A Study Of The Correlation Between Ego Boundaries And Reading Comprehension In English Learning

The keystone of research on language teaching has converted from how to teach to how to learn since the 1960s. One important realm of the research is individual differences which produce different learning results. The research on learning styles is an integrated branch of the research of individual differences. The new concept of Ego Boundaries brought forward by psychoanalysts has opened a new entrance to learning styles; moreover, it provides a completely new view for individuals to survey how their individuals'characters contribute to different learning results. In the language learning process, it seems to view the thickness or thinness of ego boundaries as two kinds of personality-based learning styles. Students with thick ego boundaries are likely to need a clearly structured curriculum,seek conscious approaches to learning,display some discomfort with role-playing and similar suspensions of every identity and reject ambiguity. Students with thin EB tend to enjoy content-based learning where the focus is on what is being said more than how it is said. Many of them prefer non-linear ('random') approaches to learning and enjoy unexpected learning events. They would like to accept even contradictive information.The ability of reading comprehension is an essential key to the integrated capability of language learning. Cultivating the reading comprehension of students is one of the goals of English teaching in China. Furthermore, testing reading comprehension serves as the most important item to inspect the students'English level. However, reading is a cognitive, constructive, interactive and strategic process in which many factors have effects on the reader's coping with information. Thereof, the importance of individual's learning style is self-evident. The literature available shows that ego boundaries could influence language learning greatly. Yet it is rare to find such a research which has been focused on the correlation between EB and reading comprehension.Based on the theories from Hartmann and Ehrman, the present study aims at exploring the relationship between the thickness of ego boundaries and reading comprehension. 100 science students from Zhumadian Senior-middle School are chosen to be the subjects. Hartmann's Boundaries Questionnaire is adopted to assess thickness of EB of all the participants. A reading comprehension test is selected to collect information on student's performance in reading tasks. After that, statistical analysis...