硕士研究生毕业论文(通过版)

Chapter 4 Results and Discussion
This chapter is divided into three parts: interview analysis, analysis of the pre-questionnaire and post-questionnaire, and the data analysis of the pre-test and post-test.
4.1Interview for Teachers
To learn the current situation about English reading course in rural areas five teachers were asked to take part in an informal interview at the beginning of the experiment, including teaching methods, students’ problems in this school and teachers’ attitude towards new teaching methods. The ratio between teachers from Grades Seven, Eight and Nine was 2:2:1. For the sake of research, five questions (see Appendix IV) were set up in the interview. These questions were prepared and answered in Chinese, so that they could express their views more smoothly and accurately.
Questions of the interview for the English teachers in the pre-implementation stage:
1. How do you teach English reading?
2. Do you think students like learning English reading?
3. What problems do students always have in English learning?
4. Would you like to try new English teaching methods?
5. Have you heard mind map or used it before?
The analysis of teachers’ answers is presented as follows:
To begin with, it is revealed by all the teachers that traditional sentence translating methods has still been used in English reading teaching and they have been used to using traditional teaching methods though the modern teaching media have been deployed in each class.Teachers begin class by recalling old knowledge or teaching new words and then give students several minutes to read the article loudly. This is followed by explaining the key language points and grammar. They are used to analyzing texts sentence by sentence so that the students can have a better understanding of the reading materials. At last, students are guided to recite some texts or some important pared with new teaching methods, the traditional methods are considered to be safer although they might make students feel boring. Also, they all admit that if there is a new method confirmed productive and useful to significantly improve students’ reading abilities and enhance their academic achievements, they would be happy to adopt the new teaching method.
As for the current English learning situation for students in rural junior high schools, all of the five English teachers say that most of students do not hate learning English, but there are still lots of them who can’t do well in it. Some students think that the English class is boring. And to some students, they are poor at English reading because they neither have interests in it nor have got enough reading skills. Teachers seldom taught students how to use skills and strategies correctly in English reading. Quite a large number of students have difficulties in remembering vocabulary and analyzing reading structure.Teachers should communicate and interact more with students to arouse their interests and enthusiasm about the reading passage. Teaching methods are important to students' performance. Therefore, it is urgent and necessary for teachers to change their traditional teaching methods.
In addition, the teachers say that they heard little about mind map before; they haven’t applied the it to reading teachin g, either. What they known only is that mind map is something like the knowledge tree. It is impossible to arouse students’ motivation if the teaching method is rigid, monotonous, and boring. Modern educational theory advocates that teachers should treat students,classroom and activities as the center in teaching, change their traditional concepts and turn their roles into the promoters of student learning. As the saying goes, interest is the best teacher. It is advisable that teachers take students’ inter est as an entry point of teaching design to attract students to fall in love with learning. As we know, text content may impact students’ learning emotion. Students are likely to show more enthusiasm about the texts in which they are interested. Teaching m ethods are the key means to control students’ performance. Thereby, it is necessary for teachers to change their teaching methods. Moreover, mind map should be promoted to English reading teaching. It is also desirable to spread this new method to other aspects of English teaching. The interview with teachers is shown in Appendix E
4.2 Analysis of the Pre-questionnaire and the Post-questionnaire
Students of both classes were investigated using the questionnaire method to learn about their initial attitudes and interests towards English reading, as well as their knowledge about mind map, before the experiment. After the experiment, the questionnaire method was used on the students of EC to see the effect of the application of mind map to English reading on students.
4.2.1 Pre-questionnaire Analysis
Before the experiment, 52 questionnaires were distributed to the students in EC, with all the copies collected. Students’ answers to the questions and their statistics are shown as follows. By analyzing the data collected from the questionnaires, the information about students’ learning English is investigated.
Table The Results of Questionnaire for Students in Pre-implementation Stage
As shown in the questionnaire above, the first part ( Q1-Q5) is related to students’ reading interest. It can be seen that 61.22% of students are interested in English reading, but 38.78% of students have little interest in English reading. As the saying goes, interest is the best teacher. Interest remains a critical perquisition for students to learn English well. Therefore, it is urgent and important that a new teaching method be applied to improve students’ enthusiasm for learning and enhance their inter est in English reading. 64.54% of students think that English reading is very difficult, which is related to their interest of learning and the difficulty of learning content. Most students think that vocabulary remains the biggest barrier that keep them doing English reading comprehension well, followed by how to translate articles and how to understand the complex sentence structure of the article. In reading class, only 37.37% of students are willing to cooperate with teachers actively to answer the questions while the rest of the students are not, which means in adequate teacher-student communication. In terms of students’ current English reading ability, 64% of them say they are not satisfied. Therefore, it is necessary to use a new teaching method to i mprove students’ English reading ability.
Students’ habit of doing reading comprehension are revealed by the answers to Q6-Q8, which suggest that most students still understand the article following the old translation method and only 21% of them will read with questions. Few students will use keywords to understand the article. In addition, some students haven’t developed their own reading methods. After reading an article, only 45% of the students can understand the main ides, whereas the rest of them un derstand the article a little or don’t understand it at all. In terms of the details of the article, only 38% of the students can find the specific facts in the article correctly while the rest of the students barely or can’t find the details of the articl e to explain the article. As a tool to assist with English reading teaching, mind map can help students find keywords quickly, summarize the main purpose of the article, and provide students with a better understanding of the article content.
According to the answers to Q9-Q10, traditional teaching methods are applied by teachers in general. Two thirds of the students are not satisfied with current English teaching methods. Students are also willing to try new teaching methods. Therefore, it is very necessary to apply mind map to junior high school English reading teaching. It can be seen from the results of the questionnaire before the experiment that students take little interest in English reading and seldom read with suitable reading strategies. In addition, they are unsatisfied with traditional teaching methods, which makes it possible for the application of mind map to the teaching of English reading in junior high schools.
According to pre-test result, there are few reading methods that are used by students; they show little interest in English reading, low satisfaction with the traditional way of teaching and little knowledge about mind map; they are happy to use mind map as a new teaching aid. This has made it possible for mind map to be applied to junior high school English reading teaching.
4.2.2 Analysis of the post-questionnaire
At the end of the experiment, 52 questionnaires were distributed to the students in EC each. This post-questionnaire was targeted at the following questions: what the stu dents knew about mind map before the experiment, students’ attitude towards the application of mind map to English reading teaching, and if the application of mind map to English reading teaching could improve students’ English reading abilities.
The answer to Q1 shows that only a few students have heard of mind map before the experiment. According to the answers to Q3-Q9, 81% of the students express their satisfaction with the use of mind map to English reading teaching. Compared with the traditional English reading teaching, they prefer mind map teaching method. 81% of the students still hope that the teachers will help with teaching using mind map in the future. 58% of the students think that drawing mind maps is not difficult;84% of them feel that mind maps enhance their interest in learning. All of these indicate that the application of mind map to English reading teaching in rural junior high schools has been accepted actively by students, which lays a good foundation for the further teaching.
As shown in the pre-questionnaire, it’s obvious that students hav e great difficulties in English reading. With the application of mind map, however, 73% of students feel that reading English articles is much easier and they can find the main ideas of the articles. 75% of the students say that mind maps can help them comprehend the deep meaning of the reading materials, which shows that mind map is useful in junior high school English reading teaching. It can help students find key sentences and grasp the ideas of the article as a whole, so that they will have a deeper understanding of the reading materials. It can be inferred from Q10 and Q11 that 76% of students generally believe that the use of mind map accelerates their reading speed and improves their correct rate of reading comprehension, which means students' English reading ability is improved with the application of mind map. On the other hand, mind map also helps students remember the reading materials faster and more firmly.
4.3 Data analysis of the pre-test and the post-test.
This section presents the analysis of data collected from EC and CC in the pre-test and post-test. The results suggest that the research hypotheses proposed in this paper are tenable; mind can not only stimulate junior high school students’ learning interest but also help them improve their English reading achievement.
4.3.1 Pre-test analysis
At the beginning of the experiment, the pre-test was held in EC and CC. There are five reading passages containing 20 questions in total. Students will get two points for each correct answer. The data collected from pre-test were analyzed using SPSS.
Table Descriptive Statistics of Reading Ability of EC and CC in Pre-test
As shown in Table 4.1, the average scores of EC and CC are 24.15 and 24.08, respectively., It is clear that the average scores of the two classes almost the same, and they both lack accuracy, and that they are poor at English reading. The similar number distributions of the data comparison suggest there is no significant difference between the two classes in the students’ reading ability. Hence, a conclusion that students in in
both EC and CC are at the similar level at the beginning of the experiment from a statistical point of view, paving the way for the experiment that followed.
Table Independent Sample Test in the Pre-test of EC and CC Independent Sample
description. The corresponding significance level sig. (2-tailed) is 0.954, which is higher than 0.05. It means that there is little disparity between EC and CC.
4.3.2 Post-test analysis
EC and CC took the post-test after the experiment, which was aimed to see if there was anything different after the experiment. The post-test also contains five
reading passages with 20 questions (40 points) in total. The analysis of the score is shown in the table below.
Table Descriptive Statistics of Reading Ability of EC and CC in Post-test
classes are presented in the table above, which suggests that the average score and accuracy of EC have increased after the experiment while there is no obvious improvement in CC. The average score of CC is almost the same as that in the pre-test. The average score of EC is higher than that of CC. Obviously, students in EC make more progress than those in CC after mind map training for a period of time.
Table Independent Samples Test in the Post-test of EC and CC Independent Samples Test
An Independent sample t-test is carried out to contrast and describe the data, result shown in table 4.8. As shown in the table, the corresponding significance level sig. (2-tailed) is 0.000 which is smaller than 0.05. This indicates that there is a great difference between the two classes. Thus, students of EC and CC differ significantly from each other in English reading proficiency at the end of the semester. Students of EC have made great achievements. Once again, the conclusions reached above are verified.
To sum up, students of EC have made great progress in both reading ability and test performance compared with those of CC, evidencing that introducing mind map teaching strategy into junior high school English reading teaching will not only effectively enhance the teaching effect of English reading but also help meet the requirements for English reading teaching specified by the new curriculum standards and provide junior high school English reading teaching with a proven and effective teaching model. As an intuitive teaching model, mind map is able to stimulate students’ learning enthusiasm and thirst for knowledge, raise their interest in English reading to some extent, enhance their reading performance, and train their ability to think, which will lay a solid foundation for their studies in the future.。