تطبيقات الخدمات الالكترونية باللغة الانجليزية

منقول بواسطة سهام محمد ٣١٨٤٤٢٣

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Teaching Reading Skills:

Problems & Suggestions

Ziauddin Khand*

Abstract:

It is generally known to everone that reading is a skill that comes

from experience and needs to be constantly improved through

different types of reading material. But that efficient reading

involves many skill that need to be fostered in a classroom is a new

idea. In order to elucidate this point, some task-based reading

activities have been suggested for teachers of English to point out

ways to inculcate independent reading habits in the students.

Introduction:

Reading is a receptive language process. It is the process of recognition,

interpretation, and perception of written or printed materials. Reading proficiency plays

a great role in understanding a written statement accurately and efficiently. Reading

serves as an important tool in every field of professional service. In many situations

reading is considered to be the indispensable channel of communication in an everwidening

world. In fact, we are living in a ‘reading’ world where it is difficult to manage

without reading. In spite of great importance of reading focused course of instruction

in Pakistani schools, colleges and Universities, the reading proficiency of the students

particularly in English is not up to the mark or is very unsatisfactory. Unfortunately, the

syllabus and teaching method in the educational institutions of Pakistan do not

coordinate with the needs and the purpose of the learners. Because:

1.a The existing text books are old, teacher-centered and less effective in learners’

situation.

1.b Teaching method of the Universities is not learner-centered, so students’

involvement in learning through question and discussion is negligible.

1.c Only oral lecture method is the dominating method in the universities where the

role of learners is not that of active participants.

1.d No chance is given to them to communicate or interact with the teacher or among

themselves.

1.e Teacher’s activities mainly consist of simple oral presentation throughout class

time.

1. f No proper tasks or exercises for intensive reading are given in class and there is

rare use of audio-visual aids overhead projector, T.V. etc.

However, due to many such reasons the students fail to comprehend textbooks

properly. This is largely reflected in the poor performance of the students both in their

* Assistant Professor, Department of English, Shah Abdul Latif UniversityKhairpur.

Journal of Research (Faculty of Languages & Islamic Studies) 2004 Vol.5

classes, as well as in their every day life. Keeping in view all these difficulties and

problems in mind I have very specific aims to achieve through this paper like:

(1) Preparing learners to be able to read and understand effectively.

(2) Preparing learners to be able to understand meaning of unknown Words using

different strategies.

(3) Preparing learners to be able to read with speed.

2. Objectives:

By teaching reading skills through Interactive approach, we may be able to

achieve the following objectives:

2.a Develop meaningful communication.

2.b Selection of an appropriate reading passage/text.

2.c Introduce task for communication to take place and the outcomes negotiate-able

for the interaction.

2.d Consider the learners as the center of attention.

2.e Active role of learners in the decision-making process.

2.f The learners interact with each other, help, and evaluate themselves in pairs/

group work.

3. Interactive process of reading:

The current-research based view of reading is that it is an interactive process,

involving knowledge of the world and various types of the language knowledge, any

of which may interact with any other to contribute to text comprehension (Carrell &

Eisterhold 1988). According to Rumelhart (1980), efficient and effective reading requires

both top-down and bottom-up process operating interactively. The term interactive

may take on a number of meanings for reading researches. In general, the term interactive

can refer to two different conceptions. First it can refer to the general interaction which

takes place between the reader and the text.

The basic concept is that the reader reconstructs the text information based in

part on the knowledge drawn from the text and in part from the prior knowledge available

to the reader. Reading is thus viewed a kind of dialogue between the reader and the text

(Barnett, 1989; Carrell & Eisterhold, 1983). Second, the term interactive refers to the

interaction of many component skills potentially in simultaneous operation; the

interaction of these cognitive skills leads to fluent reading comprehension.

Interactive process of reading assumes that skills at all levels are interactively available

to process and interpret the text. In their simplest forms such processing incorporates

both top-down and bottom-up strategies.

4. Selection of Text as Appendices:

Now, I have selected few specific reading skills (with more emphasis on receptive

skills) based on kinds of activities recommended in Francoise Grellet (1981), David

Teaching Reading Skills: Problems & Suggestions

Nunan (1989) and Christine Nuttall (1982). These skills which include word-attack and

text attack skills seem to be the most relevant to our situation.

I believe effective reading depends upon difficult level of the text, the unknown

words in the text and background knowledge of the reader. It all contributes to the

reading successfully getting the message of the writer. I have tried to make a point that

difficult level in a reading text should be according to the level of the reader.

I have tried to focus on all those factors which make reading uneasy /or difficult for

the learners. A list of such factors is given as under:

4.a Vocabulary.

4.b Structure of sentences.

4.c Background knowledge of the students.

5. Vocabulary

I have minutely observed during conducting English Compulsory classes of

B.SC (Hons) Part I-II for finding out the strong barriers which hinder reading

comprehension of the students. The first and fore most problem, I found was unknown

or difficult words. Such Vocabulary items which students thought were difficult for

them proved to be a serious deterrent in the way of reading comprehension. Therefore,

to over come this problem I have suggested to my students to follow and implement the

following strategies:

5.a To find the meaning of difficult words through textual clues.

5.b To find the meaning of the words through understanding affixes (Prefixes and

Suffixes). (See in appendix 3).

6. Structure of Sentences:

During my practical work with students of B.SC (Hons) part-II, I also found that

in addition to difficult Vocabulary items, the complex sentence structure also create a

problem for the proper under standing of the text. Consequently, a large number of

students do not benefit much from such texts which contain difficult sentence structure.

Example to be given from the text “Spoon Feeding.”

(a) Selection of difficult sentence structure.

(b) Strategies to make difficult sentence structure easy for the students to comprehend.

(see appendix 4).

7. Background Knowledge:

In Pakistani Universities the text prescribed are poems, plays, essays and novels.

These prescribed texts are nice literary masterpieces for the purpose to teach English

and American literature rather than to teach the language. Inappropriacy of these text

books is more to do with the cultural features that occur in the texts which students and

in many cases even teachers can not explain to the learners. I have observed that a text

which reflects and contains difficult words, do not coordinates with background

Journal of Research (Faculty of Languages & Islamic Studies) 2004 Vol.5

knowledge of the students and they do not know any thing about the subject under

discussion, they feel it completely difficult to understand the text. For example, in

Hemingway’s novel “The Old Man and the Sea”, there are many difficult words given

there. Therefore, to overcome this problem I have suggested to my learners to follow

and implement the following strategy:

(a) To find the meaning of difficult words through textual clues.

(See list of such words in appendix 2)

8. SUGGESTIONS for Teaching Reading Skills through

Communicative Approach

Suggestions I am intending to submit is an attempt to teach reading skills and

strategies through the communicative approach. The communicative approach is such

an approach where comprehensible input and the task-based learning could exist

together. To achieve this suitable objective, we have to adapt the following principles

in communicative language teaching as suggested by Nunan (1988) and Harmer (1991).

8.1 The focus of every task should be on the performing of some operation…teaching

the learner to do something in the target language. This something is

communicatively useful.

8.ii Use of language above the sentence level, with real language in real situations

and pay attention to both the part and the whole work in the context.

8.iii The practice of forms should take place within a communicative framework.

8.iv Mistakes are not always mistakes. Emphasis should be on fluency.

8.v What happens in the classroom must involve the learners and must be judged in

terms of its effects on them.

9. Classroom Procedure: Shifting from teacher-centered to

learner-centered approach

The existing teacher-centered procedure tends to make the learners in to passive

recipients of knowledge. No chance is given to them to interact or communicate with

teacher or among themselves. All this is in contrast with current methodological thinking,

specially with communicative language teaching, where the objective is to achieve

communicative competence and language learning is regarded as developmental process

which involves the creative functioning of the learners mind.

Only learners own active efforts can ensure the development of such competence.

By changing the procedure from passive memorizing and lecture method to developing

reading skills through free communication in the classroom, where learners interact

with each other, help and evaluate themselves in pair/group works, the system should

change from teacher-centered to learner-centered.

10. Introducing Task-oriented Activities

For developing reading skills through communicative language teaching, I have

suggested task-based activities. Such activities will make the interaction effective

Teaching Reading Skills: Problems & Suggestions

between the teacher and the learners and between the learners themselves. Through

the task-oriented teaching reading we can make the language learning purposeful and

meaningful.

Task-based activities are backbone of teaching. Because the teacher’s success or

failure depends on the way s/he plans, organizes and controls the tasks. Methodologists

concentrate more on the learning tasks that learners are involved in. Task-types

suggested by different writers are: taking part in discussion, following or giving

instruction, group discussions, presenting arguments and so on (Nuttall 1982; Howatt

1984; Nunan 1991).

The exercise types devised in the sample tasks can be very helpful if used

appropriately and if necessary modified to the learners level and needs. The tasks

mostly focus on answering the questions before and after reading the text. The purpose

of these questions is to teach the learners various reading skills and strategies.

Questions in the sample tasks aim at:

— training the learners to comprehend text by using knowledge of the world and by

using different skills such as skimming and scanning.

— training the learners to recognize the main idea of the passage or a text.

— training the learners to infer meaning by making use of the textual clues.

— to train the learners to recognize and understand relations between parts of a text

through references.

— training the learners to make predictions and intelligent guesses when reading a

text.

— developing learners understanding the communicative value of the text and

sentences.

— training the learners distinguish between main and subordinate clauses by

identifying Subject/ Verb/ Object (SVO) relations

— training the learners to identify the main ideas of text.

— training the learners to infer meaning of unknown words through the textual

clues.

— training the learners how to comprehend and form new words.

11. Developing Integrated Skills

As, Francoise Grellet (1981) suggests that reading comprehension should not be

separated from the other skills (p-8). The integration of skills seems to occur naturally.

I have also thought it to be pertinent to link the different skills through the reading

tasks devised in the sample tasks such as mentioned below:

11.a Reading and listening, for example, listening to several summaries of the same

text prepared by the learners with a purpose to enable them to focus on the main

points in the text and listen to their classmates. For more authentic listening task

they could be asked to summaries a text (See appendix 1, task 1).

Journal of Research (Faculty of Languages & Islamic Studies) 2004 Vol.5

11.b Reading and writing, for example, summarizing a text to one third of its original

(see appendix 1).

11.c Reading and speaking, for example, discussion, appreciation after reading a text.

The purpose is to enable the learners to react to different types of texts and to

express their own ideas and opinion in English.

12. Method of Exploiting the Materials

Lead -in

I believe well-organized learning in terms of tasks and texts makes the process of

learning much more achievable. Therefore, keeping in view our own situation, I have

based teaching of reading skills on the following five methodological stages exemplified

in appendices

Stage1

At this stage the teacher introduces the topic and explores the learner’s previous

knowledge of it.

Stage2

The teacher’s role at this stage is to explain and clarify to the Learner about the

tasks they will be doing. This would arouse their interest and they would see purpose

in doing the tasks.

Stage3

At this stage the learners read silently and perform the task, e.g; answer the

questions set beforehand.

Stage4

The teacher gives feedback on the learners’ performance of the task.

Stage5

The teacher gives follow-up tasks related to the text.

Directions for Comprehension Tasks

Read and do the Task

Feedback

Text -related follow-up Tasks

Teaching Reading Skills: Problems & Suggestions

Conclusion:

In the light of above discussion one can say that reading comprehension is one

of the most important skills to be learned by the students. This will make them efficient

reader.

Appendix 1

Purpose: To train the learners to identify the main idea/s of the text.

Skill Involved: Extracting salient points to summarize the text.

Reason: A comparison of several summaries of the same text will allow the

learners to become conscious of the most common mistakes when

summarizing. Asking for a certain length of summary will force the

learner to select only what is important in the text.

TASK 1:

Read the following passage and summarize it to one third of its original. While

summarizing keep the main points in view.

———————————————————————————————————

The Germans, too, until very recently, made reading a painful exercise. They still like

large and closely printed pages, but when to this was added the black letter type,

peculiarly trying to the eyes, and the contorted German sentence, sprawling over half

a page, with the verbs, or parts of them, in a bunch at the end, we cannot say that the

path of learning was made easy for the most diligent and plodding of nations. Even in

English, if we compare the prose of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries with that

which is written to-day, we shall find that the earlier prose demands real mental exercise

on the part of the reader. Modern prose, even when written quickly for ephemeral

purposes, may not be beautiful or dignified, but is generally clear. There is no difficulty

in understanding what any sentences means, and writers are careful not to jolt the

minds of their readers by anything obscure or ambiguous. Our books are now printed

in good plain type.

———————————————————————————————————

TASK 2:

After you have finished summarizing, each member of the group will read his/her

summary and the rest of the learners will listen. This will follow a discussion on the

main points.