties that college students always confront with in English reading and try to offer countermeasures to solve them.The present study is of great significance，theoretically and methodologically. Theoretically, the present study further illustrates how and why we apply this1research and emphasize the importance and necessity of English reading , and help college students develop good reading habits and improve their reading competence. Methodologically, the present study uses a questionnaire to do a survey study. It needs less time and less expense, but the collected quantitative data can express results more objectively.The thesis consists of five chapters. This chapter is an introduction to the present study，the general statement，the need for study are included. Chapter Two is a literature review，which givesthe definition of reading and countermeasures，methods of reading and some related studies. Chapter three presents the research method，research question and data collection. Chapter Four describes the results and analysis from the questionnaire as well as effective countermeasures. And Chapter Five is the last part of this study. It summarize the major findings，Implications and also gives the recommendations for future studies.2Chapter Two Literature ReviewThis chapter contains three sections. The first section is about the key terms，and second section is about the methods of reading and the last one is related studies about influential factors.2.1 The Definition of ReadingAuthorities and experts on the teaching of reading have different views on what reading is. In general terms, reading involves the reader, the text ,and the interaction between reader and text .According to Douglas(1981:82),the nature of silent reading is about the behavior of a reader The text and the reader do not constitute actual reading. What constitutes actual reading is the interaction between the text and reader.Francoise(1981:5) defined from the aspect of information ,“Understanding a written text means extracting the required information from it as efficiently as possible. ”This means reading is a comprehensive process. Wilga(1987:187) describes a similar idea that reading is a complex, actively thinking psychological activity, which is not a passive, but rather an active process. Reading is also a completely individual activity. It is the mental activities that readers focus on in order to construct his meaning and understanding from a text.However, Nuttal(1982:222) disagreed that reading necessarily involved understanding:“reading is the identification of linguistic forms from strings of written configuration that present them,as evidenced by producing the conventional signs for the same linguistic form in some other system of representation.”Although there are different views about a precise definition of reading, the most useful and practical one to today’s English reading is not only an active process, but also an comprehensive process. In English reading, find weakness and try to close the gap.2.2 Factors Involved in English readingStudents often have some difficulties in improving their reading ability. This difficulty results not only from their method of learning, but mostly from their lack of basic knowledge about grammar, sentence structures, parts of speech, tense, voice, and non-predicting verbs and so on. Also they are lacking in vocabulary and some background knowledge of the English- speaking countries.In view of Krash(1985:103), three sub-factors need to be taken account into their part to promote reading competence. They are adequate vocabulary, ability to speculate on lexical meanings and awareness of lexical deviations. V ocabulary serves as the most preliminary foundation for English reading comprehension. But only few studentsadmit that they have adequate vocabulary to fulfill their understanding.Grammar roles and sentence patterns are also fundamental elements in English reading. Because of the grammar confusion, students often do not understand the reading material although they know all the words. If the students are unable to distinguish the main clause from a subordinate clause and3are unable to know their relationships, despite understanding the meaning of every word in the sentence, understanding is unlikely to occur with accuracy.Language is rather like a mirror that reflects the national culture of its speaker. The American linguist Sapir thinks the language cannot exist without culture. Culture can be explained as what the society does and thinks, and the language is the expression the ideas of society. Obviously, culture is one of the keys in English reading. Therefore, confronted with cultural differences，readers should be given the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the target culture.Mother tongue is a double edged sword, on the one hand, reading habits and reading experiences of the mother tongue may facilitate English reading. On the other hand, the native patterns and culture may hinder the process of English reading to some extent.Influence of bad reading habitsAccording to Stern, reading habits will also affect English reading, there are many bad reading habits like finger-pointing, head-moving, regress, over-dependence on the dictionary and so on.2.3 Three Models of ReadingThis part will discuss three models of reading: bottom-up approach, top-down approach and interactive model.2.3.1Bottom-up ApproachUntil now, the bottom-up approach leads both first and second language research and theory. According to Cambourne(1979), bottom-up approach was the basis of the overwhelming majority of reading schemes. The bottom-up approach regard reading as a process of decoding written symbols into their aural equivalents in a linear fashion. Cambourne(1979) uses the following illustration of how the process is supposed to work: print→every letter→ phonemes and blending→pronunciation→meaning.Thus, one first distinguishes each letter as it is encountered, Sounds these out, matches the written symbols with their aural equivalents blends these together to form words, and derives meaning. The derivation of meaning is thus the final procedure in which the language is translated from one of symbolic representation to another .In the early stage of reading it would be a reasonable explanation of reading process to teach learners the sound-symbol correspondences and, actually, this is the most popular approach to teaching reading—the phonics approach，in which learners are taught to decode words by matching written symbols with their aural equivalents. However, there are a crowd of critics about this approach because it emphasizes meaning in the process. Evidence against the notion that reading is a matter of decoding letters to sounds in a linear way also came from work carried out in the1970s by researchers with a technique miscue analysis. The technique pioneered by Goodman and Burke(1972), contains the analysis of errors made by the reader when reading the text loudly. It shows that reading is more than mechanical decoding. Those readers who are reading for meaning generate miscue that4makes sense semantically.2.3.2 Top-Down ApproachInsights from sources are mentioned above results in the postulation of alternative to the bottom-up, phonics approach. This has been known as the top-down or psycholinguistic approach to reading. According to the view，one begins with a series of hypothesis or predictions about the meaning of the text, which one is about to read ,and then selectively samples the text to determine whether or not the predictions are correct. Top-down processing has been used to represent that reading is a process of reconstructing meaning rather than decoding form, and readers only resort to decode if other meaning fail. Cambourne(1979) gives the following schematization of the approach: past experience, language→selective aspects→meaning→sound, pronunciation.From what I have discussed, readers can understand that this approach emphasizes the reconstruction of meaning rather than the decoding of form. The interaction of reading and the text is the core to the process, instead of decoding each symbol, or even every word.2.3.3 Interactive ModelInteractive model is one of the newest outcomes of modern reading theories.It adopts the two traditional models’(bottom-up &top-down) strong points while overcoming their weak points.The interactive model is a kind of compromise theory between the two and it agrees with the function of both lower level and higher level processes to reading comprehension .Therefore it has become a more perfect reading model. While reading, students begin to interact with the author of the text and try to understand and perceive the author’s real purpose and meaning as much and as quickly as possible.5Chapter Three Research MethodologyThis chapter is composed of four parts.With an intention to summarize troubles in college students’ English reading through the investigation, a questionnaire was adopted. The first part is research objective and the next part is subjects, instrument is the third part and the last part is procedure.3.1 Research ObjectiveIn order to investigate the obstacles and difficulties in university students’English reading, the survey was adopted. It aims to improve their reading ability and stimulate their interest as well as cultivate their reading skills through the analysis of influential factors.3.2 SubjectsThe subjects participated in the study are 80 students from Ke wen college junior and senior English major.3.3InstrumentThe questionnaire was addressed to the subjects. The questionnaire (see Appendix I) is intended to find what kinds of matters and difficulties when college students are reading. Students’ attitudes toward those questions can be divided into five kinds, strongly agree, agree, neither agree nor disagree, disagree, and strongly disagree.difficulties can be concluded.Eighty English major college students were participated in this investigation. They come from junior and senior. Seventeen questions have been designed to investigate college students’ attitudes and obstacles when they are reading, and give them five different choices to choose. The data were collected immediately after thequestionnaire was finished. It took less 20 minutes for the students to answer the questionnaire. After collecting the data, dividing the questions into different aspects, and make a table to conclude the statistics and6to seek countermeasures to solve the difficulties.7Chapter Four Results and CountermeasuresThis chapter is made up of two parts. One is about the result of the Questionnaire, the second is about some countermeasures.4.1 Results and analysis from the questionnaireThe questionnaire was used to investigate students’ attitudes and opinions towards English reading. It contains eighteen items in all. The students express their views in terms of a five-point scale. The five-point is as follows：Table 4.1.2Students’ answer8The table can be divided into six aspects to analyze. First is students’ interest. Second is basic knowledge of English, third is foreign culture effect. Fourth is reading attitudes. Fifth is mother tongue. Last is reading skills and strategies.From the table sheet, the following information can be concluded, 41.25% college students have interests in English reading, and 31.25% students have neutral attitudes toward English reading. So stimulating college students’ interest is necessary, because it not only plays a very important role in English study, but also accounts alot in some meaningful examinations, e.g. CET4, CET6, GRE, TOFEL, TEM4, TEM8 even in final term exams. Only in this way, college students can pass all the examinations easily.Basic knowledge of English includes vocabulary, grammar, sentence structuresor patterns, 60% students think that vocabulary affects their English reading. 70% students hold the view that sentence patterns or structures are great obstacle in their English reading. So broaden their basic knowledge of English is an indispensible part of students English reading and study.45% students view that foreign culture has impact on English reading. So know foreign culture can help them a lot.As the proverb goes, attitude is everything. The proverb is also been proved in this situation. 93.75% students approve of this saying. It either does work in English reading or do affect in doing everything.41.25% students think that mother tongue or Chinese affects English reading. In some conditions, students overcome this influence can help them learn articles well.Last but not least, reading skills and strategies are accounted a lot in English study and reading. 88.75% students view that reading skills and strategies play a quite important role in English reading. So master reading skills and strategies, e.g.skimming，scanning, extensive reading, intensive reading and etc. can be beneficial to their English reading and improve their reading ability.94.2Countermeasures4.2.1Reading strategiesTo improve the reading ability, learners should first form good reading habits; broaden vocabulary; and then improve self-cultivation of knowledge about culture background. It is very important for them to grasp some reading skills, such as, guessing words from the title, the context, the comparison, the definition, etc.; skimming, scanning and so on.According to the statistics of the questionnaire, I conclude the countermeasures from the following aspects. First, broaden vocabulary. The elements of language are phonetic, vocabulary and grammar. V ocabulary is the fundamental element to language，master enough vocabulary is one of the major signs in English reading. An important part of improving the efficiency of reading is to enlarge one’s vocabulary. It not only decides one’s ability of reading comprehension, but also affects one’s improvement of reading ability. Lili(2000:99), pointed that“Where does the trouble lie for Chinese learners with English vocabulary in reading comprehension? the biggest difficulty for them lies in two aspects: how to learn a reasonably large vocabulary and how to use it in reading for a comparatively good comprehension.” Second, consolidate grammar, with the help of grammar ,students can analyze the sentence structure in a clear way. Third, rich cultural background knowledge of English speaking countries, English reading comprehension is a vital part in language learning. Through reading, we can understand their culture and language, the relationship between and culture is generated at the same time and interdependence. Last but not least, master reading strategies can help college students improve their English reading competence, skimming, unfamiliar material demands a more complete overview, we would resort to skimming with its greater attention to topic and summary sentence, and other cues within the paragraph. Scanning,where the information is scattered, by scanning to locate the forgotten parts.4.2.2 Stimulating Students’ InterestInterest is one of the biggest motivations in learning. It may activate the students’attention, imagination, active thinking and memorization, thus providing a valuable condition for mastering the target language. To achieve this, several aspects should be considered in teaching.Readers’needs are expected to be analyzed so as to locate appropriate reading materials and teaching contents. One of Krashen’s（1988）conditions for the most appropriate language input is to match the language input with the student’s needs. What’s more, reading should be guided by the individual interest and needs and the authentic reading materials should be appropriately chosen for light reading. Therefore, reading teachers are responsible for keeping up with the students’ interests in reading.However, interest is also influenced by some other factors such as the perspective of reading, linguistic competence, current level of knowledge, style of the readingmaterials, density of information and so on. Therefore, teachers10should also bear these factors in mind when choosing reading materials so as to improve the effectiveness of reading.4.2.3Cultivating Students’ Reading Skills“Cultivating students’ reading skills is one of the most difficult tasks for any teacher” (Wang, 1996) this is because successful reading skills are acquired over time and with lots of practice. Two of the more important skills are discussed here. Skimming is used to quickly identify the main ideas of a text. When you read the newspaper, you’re probably not reading it word-by-word, instead you’re scanning the test. Skimming is done at a speed three to four times faster than normal reading. People often skim when they have lots of material to read in a limited amount of time. Use skimming when you want to see if an article may be of interest in your research. There are many strategies that can be used when skimming. You might read the title, subtitles, subheading, and illustrations. Consider reading the first sentence of each paragraph. This technique is useful when you’re seeking specific information rather than reading for comprehension. Skimming works well to find dates, names, and places. It might be used to review graphs, tables, and charts. Scanning is a reading technique to be used when you want to find specific information quickly. You search for key words or ideas. In most cases, you know what you’re looking for, so you’re concentrating on finding a particular answer. Scanning involves moving your eyes quickly down the page seeking specific words and phrases. Scanning is also used when you first find a resource to determine whether it will answer your questions. Once you’re scanned the document, you might go back and skim it. When scanning, look for the author’s use of organizers such as numbers, letters, steps, or such words as first, second, or next. Look for words that are bola faced, italics, or in a different font size, style, or color. Sometimes the author will put key ideas in the margin.4.2.4Inputting CultureUnderstanding that language is controlled by particular cultural experiences is a necessity for the language learner. If the cultural difference between the students’ own culture and that of the language they are to learn are excessive, learners will usually keep some distance from the target language in their efforts to maintain their psychological comfort level. As a consequence the operating processes of memory and input will certainly be limited. Thus teachers need to be aware that breaking down the barriers is a significant part of cultural teaching and forms an important aspect of the whole process of language teaching.“Culture input should be performed in an authentic context so as to make the readers conscious of the cultural differences. The traditional culture monologue imparted before class as the so-called culture background knowledge only makes the learning atmosphere dull and the learners’passive information receptors”(Kramsch,1998).11Chapter Five ConclusionThis chapter consists of parts. The first section is major findings and the second section is recommendation for future studies.5.1 Major FindingsEnglish and reading are inseparable from each other. Reading attitudes and skills are very useful to college students. It can improve their English in many facets. It can improve students’ ability for listening, speaking, reading, writing and translating.The major findings from the present study survey indicate the following:(1)Basic English language affects students’ reading a lot, vocabulary, grammar and sentence structure are included. In order to improve their reading ability, students themselves should equip them with enough English language.(2) Good reading habits will be beneficial to English reading a lot. As the saying goes, good beginning is half down. Right attitude is also indispensible, only with an earnest attitude can we do better.(3)Master reading skills are of great significance to do reading better. Such as scanning, skimming and other skills, by these countermeasures, students can develop good reading habits and improve their reading ability.5.2 Recommendations for Future StudiesThe sample size is not big enough，but，in the future，larger sample size will be more perfect. And the questions of the questionnaire should cover more extensive fields. The design of questionnaire and analysis should be improved. In addition, the methods need to be improved.12ReferencesFrancoise,G.(1981).Developing reading skills. London: Oxford University Press. Houglas,B.(2001).Teaching by principals：An Interactive approach to language pedagogy. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.Nuttal,C.(1982).Teaching reading in a second language. London: Heineman. Nuttal,C.(1983).Teaching reading skills in a foreign language. London: The Chaucer Press.Wilga,M.(1987).A Practical guide to the teaching of English as a second or foreign language. New York: Oxford University Press.Krashen(1988).Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning London: Oxford University Press.Kramsch(1998) . Language and Culture. London: Oxford University Press.易千红.英语阅读理论与模式的研究现状与进展[J].成都：电子科技大学学报，2003 梁欢珍，大学英语成功策略.上海教育出版社[J]，2000李莉，阅读揭秘，天津大学出版社[M]，2000:99胡春洞王才仁，广西教育出版社[M]，1996朱国振. 语言知识在英语阅读理解中的作用[ J]. 大学英语, 1996, ( 增刊): 279～ 287. 郑树棠, 卫乃兴, 陈永婕. 关于大学英语课中学习策略的研究[ J]. 外语界, 1997, (2): 2313Appendix I关于影响英语阅读因素的调查亲爱的同学们：你们好！为了进一步了解大家英语阅读中所遇到的困难，为今后的阅读教学研究和改革提供依据。