| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立政治大學 === 英語教學碩士在職專班 === 95 === The present study explored the correlations of teaching a complete English novel to high school students in Taiwan with their reading ability and investigated their attitudes to the novel reading and the novel class. The subjects were 124 freshmen students of a senior high school in Taipei, whose assigned material was the novel The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis. The reading and teaching of the novel lasted a semester from Sept. 2005 to Jan. 2006, with one period of English class each week spent on small group discussion and presentation monitored and facilitated by the teacher. After-reading worksheets were done by the subjects and handed in for teacher review and assessment. A reading pretest and a post-test were administered to the subjects before and after the treatment, and their reading ability improvement was examined using Paired T tests for all subjects and different ability groups from high to middle and low proficiency groups. Besides, an open-book novel test concerning the content of the novel was given to find out how well the subjects understand the novel. The subjects’ scores of the final periodic test on the English textbook were also gathered so that the researcher could investigate the correlations, with Significant Correlation tests, between any two of the three tests which all took place near the end of the semester: the reading post-test, the novel test and the final periodic test. Finally the questionnaires on the novel reading and teaching were filled in by the subjects and analyzed based on the subjects as a whole with frequency and percentage. Furthermore, distinctions were made based on the differences between those subjects who had read other novels before the treatment and those who hadn’t, and on the differences between those who finished reading the novel and those who didn’t, with Chi-square tests.
The major findings of the study are as follows:
1. After the treatment ended, the English reading proficiency of all subjects in general has increased significantly, and was found to be correlated with the novel test significantly.
2. The novel test was found to be significantly correlated to the final periodic test for all subjects and the Middle and Low Proficiency Groups.
3. For the Middle Proficiency Group., the post-test was correlated to the final periodic test significantly.
4. The subjects’ more positive responses than negative ones to the novel reading included: feelings about the novel, how the novel reading helped increase reading speed and vocabulary, how the novel helped raise their interest in learning English. As to whether reading the novel increased English grammar knowledge or helped them learn the English textbook, only a minority of them answered positively.
5. The subjects’ attitudes towards the novel class and its activity were highly positive and the responses to having another English novel taught were quite enthusiastic.
6. Having finished reading the novel made a difference for the subjects in believing reading the designated novel promoted their willingness to read more English novels, while being experienced novel readers and having finished reading the novel both made significant differences in the subjects’ willingness to read other English novels on their own when time is allowed for reading.
7. The reading benefits for our subjects in order of importance were: reading comprehension, vocabulary, and grammar and sentence patterns.
In conclusion, novel reading, as a form of extensive reading, helps senior high school students learn English cognitively as well as affectively. Instead of letting the students grope their own ways to the English novel, it helps them more when the novel becomes the class material and is taught in class. This study explores the English novel as a worthwhile course to teach in high school curriculum in Taiwan, not just as something left for the students to read all by themselves.
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