Abstract

As one of four basic skills in English learning, reading play an important role in middle school English teaching. Through reading, one can not only gain information from different reading materials to broaden his horizon, but also relax himself and get inspired. What’s more, we can use it to learn other subjects in English. However, there remains a plenty of problems in reading, one of which is the comprehension of demonstrative pronouns. The purpose of this essay is to study the correlation between demonstrative pronouns and English reading in junior middle school. Firstly, by doing questionnaire, the author gets to know the main problems of students in reading comprehension. Then the author interviewed some teachers to know their attitudes towards demonstrative pronouns. Finally, by doing the reading tests, the author compared the correctness of the experiment group and the control group to prove her hypotheses. After the reading test, the author draws the following conclusions: a) the comprehension of demonstrative pronouns can help students improve the ability of analyzing the sentence structure. b) the comprehension of demonstrative pronouns has a negative effect on reading logicality and fluency. Based on the results above, the author suggests that teachers in middle school should add some knowledge of syntax in reading teaching, and cultivate students’ ability to analyze the sentence structure automatically, so that they can improve their reading ability under the condition of not influencing reading logicality and fluency.

Key words: reading; demonstrative pronouns; sentence structure; reading logicality; reading fluency.

Contents

Abstract

摘要

1. Introduction-6

2. Literary Research-7

2.1 What is reading?-7

2.1.1 The definition of reading-7

2.1.2 Factors influencing reading-7

A) Textural factors-7

B) Learner-related factors-8

2.2 Demonstrative Pronouns-9

2.2.1 Definition of demonstrative pronouns-9

2.2.2 Functions in reading comprehension-10

2.2.3 Factors influencing the comprehension of demonstrative pronouns-10

A) Distance-10

B) Semantic-11

C) Context-11

3.Summary-11

3. Research Procedures-12

3.1 Research questions-12

3.2 Participants-12

3.3 Methods-12

3.3.1 Questionnaire-12

3.3.2 Interviews-12

3.3.3 Reading tests-13

4. Data Analysis-14

4.1 Questionnaire and Interview 1-14

4.2 Reading tests and Interview 2-16

4.3 Summary-20

5. Conclusions and suggestions-21

6. Limitations-21

References:-22

Appendix:-24