Abstracts of Major Papers in This Issue

s of Major Papers in This Issue

The Cultivation of Literary Attainments and the Reading Teaching Based on Innovative Thinking,by WU Fengzhu, p.8

Nowadays, college English teaching pays too much attention to linguistic forms and practicalabilities, which often leads to students’ lack of critical thinking.This paper intends to elaborate thatcollege English teaching should stress the importance of literary attainments, guide students’ criticalunderstanding of the texts and devise different kinds of innovative output activities so as to fully improvetheir language proficiency and over-all quality.

An Investigational Study and Analyses of College English Learning in Writing of AgriculturalUniversity Students, by GAO Fei, p.13

The college English teaching reform should be targeted at cultivating students’ comprehensiveability in using English and English communicative competence.Based on a questionnaire among 500freshmen and sophomores in Huazhong Agricultural University, this study explores the problems existingin college English writing of the non-English majors in universities of agriculture and forestry.The surveyshows (1) the severe insufficiency in the effective language input and output; (2) the lack of awarenessand ability of after-class self-study in English writing.It then puts forward an interactive teaching modelof college English writing in the intensive reading class.

The Construction of English Writing Teaching Mode from the Perspective of Ecology of Education,by CHEN Aimei, p.30

Ecology of Education has been a newly emerging discipline in recent years.It has become atop concern of foreign language educators because it provides a new perspective for foreign languageteaching.From the perspective of educational ecology, this paper interprets the non-ecologicalphenomena, re-examine English writing teaching concept, learning concept, as well as the role of teachersand students so that a new teaching model is constructed with objectives of sustainable development,multiple open writing teaching content, multiple and interactive writing teaching environment,unfinalizable writing assessment system so as to improve the quality of English writing teaching.

Exploration and Practice of English Education Model From the Perspective of IT-oriented LiberalArts, by YIN Ansheng & WANG Yukuo, p.36

As the majority of China’s universities produce English majors at the undergraduate level, howto distinguish the program by making it more university-specific has become an increasingly universalconcern.Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, adhering to a "Coordinated Developmentof One Body and Two Wings", now injects in its wing of Liberal Arts a dose of information science, theuniversity’s stronghold, in a bid to build up a cluster of IT-oriented Liberal Arts programs.This papertakes the course of "IT English" as an example of its probe into an IT-oriented English education, focusingon technology diffusion-aided flipped classrooms that teach according to the domain knowledge tree.

Needs-Analysis Study in College English Translation Teaching─Taking China Three GorgesUniversity as an Example, by LIU Jian, p.46

This paper reports on a needs-analysis-based study for non-English majors’ translation study withspecial reference to China Three Gorges University.The study aims to prob into the current situation of college English translation study and help non-English majors figure out the motivation, content and procedures of translation study.Since the existing translation teaching curriculum fails to fulfill personalized needs, some suggestions have been offered to keep pace with the direction of college English translation teaching reform.With more diversified contents and variation, college English translation teaching can be greatly improved to meet non-English majors’ demands.

An investigation about the input of Chinese culture in business English majors, by ZHOU Yanyan,p.51

“Aphasia of Chinese Culture” in business English majors has seriously affected the improvementof students’ cross-cultural communication ability.The paper has explored the importance of the inputof Chinese culture in business English majors and discussed the effective methods to solve the problemfrom three aspects.Therefore, English will be used successfully as the bridge in international businesscommunications and become the tool for spreading Chinese culture.

The Analysis on the Output of Sentence Patterns in SLA, by XIAO GuiXiang, p.63

SLA output contributes to learning and sentence patterns are its cornerstones.The research donein the paper on the output of sentences finds there is a great variation in each sentence pattern and thevariations are of generality and individuality with the former indicating the general mastery and the latterindividual difference; The research also testifies Dickerton's Implication Theory, meaning SLA acquisitionhas the sequential quality; It further probes into the cause of the variations that is found closely related toanalogical thinking of Man, which influences and constrains the output through the examples possessedby learners.

An Experimental Study of Narrow Reading on High School Students’ Reading Competence, byLIAN Hongying & QIAN Xiaofang, p.76

It is traditional practice for second language teachers to engage students in reading short and variedtexts to develop their reading abilities.However, Narrow Reading (NR), reading within a focused subjector genre, is claimed by some researchers as more efficient in improving language acquisition, especiallyfor less advanced L2 students.Some researches have confirmed the positive impact of NR on L2 students'vocabulary acquisition and interest in reading, but empirical evidence for NR’s effect on students’ readingcompetence is still lacking.The present study tries to fill in the gap and implement an NR program amonghigh school students to examine the impact of NR on students’ reading competence and affect.

The experiment lasted 17 weeks.The subjects were 157 students from two Senior One classes inan ordinary senior high school in Hebei Province.The experimental class (EC) read narrowly on topicsor genres of their own interest in two supplemental English classes every week.Meanwhile, the controlclass (CC) did traditional reading exercises: reading several short passages on different topics followed bysome comprehension exercises.

Data of the experiment were collected through a variety of instruments: tests on readingcomprehension ability and overall language ability, questionnaires and interviews.Both quantitative andqualitative data were analyzed.The main findings of the experiment are presented as follows:

(1) Compared with traditional reading practice, NR more effectively improves students’ readingcomprehension ability and overall language ability.

(2) NR tremendously stimulates students’ reading interest, builds their confidence and improves their attitude towards reading in English.

(3) In spite of the higher level of linguistic difficulty, properly chosen authentic popular series are highly motivating to students, especially those with higher level of language proficiency.

A Study on Junior Middle School Students’ Intercultural Communication Competence, by CHENGYi, p.95

Cultivation of ICC (intercultural communicative competence) is an indispensable part of students’comprehensive application of language ability and the cultivation of cultural awareness is one of thequalities of students’ language development.Intercultural competence and cultural awareness can notonly help to improve students’ communicative competence, but also help students to better understand theculture of different countries.Previous studies mainly focus on the understanding of the Chinese collegeand middle school students’ intercultural communicative competence.In order to fully understand thestudents’ ICC at different stages, this paper aims to explore the status quo of high school students’ ICC,whether there are differences among students at different levels, distribution of different dimensions ofICC as well as correlation between students' ICC and English performance.

Improve the Students’ Self-regulated Learning Ability in Higher Vocational School Using theFlipped Classroom Teaching Mode—A Case Study of College English, by WANG Bei, p.114

How to improve the students’ self-regulated learning ability in higher vocational school is a veryimportant research field in college English teaching.The flipped classroom teaching mode changes thetraditional college English teaching mode in higher vocational school.This paper tries to analyze thefeatures of flipped classroom teaching mode and then explain the ways in real teaching, and finally it putsforward some useful suggestions to college English teaching.

The Change of Teachers’ Role and Status in The Cyber-based Ecological Environment for EnglishLearners, by ZHAO Shuyun, p.124

With the building of the cyber-based ecological environment for English learners, the role and statusof teacher are changing a great deal.Teachers are responsible for transferring knowledge and nourishingstudents and multiple activities.Only when teachers realize the change of their roles in the new way dothey get involved in the more effective teaching activities.

An Investigation on the Foreign Language Teachers’ Professional Development in Ningxia Collegesand Universities, by WU Rong, p.127

A questionnaire investigation was conducted to get the present situation of the foreign languageteachers’ professional development in Ningxia colleges and universities.Based on the investigation result,the author thinks that the colleges and universities need to institutionalize foreign language teachers’professional development, foreign language schools need to establish proper teaching and researchingteams, and teachers have to get a clear understanding of the relationship between development andscientific research.