Correlation between English Majors' Critical Thinking Disposition and Their English Reading Comprehension

To improve students' critical thinking is considered as a top priority by a growing number of educators.While there exists a comparable amount of research examining students' critical thinking skills,less is known about students' tendency to use these skills.Specifically,little is known about what influence critical thinking disposition has on students' academic achievement.English reading comprehension,which has been an important composition in students' English achievement,may be an important factor in developing this disposition.The current study examined the characteristics of students' critical thinking disposition and their English reading comprehension as well as exploring the correlation between the two factors mentioned above.The current study involved in 125 sophomores in English major from Jiangsu province.The results indicated that students in current research performed best in Maturity (M=37.46,SD=3.57),followed by Inquisitiveness (M=36.64,SD=4.31),Analyticity (M=34.86,SD=3.70),Truthseeking (M=33.86,SD=4.08).In contrast,they performed worst in CT Confidence (M=33.17,SD=4.57),followed by Systematicity (M=33.49,SD=5.10) and Open-mindedness (M=33.50,SD=3.67).Students scored highest in Attitude and View Category as the mean was 0.8257,followed by Reasoning and Judgment Category (M=0.8128),Induction and Generalization Category (M=0.7612),Theme Topic Category (M=0.6844),Semantic Comprehension Category (M=0.6789),while scored lowest in Fact and Detail Category (M=0.5818).There existed a positive correlation between critical thinking disposition and reading comprehension achievement (n=109;r=0.300;p<0.01).

A RESEARCH INTO THE EFFECT OF BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE ON BUSINESS ENGLISH READING COMPREHENSION

With the arrival of the new millennium,the demand fortalented people with both professional knowledge and excellentlanguage abilities is getting stronger and stronger.For business major students,reading is paramount inBusiness English teaching and learning.And their reading abilityis often assessed by a text of reading comprehension.However,from my experience as a college teacher ofBusiness English,I have noticed some problems among studentswho have little knowledge of business.They seem to readBusiness English materials at a slower rate and with lessunderstanding than general English materials.Then there is the question:is Business English reading"simply"a problem of language competence? Or are there anyother more important factors?This article is an investigation into the effect of backgroundknowledge on Business English reading comprehension.Thestudy attempts to assess to what extent L2 readers might beaffected because of their lack of a background schematapresupposed by the author by comparing the test results of twopassages comparable in language lightness or heaviness.Morecomparable passages like these can be used in investigating intothe rival effects of background knowledge and linguisticcompetence.The implications of comprehension theory for L2pedagogy are discussed and suggestions for Business Englishteaching is put forward.

The Correlation between Explicit Grammatical Knowledge,Implicit Grammatical Knowledge and Reading Comprehension Ability of Senior High School Students

The role of grammar in language teaching has always been the question that researchers debate.In recent years,grammar knowledge has been distinguished in the foreign language acquisition research,namely the implicit knowledge and the explicit knowledge(Dai Manchun 2005;Gu Qiyi 2005).As to the reaserch of implicit and explicit grammar knowledge as well as their measurement,it is easy to find that many scholars have studied the role of two different kinds of grammar knowledge in second language development.But the research on the role of implicit and explicit grammar knowledge in second language reading comprehension is too few,not to mention the research on the role of implicit and explicit grammar knowledge in English reading comprehension in the senior high school.The purpose of this study is to find the relationship between implicit and explicit grammatical knowledge and English reading comprehension ability of senior high school students.In addition,since the vocabulary is important to reading comprehension,this factor will also be considered in the study.

A Literature Review on the Effects of Graphic Organizers on Reading Comprehension

Reading texts serve as an influx of comprehensible input for English learners. Graphic organizer is a decent way of demonstrating the discourse structures or organizational patterns of a text, which will enormously facilitate reading comprehension. This study would give a literature review on the impact of graphic organizers on English reading comprehension. Finally, some suggestions were proposed for future studies. Hopefully, the review will shed some light on reading studies and instructions in an EFL pedagogical context.