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Chapter One Introduction

This chapter begins with the background of the research, in which the current situation ofEnglish reading teaching in vocational colleges is first introduced, and then the purpose andsignificance of the research and the research questions are presented, and finally theorganization of the thesis.

1.1 The Current Situation of English Reading Teaching in Vocational Colleges
Listening, speaking, reading and writing are the four basic skills of English learning.Reading, as a major input way of language learning, is especially important for vocationalcollege students. Through reading, learners can get a huge language input and accumulation.It is also a very important arena to develop and improve the students’ capability in the otherthree skills. Therefore, the ability to read at the decent rate and with good comprehension hasbeen recognized indispensable as far as vocational college students are concerned. The BasicRequirements for Higher Vocational College English Course issued by Ministry of Educationin 2000 also gives priority to the development of reading skills, which is the most importantaspect in teaching.Reading teaching involves many aspects including syllabus, curriculum design, textbook,teaching evaluation and teaching method, among which teaching method plays an importantrole. The efficient reading teaching method not only teaches students how to understand thereading material exactly, but also cultivates students’ English reading skill and helps studentsform good reading habits. In recent years, many scholars and teachers have carried out muchresearch on reading teaching method and gained much improvement. However, the resultfrom our reading class is still far from satisfactory both to the teachers and the students. Afterteaching for several years in a vocational college, the author is still frustrated with thestudents’ poor performance in reading. Many students can’t keep up with their assignmentsand complain about their poor skills in English reading. For most vocational college students,2there are two factors contributing to the result. On the one hand, many students lack interestand confidence in English learning. On the other hand, English reading teaching methodapplied by many teachers in vocational colleges usually is the traditional grammar-translationmethod (Cai Lanzhen, 2001). Although this method does help the students in some ways,there are still some disadvantages in the process. In traditional English reading classes,teachers often think much of the vocabulary study and syntax analysis, and make great effortsto analyze new words, sentences and sentence patterns. They steer their students through atext at the lexical and syntactical level, rather than at the textual level, explaining a new wordwhich the students can consult in a dictionary by too many examples, translating somesentences or even the whole discourses instead of spending a lot of time and effort teachingreading skills which are universally applicable in most languages, but neglecting the students’ability to read between the lines and understand the text theme and the intention of the writer,thus putting students into passive position of learning and memorizing (Chen Chunxian,2000).The students, who lose interest in English, have no creativity and initiative, and avoidcommunication in the classroom. Their comprehensive understanding of the whole text wasunder本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。