论文总字数：34014字

摘 要

随着中国与国外的经济和科技交流的口益频繁，英语在人们的日常生活中也变得非常重要。在英语教学中，阅读是主要方法之一。与此同时，阅读也是语言知识输入的主要途径。Krashen的输入假设理论是二语习得的重要理论, 它强调可理解的语言输入在语言习得中起着至关重要的作用。高质量的语言输出有赖于有效的语言输入。本文将结合Krashen的语言输入假设理论,重点阐述提高英语阅读教学中有效输入途径，以期对英语阅读教学有所启发。

关键词：输入理论；英语阅读教学；有效性输入途径

Content

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 1

2.1 Researches of Input Hypothesis 1

2.1.1 The Input Hypothesis 1

2.1.2 The research of Input Hypothesis abroad 3

2.1.3 The research of Input Hypothesis in China 3

2.2 The Researches of Reading 3

2.2.1 Definition 3

2.2.2 The research of reading abroad 4

2.2.3 The research of reading in China 5

3. The Effective Approaches in the Teaching of English Reading 6

3.1 Setting Clear Objectives 6

3.2 Valuing Emotional Attitude 7

3.3 The creative use of reading materials 7

3.3.1 Extensive Reading Materials 7

3.3.2 Intensive reading materials 9

3.4 The Use of Mutimedia 9

3.5 Effective feedback 10

4. Application of Effective Approaches 10

4.1 In Pre- reading Stage 10

4.2 In While-reading Stage 11

4.3 In Post-reading Stage 12

4.3.1 Retelling the story 12

4.3.2 Writting reports or reading notes 12

4.3.3 Class discussion and role play 13

4. Conclusion 13

Works Cited 14

1. Introduction

In the age of information explosion, the communication between the countries is becoming more and more frequent, which highlights the importance of English. As a result, English has become one of the main ways to acquire information. The ability of English reading affects the information accessing. What’s more, reading is not only an important means of foreign language learning, but also the main way for Chinese students to access foreign language. For Chinese students, English reading is not only one of the aims of learning English, but also one of the main ways in learning English. At the same time, reading becomes the main source of language input. Only when the quality of input increases, does the quality of output improve. Therefore, the effective input is vital in the teaching of English reading.

Krashen (1985: 157) points out that the best way to teach students is to provide comprehensible input which is suitable for the learner’s language level. When children learn their mother tongue, they are not taught grammar rules, but the rules can be acquired when the learners have enough input. Language acquisition will be realized when the teacher provides effective comprehensible input. Therefore, language acquisition is closely linked to language input. On the basis of the comprehensible input theory, the i 1 formula, proposed by Krashen (1985: 216), this paper intends to analyze the effective approaches and the application in the three stages of the teaching of English reading with the hope to improve students’ learning effect.

2. Literature Review

2.1 Researches of Input Hypothesis

2.1.1 The Input Hypothesis

For many years, Stephen Krashen has been doing researches on language learning, the acquisition of second language foreign language and the methodology of foreign language teaching. In order to facilitate language acquisition, he studies the rules of foreign language teaching. The most eminent theory of the second language learning process is Monitor Model which consists of a set of five basic hypotheses: acquisition-learning hypothesis, natural order hypothesis, monitor hypothesis, flitter hypotheses and input hypothesis.

As claimed by Krashen himself, the Input Hypothesis is the most important of the five, both theoretically and practically. The Input Hypothesis states that humans obtain language in only one way--by receiving comprehensible input. Language acquisition depends the understanding of what other people say. The input should be neither too difficult nor too easy for learners to understand. It is defined by Krashen in terms of the learners’ present level, named “i 1”. “I” represents learners’ current level while “1” represents the next level. It attempts to answer the critical question of how we acquire language. Therefore, the Input Hypothesis is only concerned with acquisition, not learning. Considering not all of the learners being at the same level of linguistic competence at the same time, Krashen suggests that natural communicative input is the key to designing a syllabus, ensuring that each learner will receive i 1 input that is appropriate for his current stage of linguistic competence. The Input Hypothesis has two corollaries: (1) Speaking is a result of acquisition and not its cause. (2) Speech cannot be taught directly but emerges on its own as a result of building competence via comprehensible input. (qtd in Shu Baimei 2012: 35-36) Krashen argues that the ideal input should have the following characteristics (Krashen 1985: 235). First and foremost, the input should be comprehensible. The comprehensible language materials are necessary for the second language acquisition. Only when the reading materials are comprehensible, are the input are meaningful. Otherwise, the incomprehensible input is fruitless and even a disturbance for the learners. Second, the input should be interesting and relevant. Processing its significance makes the language input beneficial for language acquisition. The more interesting and correlative the input language materials are, the more interested the learners will be in the acquisition of language. Learners will get the input virtually imperceptibly. Third, the input should not be grammatically sequenced. It means that the input does not obey the grammatical order. Besides, the key of language acquisition is comprehensible input. If the learning aim is acquisition rather than learning for exams, the teaching followed by grammatical order is not only unnecessary but also undesirable. The last, the quantity of input should be enough. To acquire a new language structure, the continuous widely reading and enormous conversation are needed.

2.1.2 The research of Input Hypothesis abroad

From the beginning, Krashen’s theory attracts much controversy. Krashen put forward much evidence to support the input hypothesis. Besides second language learners always experience a period of silence. Krashen reviewed many cases and he argues that children always have a long silent period at the beginning before they begin to speak the second language (Krashen 1985: 218). Moreover, Krashen analyzes a point of view that the adult learners are good at a short-term second language learning, while the children are good at long-term second language acquisition. The more comprehensible input they receive, the higher level of their second language would be (Krashen 1985:225). Although Krashen specified much evidence to support his hypothesis, there are still many people put forward some criticism. Swain observed the immersion teaching; she thought the effect of the comprehensible output is to provide exchanging opportunities as well as the detection of target opportunities in the context, so as to cultivate the learners from a purely semantic analyzer to a syntactic analyzer (Swain 1985:252). It means that the comprehensible input for the second language learning is necessary but not sufficient condition.

2.1.3 The research of Input Hypothesis in China

In recent years most people support the input hypothesis. However, Luo Lisheng argues that Krashens’ input hypothesis is put forward in a foreign environment, based on the second language acquisition (Luo Lisheng 2001:88). In the process of China’s foreign language teaching, language environment and language conditions of the learners have changed a lot. Luo claims that foreign language teaching may follow the input principle of i 1 at the stages of learning.

2.2 The research of reading

2.2.1 Definition

Different linguists give different definitions of reading from different perspectives based on their own understanding and researches.

Kenneth Goodman (1988:145) points out that reading is a receptive language process. It is also a psycholinguistic process. It starts with a linguistic surface representation encoded by a writer and ends with meaning which the reader constructs. There is thus an essential interaction between language and thought in reading. The writer encodes thought as language and the reader decodes language to thought.

From the psycholinguistic viewpoint, Professor Shu Baimei (2012:137) states that reading is a problem-solving behavior that actively involves the reader in the process of deriving and assigning meaning. The reader is drawing on contextual information that contains syntactic, semantic, and discourse constraints that affect interpretation. In this sense, reading is an interaction of reader and text. To predict what they are about to read, readers must be continuously involved in integrating information from these three contexts: one has to read not only the lines, but also between and beyond the lines.

To sum up, reading is an interactive process that involves both the readers and the reading materials in understanding meaning. The process of reading is that readers construct their information to meet their needs from the written materials. The richer the background, or the schema readers have, the easier they will get to know the new materials.

2.2.2 The research of reading abroad

In late 1870s, German psychologist Wundt established the psychological laboratory at the University of Leipzig and started to study the reading process from the perspective of cognitive psychology.

After 1960s, reading researches began to attach great importance to reading psychology mechanism. Influenced by behavioral psychology, Gough (1972:135) proposed the bottom- up model that regards reading as a passive and precise process. Besides, Smith (1971:150) proposed a psycholinguistic reading model, namely top-down model. The model based on the theory of the concept claims that readers predict reading materials on the basis of the syntactic and semantic information in their brain and verify and modify them in the process of reading. According to this model, reading activity is actually one kind of language in practice or implementation. Later, Rumelhart (1977:136) has a wildly accepted view on reading: reading comprehension is the result of neither a bottom-up nor top-down process, but rather the product of interaction between two. This model emphasizes the interaction process between the reading materials and background knowledge of the reader.

During 1980s, Carrell amp; Eistethold (1983:145) proposed the schema theory model. Besides, discourse analysis has quickly developed. Since the 1990s, discourse analysis has been popular in the field of language teaching. Discourse Analysis for Language Teachers, by Michael McCarthy made contributions to discourse analysis theory. With the further development of reading theories, the training of reading habits and reading strategies has become a new research direction.

2.2.3 The research of reading in China

In China, the research of Foreign language reading is mainly the study of English as Second Language (ESL) or English as Foreign Language (EFL). In researches, scholars usually directly apply foreign achievements to EFL and ESL. Foreign language workers in China timely introduced foreign reading theories, but the monographs about reading are relatively few.

Before 1960s, reading research was influenced by transformational generative grammar and structural linguistics. Researchers believed that reading is understood from the words in order to comprehend the discourse (Li Xiaoman amp; Zhang He 2005:139). Bushwell emphasizes to study language from the perspective of structure and focuses on the impact of the structure of text on readers. Bartlett emphasizes to study language from the perspective of meaning, and pay attention to analyze the process of reading from readers point of view and he proposed the concept of schema for the first time (qtd in Wang Huiping 2001:102). The two experts’ researches in reading led the early study of text reading.

In 1992, Zhang Biyin in his book Reading Psychology systematically introduces the western research theory about the psychology of reading. At the same time, he introduces a lot of relevant research achievements about Chinese reading experiment. In 1998, The Theory of English Reading, written by Hu Chundong, reveals the basic rules of Chinese English reading. It is a monograph of English reading with Chinese characteristics. Besides, it discusses the effective ways of promoting abilities of English reading and English learning from the perspective of practice.

3. The Effective Approaches in the Teaching of English Reading

3.1 Setting clear objectives

Input hypothesis claims that the input should be neither too difficult nor too easy for learners to understand. It is defined by Krashen in terms of the learner’s present level, named i 1. “I” represents learner’s current level while “1” represents the next level. Before reading, reader’s present level is not enough for them to acquire more effective intake. However, as an approach of effective intake, setting objectives helps readers achieve the next level more easily. Besides, setting clear objectives makes the action of English reading become more purposeful and affective.

Efficient intake depends first on having a purpose for reading. Only when the readers set clear objectives can they intake the material efficiently. On the basis of clear objectives, the appropriate type of reading and the relevant skills can be chosen to apply. Teachers can help students by setting clear purposes for reading in class and also can help people who are reading for assignments or a professional purpose by defining what they need to find out and then deciding what and how to read. The purpose can be a very general one like reading a novel for pleasure; on the other hand, it can be very specific like looking up a telephone number or some-body’s address. As mentioned above the purpose of reading is usually determined by the relevant reading skills to be used. In terms of reading skills, this approach aims to help students develop special skills which can be employed in reading. They are predictive skills, extracting specific information by scanning, getting the general picture, deducing meaning from context, inferring opinions and attitudes and recognizing function and discourse patterns and markers.

3.2 Valuing emotional attitude

Improving students’ interest in reading is the key to the goals of enhancing students’ language ability and improving the effectiveness of teaching English reading. It is another approach of improving effective input. Teachers stimulate students’ interest in various interesting forms. These requirements put forward a series of challenges for teachers. So teachers must understand students deeply in some aspects, including the students’ English level, interests and hobbies etc. According to these conditions, teachers can make students receptive teaching methods in order to improve the students reading interest.

3.3 The creative use of reading materials

In the teaching of English reading, especially in the choice of reading materials, Krashen’s Input Hypothesis has an extraordinary significance. The ideal input should be comprehensible, interesting, relevant, sufficient and authentic. Only when the input has these characteristics, can English reading achieve the optimum. Besides, learners develop the ability of English reading through these best inputs of language materials. Therefore, the choice of reading materials is particularly vital. In general, the characteristics of proper reading materials share the following features: comprehensible, authentic, universal and diverse, interesting and relevant, informative and literary.

3.3.1 Extensive reading materials

Extensive reading is the reading of longer passages with a focus on enjoyment and/or learning new information while reading. The following factors reflects their relative importance in making reading materials selection: interest, exploitability, readability, topic and cultural suitability.

First, interest is important due to its relation to motivation. Without the motivation, it is exceeding difficult to meet the aims of a reading program. Second, exploitability is a key factor in selecting reading materials which may arouse readers’ interest. Third, lexical knowledge and background knowledge are the two most important elements that determine the readability of the reading material. Besides, the organization of the text and the length of the potential reading passage should also be focused. Forth, topic has to be taken into account. Reading more in depth on a subject might facilitate second language acquisition, as the vocabulary and structure are often recycled. Therefore, teachers should explore three or four elements or topics during the reading course as an aid in facilitating reading comprehension and building background knowledge. Fifth, cultural suitability is a factor to consider in selecting reading materials. When teachers choose reading materials, cultural differences should be concentrated on.

3.3.2 Intensive reading materials

Intensive reading is the teaching of reading skills, vocabulary, and phonological instruction, typically through short reading passages followed by reading comprehension exercises. Intensive reading materials fall into two categories: informative ones and narrative ones.

In the former category, one type of reading covers a variety of topics and a variety of text types. This type uses predominantly informational reading texts, including both formal and informal writing. The other type is content-based. This type of textbook strives to teach not only reading skills but content information as well. In the later category, almost all textbooks include a variety of topics, although textbook may specialize in a particular type of story reading. The main difference between these textbooks is whether the language of a text is authentic or modified. An authentic textbook is generally a collection of literary works without modification. A modified textbook is written in a language that differs to some degree from that of the educated native speaker.

3.4 The use of multi-media

Reading teaching is not only to develop the students’ language skills, but also to cultivate their cultural awareness and communicative competence. Therefore, learners should read a plenty of different styles, different topics, different cultural materials to expand their scope of their knowledge and to improve their interpersonal skills. Problems existing in the traditional teaching of reading in language and non-language materials affected the development of learners’ communicative competence.

The ideal input should be comprehensible, interesting, relevant, sufficient and authentic. Only when the input has these characteristics, can English reading achieve the optimum. as an aid, multimedia, to some extent, can alleviate the shortage of the traditional reading teaching. Besides, multimedia provides sufficient information and it can also provide students with more direct and more vivid language information so that it improves the comprehensibility. From this aspect, multimedia provides a more direct way for learners to receive comprehensible input. Besides, multimedia is based the following characteristics to improve the comprehensibility of input.

First, with the aid of multimedia, teachers can introduce real-time materials to students in the reading course. Multimedia brings the world into the classroom and presents what happens in the world and real life to students. It enables students to obtain more authentic and more practical knowledge so that students can realize the importance of learning.

Second, both teachers and students can receive more cultural materials. Language and culture are linked closely. If they are separated, no matter the language or culture will lose its significance. So learning a second language not only learns language knowledge, but also knows foreign culture, to observe the new world with a new culture. Therefore, in the multimedia classroom, teachers can give students more cultural materials to let the students learn more cultural knowledge. Such cultural knowledge has large influence on the development of students’ communicative ability

Third, in the multimedia classroom, learners can get more input through more communication. The use of multimedia in the teaching of reading presents students materials that include language and non-language content, so learners often understand them in various ways. Thus, the ability of both reading and communication can be more active and frequent.

In short, advanced multimedia technology has great advantage in the simulation of language environment. The combination of rich audio-visual materials and multimedia classroom can fully mobilize the enthusiasm of each sense of learners. Synchronous operation and harmonious development between every sense create the best conditions for strengthening the absorption of the input language information.

3.5 Effective feedback

In the teaching of reading, feedback is a process of interaction and communication between teachers and students. It is an important step used by the teacher in checking the understanding of the reading material and an effective way for the students to enforce their understanding. Besides, it is an important means of testing the effectiveness of input in the teaching of English reading. It can make teachers and students understand the situation of teaching and learning in order to adjust the teaching process. In addition, the effective feedback can help teachers to fully know problems in the teaching progress of knowledge. through the feedback activities, students can receive a deeper comprehension of the language. Besides, students can improve the comprehensive ability of using language.

In the teaching of English reading, the activities of feedback is always taken in the forms of retelling stories, writing reports or reading notes, class discussion and role play.

4. Application of Effective Approaches

Input hypothesis strengthens that learners acquire language only by receiving comprehensible input. Therefore, when both teachers and students adopt effective approaches to make input more comprehensible, the chance of effective input in the teaching of English reading can be increased. In the following stages of English reading, approaches based on the input hypothesis will make the teaching of English reading more effective.

4.1 In pre-reading stage

To improve the effective input, it is necessary to develop students’ ability to comprehend the content of reading materials. This ability depends partly on their knowledge about the topic of the reading section. To increase students’ potential comprehension, the teacher can do a variety of pre-reading activities that build background knowledge. Usually, teachers can ask students to read the introduction and identify key issues to be discussed, skim the text or scan parts of the text for specific information. Another activity is to have a short discussion about the topic. For example, the teacher might lead off discussion with a set of questions before having students read the passage. If time is limited, a written reading preview could be used. Besides, in using skimming and scanning activities, teachers can ask students to skim a passage and then identify the best title.

However, before teaching a new reading, setting goals is necessary. The normal procedure is that students are required to read a passage and then answer the questions that follow. Students’ reading is usually purposeless because they have no idea what they will be asked. Inevitably they try to retain all the information, some of which could be irrelevant. So as teachers, they can help students by saying to them: I want you to read this text in order to state the main idea or to list sequence of events or to identify the writers’ attitude, etc. All teachers do is to strengthen students effective input.

Besides, valuing emotional attitude is another aspect of improving effective input needed to pay attention to. For example, according to the main content of this section, teachers can use multimedia to design some intuitive English picture so that students can understand main points of this section through an intuitive presentation. Besides, it can also attract students’ attention and stimulate students’ interest in learning, which plays an important role in improving effective input.

4.2 In while-reading stage

While reading, teachers can also help the students use some strategic approaches. Firstly, in this stage, teachers can suggest different reading strategies according to different reading materials or different reading aims. One strategy is skimming. The purpose of skimming is to require students to go through the full text with the quickest speed, to quickly grasp the main content of the article, to grasp the main idea of the article, to learn the author’s emotional attitude and values, and to accurately answer questions related to main idea of the article. When teachers train students’ ability of skimming, they should focus on training students’ abilities of clarifying the article context after reading an article, understanding the text meaning, grasping the article theme, quickly finding the key words and main sentences and summing up the main ideas of the text. Students are required to pay attention to read the article’s title, headings, the topic sentence of each part, the beginning and end of the text, illustrations, tables and etc in order to understand the author’s thought. Skipping is to reread the relevant content in the process of skimming and to continue to think in order to solve the related problems. The purpose of skipping is to quickly and efficiently obtain the details when answering the questions. To let students quickly find the required information in the article, the key is to let students grasp the main point of skipping.

In while-reading, scanning is a way of quick reading with the aim to find out some details or information, such as time, date, number, person names, place and etc. To achieve the ideal effect of browsing, teachers will make the students clearly know what they want to find. In the process of browsing, students should put all their energy and attention to searching the targets without the interference by the extraneous content.

In English reading class, the use of multi-media can make reading more interesting and effective. Teachers can show the reading task, key words’ reading cues and questions quickly. What’s more, with the help of computer and internet, the reading scope can be broadened. In order to help the student finish their reading tasks, teachers can provided some related information of cultural background or relevant literature.

4.3 In post-reading stage

Post-reading activities is carried out to check students’ understanding and enforce their knowledge. Periodic and systematic feedback on extensive and intensive reading is necessary in a long term reading development.

4.3.1 Retelling the story

In retelling the story, both reading ability and speaking ability of students can be cultivated. The ways of retelling are various. Teachers can plan the task accordingly. They can ask students to summarize a story briefly or retell it in details and they can ask the students to retell in different persons. If the material is difficult, some cues, key words or outline can be given to help the students complete the retelling.

4.3.2 Writing reports or reading notes

The feedback can also be taken in form of a written report. If it is done in conjunction with the writing part of the curriculum, a proper albeit short report may be expected; if not, a summary of a few sentences is sufficient. Alternatively, students may give an oral report to the class or hand in their writing piece. Besides, teachers can also train the students to write reading notes, leading them to learn to make reasonable inference and judgment to answer questions correctly. As long as students insist for a long time, their comprehensive ability of using English will be improved.

4.3.3 Class discussion and role play

If the whole class is reading the same material, the feedback activity may be carried out in the form of class discussion or role play. It is important that the major focus of such activities be on sorting out main ideas, and that students not get harassed by picky questions or be asked about private matters. Not only do students need to learn to ignore some words they don’t understand, but they also need to learn to enjoy their reading. For many students, extensive reading is the one skill which will stay with them long after they have finished their formal studies and it is a skill which in itself holds a major reward for the study of English.

5. Conclusion

To sum up, this thesis has analyzed the effective approaches in the teaching of English reading and demonstrated how to help students to improve their English reading ability by increasing comprehensive input effectively. Whether the Krashen’s input theory or the current situation of English teaching, reading is an important part of improving language level. So reading is the main source of language input. Reading as the main way of language input plays an important role in students’ English learning. Owning to the ideal input having four characteristics (comprehensible; interesting and relevant; ungrammatically sequenced; Sufficient quantity) and considering the characteristics of reading, this paper analyzes four effective approaches in the teaching of English reading. Setting clear objectives and valuing emotional attitude, the creative use of reading materials, applying reading strategies and the use of multimedia are effectual in the aspect of improving effective input.

The application of input hypothesis to the teaching of English reading has some positive effects. To strengthen the students comprehensible input, learning methods and training the reading skills of students, we should advocate applying various approaches of effective input to the reading class. It will contribute the effectiveness of English reading course.

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