A Study Of Effect Of Project-based Approach On Secondary Vocational School Students’ English Reading Performance

Reading ability is quite significant in English language learning.The new curriculum standard regards the cultivation of reading ability as one of the important goals of English teaching.Therefore,to cultivate and improve the students’ reading ability is a central part as well as a vital task of English teaching in Secondary Vocational School,which is a goal that must be achieved in English teaching.Based on constructivism theory,humanism and cognitive development theory,Project-based Approach has gradually become one of the most influential professional English teaching models,which cultivates and improves students’ English reading ability by stimulating students’ reading motivation and developing students’ various reading skills.The present paper reports an empirical study on the effect of the application of Project-based Approach on students’ reading performance in Secondary Vocational School.It focuses on the exploration of the differences between the experimental class(the application of Project-based Approach)and the control class(Traditional Reading Teaching Mode)in stimulating learners’motivation,developing learners’reading skills and cooperative learning abilities.The research questions addressed in the thesis are:(1)What is the effect of the application of Project-based Approach on students’ reading performance?And why?(2)Which group of students,the high achievers and the low achievers,is more affected by the application of the Project-based Approach?And why?The study is made up of two parts:quantitative and qualitative research.The quantitative research included a semester experiment,a pre-test,three post-tests and a questionnaire.The experiment involved 78 students of Grade 2018 from two classes in Maanshan Technical College.The pre-test was carried out at the beginning of the experiment.The class with a slightly higher mean was the control class(CC),while the other one with a slightly lower mean was the experimental class(EC).In CC,the author adopted Traditional Reading Mode while the use of Project-based Approach was employed in EC together with Traditional Reading Teaching Mode.After a semester of teaching,the post-test was held at the end of the experiment.The scores of both tests were computed and analyzed with the software of Statistical Package for Social Science(SPSS)16.0.The differences of three reading tests were also analyzed with SPSS 16.0.The questionnaire was administered to students at nearly the end of the experiment,consisting of 17 statements and covered three categories concerning students’ reading motivation,students’reading skills and students’ cooperative learning abilities.The data were also analyzed with SPSS 16.0.The qualitative research was an interview with 14 students,all of whom came from EC.The interview was conducted in the two groups:Group one is high-achievers and Group two is low-achievers.The interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed later.The transcriptions of the interviews were synthesized and categorized.Detailed analysis of quantitative and qualitative research produces the final findings as follows:Firstly,compared with Traditional Reading Mode,Project-based Approach has a remarkable positive effect on vocational school students’English reading proficiency.The result of the study shows that the average score of the students in EC is much higher than that in CC after the application of Project-based Approach.The implementation of Project-based Approach motivate students which helps them overcome anxiety and relieve pressure,cultivate their reading skills,foster their autonomous learning and promote their collaborative learning which enhances their team cooperation ability and group spirit.Secondly,the experimental result demonstrates that after one semester’s implementation of Project-based Approach,high achievers in EC are more affected by Project-based Approach,and the mean difference between the post-test scores and the pre-test scores of the high achievers students is 5.11.While the mean difference between the post-test scores and the pre-test scores of low achievers is only 0.12,which indicates that low achievers are less affected by Project-based Approach.Higher achievers are better at reading and are more willing to take on challenging tasks.Once they have completed the task,they are more interested,motivated and confident.While lower achievers lack the ability to complete these challenging tasks,which will frustrate their interest and confidence.The implications from the findings of the study are as follows:Firstly,Project-based Approach should be strongly advocated and widely enforced in Secondary Vocational School to improve students’ English reading ability.Moreover,during the process of carrying out the Project-based Approach,teachers ought to give students more specific guidelines and useful instruction on the basis of students’ differences.At last,Project-based Approach and Traditional Reading Teaching Mode are complementary to each other in English reading instruction.If the two are both used in the teaching of English reading,the students may get much greater improvement.