An Action Research On Enhancing Vocational College Students' English Reading Ability By Negotiated Extensive Reading Teaching

Reading is considered to be an essential way of learning a foreign language,creating a language environment for learners who have little access to the target language.However,students of the vocational college generally fail to recognize the important role reading plays in improving English.Students of vocational colleges tend to be passionless about reading,seldom read independently,lack confidence and have no appropriate reading methods,and perform badly in English reading and have poor reading ability.Negotiated teaching encourages teachers to pay close attention to students' learning needs and carry out teaching from a learning perspective.Studies have shown that negotiated teaching may stimulate students' interest in learning and promote effective learning.However;there was little research on the application of negotiated teaching in vocational college English reading teaching.Therefore,an action research on negotiated extensive reading teaching was carried out to improve the situation of passive learning and enhance vocational college students' reading ability.33 students of 2018 from a vocational college in Weifang City,Shandong Province were chosen as research participants.Two rounds of negotiated extensive reading teaching were carried out for 4 months,with questionnaires,reading diaries,and classroom observations etc.as research instruments.Students' ideas were collected while reading plans were being formulated.Students' reading process was monitored by means of reading diaries and reading teaching was duly adjusted.In the first round,the author set reading goals based on the results of pre-action questionnaires,recommended graded readers and provided individual and collective reading guidance for problems reflected in students' reading diaries.Reflection on classroom observations provides a starting point for making a plan for the second round of action.In the second round of research,reading guidance was strengthened and teaching was reflected on and adjusted on the basis of classroom observations and students' reading diaries.Qualitative data,including questionnaires,students' reading diaries and classroom observations were collected,coded and analyzed,aiming to answer the two research questions:(1)What are the effects of negotiated extensive reading teaching on the English reading attitudes of vocational college students?(2)What effects does negotiated extensive reading teaching have on the English reading ability of vocational college students?Through data analysis,the following findings were obtained:1)Negotiated extensive reading teaching can effectively improve vocational college students' English reading attitudes and English reading interest,increase their reading confidence,and maintain reading motivation.2)Negotiated extensive reading teaching can improve the English reading ability of vocational college students in terms of faster reading speed,consolidation and expansion of vocabulary,enhanced context awareness and applying reading strategies to promote understanding.Based on the findings,the author put forward implications,pointed out the limitations of the present research and offered suggestions for further study.