How do Reading Speed and Vocabulary Size Predict EFL Learners Reading Comprehension？开题报告

1. 研究目的与意义（文献综述包含参考文献）

1. introduction1.1 research backgroundnowadays, with the prevalence of english, reading in english has become one of the necessary abilities of students. therefore, reading comprehension has become an indispensable part in various english tests. there are many factors correlated with reading comprehension, such as strategy knowledge, reading speed, and vocabulary (muijselaar ye, 2005), background knowledge (chou, 2011), syntactic awareness or metacognitive awareness (nergis, 2013) and so on. since it is impossible to study all the factors once, it is reasonable to choose two factors to make a comparison on their predictive effects on reading comprehension.among these factors, having a pervasive and copious vocabulary is the prerequisite of language acquisition, no matter what language is (folse, 2004). the knowledge of word meanings and the ability to access the knowledge efficiently are recognized as an essential factor in reading comprehension (ali reading comprehension. this thesis is for that.1.2 need of the studythis thesis is meaningful both in practical and academic aspects. even though the study is aimed at seniors, once we get the results, we can change the participants to reach a broader student population. on the one hand, for efl advanced learners, this study can help them be aware of how much vocabulary they have to acquire at the present stage is enough for reading comprehension. on the other hand, this study can also help efl learners know whether their reading speed and reading comprehension are correlated.when the correlation between vocabulary size and reading comprehension and that between reading speed and reading comprehension are tested, the results should be compared to explore which factor is more predictive to reading comprehension. in the future training of reading comprehension, more attention should be paid to the more predictive one. 1.3 research purposesthe purpose of the present study was to find out how reading speed and vocabulary size predict efl learners reading comprehension. first, we have to investigate whether vocabulary size has an obvious correlation with reading comprehension. if so, efl learners can make staged plans to gradually increase their vocabulary to make preparations for future exams. second, we have to probe into whether reading speed is correlated with reading comprehension. if so, elf learners can reasonably allocate the time when answering questions. third, we have to compare the two correlations and draw a conclusion which is more predictive to reading comprehension.2.literature review2.1 definition of readingwaddell and liu, (1995) defines reading as a psycholinguistic process. readers start with a set of linguistic symbols that have been chosen by writers to represent the thoughts that they wish to express. the reading process ends when the readers have interpreted as much of the writers intended meaning as is relevant to them. so the writers put their meanings into language and the readers reconvert the language into meanings. that is to say, writers endow passages with meanings, while readers extract meanings from passages. this theory is also accepted by zhang (2004:2). downing and leong (1982) put forward that reading can be defined into the process of decoding and the acquisition of meanings. zhang (2004:3) makes a further definition that reading is a process of obtaining information from written material and then affecting nonintellectual factors of readers.anderson(2004:1) points that readingisanactive,fluentprocesswhichinvolvesthereaderandthereadingmaterialinmeaning.meaningdoesnotresideontheprintedpage, nor isitonlyinthehead ofthereader.2.2 relationship between reading speed and reading comprehensionactreading speed and reading comprehension are both parts of reading ability. reading speed accounts for much of the variance in reading comprehension (skinner, 2009). besides, the results of domestic research on fast reading are just to deepen reading comprehension, which can speed up reading speed and also help to deepen understanding (li,1997). furthermore, through some methods to improve actual and practical reading speed (xiao, 2008), the quality of reading comprehension can be strengthened efficiently (liu, 2009). xiao also points that reading at high intensity for a long time can result in the tiredness of body and mind, which will reduce reading efficiency. according to the studies of psycholinguistic, reading comprehension is not limited by reading speed to some extent. thats to say, its not how slower you read, the higher scores your will get. h however, megan, zhang and parrila (2017) find that students with history of reading difficulties (hrd) read slowly but achieve high scores. although not every student has hrd, their study proves that reading speed do have correlation with reading comprehension. whats more, dyson and haselgrove (2001) find a reduction in overall comprehension when reading fast, but the type of information recalled was not dependent on speed. there are also some studies about time model for evaluating reading proficiency that sentence-reading time with a 22.9% error rate (kotani et al., 2008) is more reasonable.2.3 relationship between vocabulary size and reading comprehension as folse said, vocabulary is very significant in language learning, while reading comprehension is related to language learning tightly. therefore, reading and vocabulary are intertwined (suggate, et al., 2018). on the one hand, much research has been done on second language vocabulary acquisition. one of the resources to acquire vocabulary is from reading (liu, 2018). krashen (1989) makes a hypothesis that vocabulary and spelling are acquired in fundamentally the same way the rest of language is acquired by reading. besides, the similar theory that the improvement of reading comprehension can contribute to the increase of vocabulary has been put forward by beck, perfettiand and mckeown (1982), which is mentioned by j. li (2002).on the other hand, a reader's vocabulary knowledge plays an impacting role in determining reading comprehension performance (sidek perfetti stafura, 2014). however, in a reading text, theres always existing unknown words. wang (2015) points that 2% unknown words in a text are proper for students to understand.referencesali, z. mohd ayub, a. f. (2012). obstacles and successes in learning vocabulary from context. paper presented at graduate research in education seminar (greduc2012).anderson,n.j. (1999). exploringsecondlanguage:issuesandstrategies.oxford:heinleheinlepublishers.chou, p. (2011). the effects of vocabulary knowledge and background knowledge on reading comprehension of taiwanese efl students. electronic journal of foreign language teaching, 8(1), 108-115.dyson, m. c. 理论与实践（英汉对照），高等教育出版社。

王金巴（2015），生词密度对大学英语阅读理解的影响研究，《外语界》，（3），33-40。

肖强（2008），英语教学中阅读速度与阅读疲劳现象分析，《内江科技》，（1）,171。

2. 研究的基本内容、问题解决措施及方案

The present paper makes research on how reading speed and vocabulary size predict EFL learners reading comprehension. The specific research question is: (1) Is there a significant correlation between EFL learners vocabulary size and reading comprehension?(2) Is there a significant correlation between EFL learners reading speed and reading comprehension?(3) Which better predicts EFL learners reading comprehension, vocabulary size or reading speed?This study is based on test data. There are 30 senior students of Nanjing Tech University who major in English involved in this research. They have to finish two papers: one is vocabulary size test (monolingual, 20,000, version A) made by Paul Nation in which 60 words are chosen through questionnaire, the other consists of three passages followed by 15 multiple-choice questions from simulation exercises and previous exam papers of TEM-8. The degree of difficulty of the three passages is medium. They have to record the start and finish time for reading in order to calculate their actual reading speed.In order to analyze the data, R software will be used. Pearson correlation analysis will be conducted on the data collected.