T. C.
SELÇUK ÜNİVERSİTESİ SOSYAL BİLİMLER ENSTİTÜSÜ
YABANCI DİLLER EĞİTİMİ ANA BİLİM DALI İNGİLİZCE ÖĞRETMENLİĞİ BİLİM DALI
İLERİ DÜZEY İNGİLİZCE ÖĞRENCİLERİNE TEKNİK
OLMAYAN MEDYA MATERYALLERİ KULLANIMI
YOLUYLA OKUMAYI ÖĞRETME
(TEACHING ADVANCED LEARNERS READING
THROUGH THE USE OF NONTECHNICAL
MEDIA MATERIALS)
YÜKSEK LİSANS TEZİ
HAZIRLAYAN Tuba AYYÜREK
DANIŞMAN
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT... iv
ABSTRACT... v
ÖZET ... vi
1. CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION... 1
1.1. General Background to the Study ... 1
1.2. Goal and Scope of the Study... 1
1.3. Statement of the Problem... 2
1.4. Method of the Study... 2
1.5. Limitations ... 3
CHAPTER 2 REVIEW OF LITERATURE ... 4
2.1. What is Reading? ... 4
2.2. Reading and Memory... 7
2.3. Types of Reading ... 8
2.3.1. Intensive Reading ... 8
2.3.2. Extensive Reading ... 8
2.3.3. Reading Aloud ... 10
2.3.4. Silent Reading... 10
2.3.5. Critical and Creative Reading... 11
2.4. Why Do We Teach Reading? ... 11
2.5. How Do We Teach Reading? ... 12
2.5.1. Extensive Reading ... 13
2.5.2. Bottom-up and Top-down Processing are Important Points in Reading 14 2.5.3. Background Knowledge ... 15
2.5.4. Literacy Level of Teaching of Adults... 16
2.5.5. Culture and Effect... 16
2.5.6. Strategies for Reading... 17
2.5.7. Principles of Teaching Reading... 22
2.5.7.2. During Reading... 26
2.5.7.3. After Reading ... 26
2.6. Second Language Reader... 28
2.6.1. Levels of Readers... 29
2.6.1.1. Elementary Students ... 29
2.6.1.2. Intermediate Students ... 29
2.6.1.3. Advanced Students ... 30
2.7. Teaching Reading to Advanced Level Students ... 31
2.7.1. Skills Needed for Advanced Level Students ... 31
2.7.1.1. Rate Development Component... 31
2.7.1.2. Core Reading Component ... 33
2.7.1.3. Extensive Reading Component ... 33
2.7.1.4. University Simulation... 34
2.8. Types of Reading Texts ... 34
2.8.1. Reading Materials ... 35
2.8.1.1. Simplified Materials ... 35
2.8.1.2. Authentic Materials ... 36
2.9. The Use of Materials in Language Teaching... 38
2.9.1. A Rationale For the Use of Materials in Language Teaching ... 39
2.9.2. Classroom Materials ... 41
2.9.2.1. Nontechnical Materials... 41
2.9.2.2. Technical Materials ... 42
2.9.3. Guideliness for Using Material in the Classroom... 43
2.9.4. A Framework for Structuring Lessons With Materials ... 43
2.10. Teaching Reading to Advanced Level Students Through the Use of Materials ... 45
2.11. Teaching Reading to Advanced Level Students Through the Use of Non- Technical Media Materials ... 51
CHAPTER 3 METHOD OF DATA COLLECTION, ANALYSIS AND
INTERPRETATION OF THE RESULTS... 57
3.1. Presentation... 57
3.2. Subjects ... 57
3.3. Procedures... 57
3.4. Evaluation Instruments ... 58
3.5. The Analysis and Interpretation of the Experimental Study... 58
CHAPTER 4... 60
4.1. Conclusion ... 60
BIBLIOGRAPHY... 62
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like to express my great depth of gratitude to my thesis supervisor Assistant Professor Dr. Ece SARIGÜL. Without her support, I could not write my thesis. I would also like to thank Assistant Professor Dr. Abdülhamit ÇAKIR, Assistant Professor Dr. Abdülkadir ÇAKIR, Assoc. Professor Dr. Hasan ÇAKIR for their support.
I also thank to my family for their support, patience and belief. Special thank goes to my best friend Ece Cimcim, who has always been a real friend and a good advisor. I would also like to thank my students who participate in this study.
ABSTRACT
Today, many English teachers or instructors think that teaching a foreign language cannot be based on just lesson books. All teachers who want to succed in teaching should recognize that extra material usage is necessary. While teaching reading, it is important to know that all the learners have to gain the ability to comprehend any authentic language and comment on authentic passages. In order to have this special ability, reading should be exercised with media materials which is really important for advanced level learners.
In our study, we examine one of the four skills. We deal with reading, its definiton. In chapter I, background of the study is briefly given. The purpose of the study, problem, method of the study and limitations are told in detail. Chapter II is the review of literature. In this chapter, definition of reading is given and how and why do we teach reading are explained.
Later second language reader is analyzed and one level, advanced level is eloborated on. Types of reading texts are told and material usage is emphasized. Through the end of the chapter, the main subject teaching reading to advanced level students through the use of nontechnical media materials is expressed. In chapter III, method of data collection and analysis is given and at the last chapter the conclusion and suggestions for English teachers are written.
This study can be thought as a work trying to explain the importance of teaching reading and indispensable place of nontechnical material usage in teaching reading.
ÖZET
Günümüzde birçok yabancı dil öğretmeni ya da okutmanı İngilizce dersinin sadece ders kitaplarına dayandırılamayacağını düşünmektedir. Öğretim konusunda başarılı olmak isteyen her İngilizce öğretmeni ilave materyal kullanımını yadsımamalıdır. Yabancı dilde okuma öğretirken, bütün öğrencilerin özgün metinlere yorum yapma ve bu metinleri kavrama yetisi kazanması gerektiğini bilmek önemlidir. Bu yetiyi kazanabilmek için, okuma ileri düzey öğrenciler için çok önemli olan medya materyalleriyle çalışılmalıdır.
Çalışmamızda dört beceriden birini inceledik. Okumayı ve tanımını ele aldık. Birinci bölümde çalışmanın temeli kısaca verildi. Çalışmanın amacı,problemi, sınırlamalar ve metod detaylı bir şekilde anlatıldı. İkinci bölüm teori kısmıdır. Bu bölümde, okumanın tanımı, nasıl ve niçin öğretildiği de anlatıldı. Daha sonra yabancı dil öğrencisi analiz edildi. Özellikle ileri düzey İngilizce öğrencileri üzerinde duruldu. Okuma metni çeşitleri açıklandı ve materyal kullanımı vurgulandı. Bölümün sonlarına doğru, asıl konu olan ileri düzey İngilizce öğrencilerine teknik olmayan medya materyalleri yoluyla okumayı öğretme açıklandı. Üçüncü bölümde uygulama metodu, analizi ve bilgi toplanması hakkında bildi verildi. Son bölümde ise varılan sonuç açıklandı ve İngilizce öğretmenleri için önerilerde bulunuldu.
Bu çalışma, yabancı dilde okuma öğretiminin önemini ve bu konuda teknik olmayan medya materyallerinin vazgeçilmez yerini açıklamaya çalışan bir belge olarak düşünülebilir.
CHAPTER 1 1. Introduction
1.1. General Background to the Study
Knowing a language means being able to use four language skills effectively. These skills are equally important for a learner and they take their own place in the phase of acquiring the second language. According to the modern language teaching approaches, none of them should be ignored for the sake of teaching another more dominantly so equal importance should be given to all of these four skills.
These four skills are needed at every level of learning second language. Elementary, intermediate and advanced level students should gain these skills in order to use the target language effectively. At the first two levels, students acquire the knowledge of basic skills at least they should acquire. But at later points, academic and professional success gain importance. Advanced level students need to realize self development and they need to learn academic study.
Academic study includes knowing the ways of understanding and analyzing any forms of foreign language. By the means of academic skills, advanced level students improve themselves and they become experts in their own fields.
Treating the lesson in advanced level classes is very significant. What the teacher does during the lesson and what he or she brings to the class form the lesson. Reading classes are among these important subjects. The way of how teacher shapes the reading lesson will definitely affect the academic success of the learners.
In our study, reading authentic materials as extensive reading takes part and the significance of media materials for advanced level students are explained in detail. Media materials written by native speakers are proven to be the most effective tool to teach reading in second language.
1.2. Goal and Scope of the Study
Teaching reading effectively is a very important issue for a second language instructor.
Students can gain the important skills of speaking, writing and listening but without getting the ability of comprehending any forms of written language, they cannot be thought as bilingual people. Also if they do not read extra passages, they will be insufficient readers and they will not be able to succeed in academic studies.
There are studies related to reading but they focus on the strategies of reading and teaching reading in a traditional way. Some studies just focus on teaching reading with the course book without mentioning about extra authentic readings at all.
The supposition that teaching reading to advanced level students through the use of media materials which reflect the authentic language and culture of the target language makes the reader ready for prospective reading passage and makes them increase their comprehension level of reading.
1.3. Statement of the Problem
Today there are lots of readers who cannot read authentic media materials or there are readers who cannot comprehend a cultural text although they read many course book passages and they are instructed on the strategies of true reading habits. Even though many readers are trained about reading perfectly, many of them cannot understand an article or report or a brochure in target language.
Besides that, these trained readers cannot comprehend a cultural text which is not published in course book but in a daily newspaper or in a magazine. Just reading the passages in lesson book and analyzing them in a detailed manner are not sufficient ways of teaching reading to advanced level students. The readers have to do extra reading.
They should gain cultural background and the knowledge of related words of the lesson. The extra reading has to be related to the subject of that week’s course book passage.
1.4. Method of the Study
Many books, theses, articles and researches will be analyzed in the study. After literature scanning, theoretical part will be completed. After theoretical part, two
preparatory classes whose levels are advanced will be chosen. One of the classes will be control group and the other one will be experimental group. Each of the classes will take the same pre-test separately.
Exercises such as charts, fill in the blanks, true-false exercise, scanning will be introduced to two groups but experimental group will be introduced a media material which is related to the subject of the week’s passage in the lesson book before reading the main passage. After the lesson is treated, post-test will be applied to two groups again and the results will be calculated and they will be compared.
Results of the application will be analyzed and will be shown in the charts. 1.5. Limitations
This study will be applied to advanced level students. It may not be true for all levels of readers. They are advanced level preparatory classes at Zonguldak Karaelmas University.
So the results may change in other schools. Students’ ages are betweeen 18-22. That is, other group of students can get different scores.
CHAPTER 2
REVIEW OF LITERATURE 2.1. What is Reading?
Before turning to the what of reading, we should look on another issue about the reading; why people choose, or do not choose to read. Reading definiton must take into account the real needs and desires of the learners which defined cluster of goals, inclinations, and biases which we call ‘motivation’ so we must give some thought to what motivates people to read or not to read.
Why people choose to read? People read for intellectual profit or pleasure. They believe that the content of whatever they have chosen to read will be useful for them or help them to understand the world better or give them the special kind of pleasure coming from the experience of reading literature. For students, of course there are some different purposes like ‘passing the course’.
Few students read just to practise their reading, or to build up their general knowledge of a language. In order to motivate them, the reading teacher should choose the content of the text among the most fascinating ones. Also it is the mission of the teacher to make the students to decode the meaning of the text with materials. By the means of activities and materials, text should be comprehended.
Reading can be defined in various ways. It can be said that it is the ability to understand written language. It is a process of interpreting and understanding the text. While reading, you try to match information in your mind with the newly learned information. So we can say that reading is not information processing but rather information interpreting-process.
What we understand from a text depends on what we know about the subject earlier. An effective reading should allow the previous knowledge to be activated again and the text should extend and refine our knowledge of the topic.
Comprehension is not different from other comprehensions. It depends on the knowledge. Comprehension means relating what we do not know, or new
information to what we already know. Reading is simply one of the many ways which human being tries to make sense of the world (Smith 1979: 25).
Also reading is a communication process. Writer speaks his word that is in his mind, he/she shares his/her messages.He encodes his message by putting it into words. When the word is encoded, it is accesible by other people who are receivers of the encoded message. The message is decoded and enters the mind of the receiver so the communication is achieved.
Besides that, reading is relative comprehension process. Every reader has different styles and background knowledge so any of them infer different meanings from the same text. Cultural differences can be thought among the most significant factors which affect the comprehension of a text by the reader. Literate second language reader has different ideas, different schemas. In order to eliminate the different reading habits between native reader and second language reader, old biases have to be overcome. The reading teacher should talk about reading in the class in order to learn the handicaps of the students about reading.
Reading is primarily a cognitive process, which means that the brain does most of the work. In reading, that remarkable instrument must take in the information provided by the eyes, relate it to what it already knows about the subject and construct a full meaning for the text. Later that meaning becomes a part of what the reader knows about the subject and can thus in turn be used to make sense of what comes next. The brain of the reader makes use of the minimum number of visual cues like streets or buildings or people reader knows before.
There is no need to take in every detail that the reader’s eyes can see but it is enough to tell the reader to explain whom or what he is observing. Thus the key for the fluent reading is not a visual gymnastic but knowledge. What the brain tells the eye is much more important than what the eye tells the brain.(Smith 1971: 27)
This complex process includes two major subprocesses. The first one is simple
identification which means determining rapidly and accurately just what the text
says. Good readers recognize the words and phrases on the printed page automatically with fewer errors and more quickly than weaker readers do. Making
sense of a text depends on the information acquired by means of simple decoding of that text at the level of formal identification. Good decoding skills are crucial to good reading.
But human beings are not like computers. Simple decoding may be insufficient for the rapid and accurate acquisition of the knowledge in the text. In order to make any sense of information acquired, the reader must relate it to what he already knows about the subject at hand and combining two, he must create new structures of meaning. This process is called interpretation.
Reading teacher must therefore be concerned with two kinds of complementary reading skills (1) simple identification skills which depend on knowledge of the language especially the language in its written form and (2) the higher level cognitive skills required for the interpretation of texts, which mainly depend on knowledge of the subject matter of the text the way that information is organized in discourse.
Confronted with people and objects that we know, we recognize them instantly. But confronted with less familiar faces and things, we are slower and less accurate in deciding whom or what we are looking at. Similarly, readers who know the written language well can move from marks on a page to words and phrases quickly whereas readers who do not know the language well, fail to recognize or misidentify the language which these marks are meant to evoke. Therefore readers need to know the marks of a language very well to make out the text totally.
Also prediction is very significant for reading, too. The better we are at making such predictions, the less dependent we are on the text, itself. Good readers read for meaning which means that they do not actually look at every sentence and every phrase. Such a reader needs less visual information because he/she can guess the remaining part of the sentence without reading it till the end. These predictions can be developed through reading a lot.
If our predictions get confirmed, we continue to read and comprehend. If the text stops making sense, then we are forced to retrace our mental steps until the text makes sense again so that we can successfully relate whatever new information we encounter in the text to what we already.
2.2. Reading and Memory
Even when the reader is very intelligent, he will always be constrained in his reading by the limitations of his knowledge but also by the limited capacity of the human memory system.
There are three kinds of memory- a sensory store in which the visual image is held for a second for processing, a long term memory in which vast amounts of information can be stored and short term memory which mediates between these two kinds of memories. New information must be processed in short term memory and transferred into long term memory.
Two things should happen during reading. The visual image must be converted into linguistic information, that is, into meaningful parts. Since short term memory can hold five units of information at one time, the size of the unit should be increased to read it in whole phrases or sentences. This is called ‘chunking’.
What we remember of what we read is not the language but the meaning of the language. If you are wanted to tell what you read, you summarize the text with your own words. Important parts have to be remembered after reading. How can you choose the important part to remember or how can the brain choose to pay attention to are the significant points. What should be remembered, that is what should be committed to long term memory.
This is related to interpretive skills which makes a reader relate new information from a text to what he already knows in reconsructing the meaning of that text as a whole. So short term memory has to make use of information stored in long-term memory so prior knowledge about the subject matter is very important. This can be done by using materials related to the subject matter before the topic is introduced. Students should have some idea and background knowledge before they start to learn the issue.
The reader who tries to read in too small chunks will find that by the time he comes to the end of a line, he has forgetten what the beginning was about. While the reader who tries to remember everything will find that he cannot make much sense of the text as a whole and the reader will not enjoy the experience much.
In order to read well, the good reader should learn to take the advantages of his knowledge of the subject matter of the text and his knowledge of the world. So the reader must know to get maximum amount of meaning from the visual cues. The good reader identifies forms automatically and takes the process one step further. He continues to increase his reading rate.
2.3. Types of Reading 2.3.1. Intensive Reading
In this kind of reading, students pay attention to the grammatical forms, linguistic and semantic details of the text, discourse markers. In order to understand the dictionary meanings of the words, rhetorical relationships and implications, intensive reading is offered. It means reading in detail. We read to learn something, get ideas or realize the facts. Also reader may read for enjoyment, too. If the reading is done intensively, it is possible to extract the full meaning, and grasp the message of the writer.
The mission of the teacher is very important. Without the directions of the teacher, reader cannot succed in paying attention to the statements in intensive reading. By the means of surface details of the text, reader can decode the message of the writer.
Intensive reading means eloborating on the small parts, chapters of the text to comprehend the whole meaning. Without understanding the small units, the reader cannot reach the message.
2.3.2. Extensive Reading
As we mentioned before, readers have different purposes to read a particular reading. If the reader chooses the purpose of enjoyment and pleasure, it is extensive reading. Texts are longer and reader tries to find the global meaning. Intensive reading is class-oriented but unlike intensive reading, extensive reading is performed outside of the class time. It is a shared and individualized activity. Readers’ purpose is pleasure and enjoyment. Short stories, newspaper articles and magazines can be counted among the extensive reading materials.
With the guidance of the teacher, reader can spend his/her time for extensive reading consciously. By the means of this kind of reading, students develop their reading ability outside of the classrom and they can start to read at less time than they do before.
Teacher should be careful about the selection of texts. Students may want to read interesting topics and thereby they can manage to prepare a project or report a debate between friends. They learn about deducing the meaning despite of all the ambiguity in the sentences of the text. By the help of extensive reading students develop their abilities of understanding semantic and syntactic clues in the context.
Extensive reading is necessary to develop reading outside of the classroom. Reading in classroom can teach the basic needs in the way of learning reading but without the extra reading which is done outside of the classroom, gaining the perfect understanding texts is not possible. According to the Nuttall, there are some suggestions to persuade the students to read extensively and voluntarily (Nuttall 1982:186)
1- Getting a student having enjoyed a particular book to talk about it or write a brief note for display on the notice board or wall newspaper
2- Buying casette recordings of some of the readers for loan with the books playing parts with them in class or playing a whole casette in installment of about five minutes at the end of each lesson.
3- Foregrounding discussion of the material or ethical problems faced characters in the books. This can either take place after a fair number of students having read the book or can follow an outline of the problem given by a student who has read it.
4- Encourage the students to make or do things arising out of their reading such as producing illustrations to display a dramatized version of the story.
Extensive reading is the one which is the most effective in learning reading.As we mentioned before, teacher should choose the materials which are crucial, interesting and authentic so that students can be interested in the texts enough to be
2.3.3. Reading Aloud
It is the reading type which is useful for students to learn pronunciation and intonation. Explained written materials are presented in this kind of reading. Reading aloud may be a bit hard for both students and teacher. Firstly, they cannot easily pay attention to the text which is read aloud. Also it’s hard for the teacher to attract attention of the students to the subject of the lesson. Because almost all of them cannot keep their minds close to the reading in reading aloud type.
Reading aloud requires special abilities such as oral skill and understanding. While reading, intonation is very important and understanding the context fully is quite hard.
Reading fluently is possible but understanding and deducing meaning out of the context at the same time require some sort of skills.
According to some critics reading aloud is not such an important skill because after school, the students will not have to read aloud. Unlike that, they will have to speak face to face.
Also it doesn’t mean that when reading aloud, all readers can easily pay their attention to the text and comprehend the context easily.
2.3.4. Silent Reading
It is a faster way of reading. Generally reading a text silently is more enjoyable and informative for students. It resembles our daily and usual reading type. Both long and short passages can be used in silent reading. When it is done efficiently, understanding the context fully is much more possible than any other types of reading.
All new vocabulary and structure must be known by the students. Beforehand, a discussion about the main topics will be useful, too. Teacher should ask general questions on the main points of the passage before the reading is done. As the procedure follows, students read silently, find the answers to the general questions asked by the teacher. After that, teacher checks the answers and asks detailed
questions on the passage. In order to do so, students read the passage again, as a whole or in paragraphs, before the question is asked.
2.3.5. Critical and Creative Reading
If a reader wants to read critically and creatively, he/she must go beyond his or her prejudices. While trying to understand what is encoded in the context, you use your own ideas firstly and then transform your experiences into another form. What helps us to transform our experiences and ideas into another form is our memory. The knowledge is stored into memory and it is mixed with our old experiences and ideas. Our old schema about the subject is formed again after this mixing.Now we have a new schema and the way of thinking about the subject. Creative and critical reading is the last and the most advanced type of the reading.
2.4. Why Do We Teach Reading?
Firstly, we can say that the more reading is done, the quicker the reader will achieve the capacity for creating, refining. Second language students will be able to read like successful students reading in their own language. Then a student stops learning to read and starts reading to learn.
Also extensive reading develops good writing skills. Robertson, surveying students, teachers, administrators, came to the conclusion that ESL students using their reading skills most, have become successful in future academic works.
Students can learn to read at a good rate in their own language while they are learning to read in second language. They learn important reading strategies and when they applied these strategies, they can gain the habit of good and effective reading.
There can be little doubt that a large majority of advanced students need high level reading skills to cope with the large mass of reading material on research in their respective fields. They may have to learn detailed technological things or they may have to read highly stylized texts which are hard to understand. In order to handle with these kinds of texts related to their own specialized fields, they have to learn reading.
2.5. How Do We Teach Reading?
Reading is the ability to recognize vocabulary and syntax automatically, the ability to read at a reasonable rate, the ability to grasp the main idea and scan for a piece of information and the ability to adapt strategies for careful analytic reading and critical evaluation. These are the practical views of reading.
Before starting a lesson, the students should discuss the importance of reading and the strategies of the fluent reader. Comprehension is not enough.Besides that, students should interpret and use the texts in the discussions.
There must be major confidence building work. Having students do simple exercise test at an early point in the semester can give them the idea that they do not have to understand all the words in the passage in order to comprehend it. They can guess the meanings of these unknown words. Then they can answer some oral or written comprehension questions and discuss their answers. They are surprised that they have understood the text in spite of the many unknown words. Students should understand the need or difficulties in reading. Charts can be used to show the progress to the students so they see their improvements or teachers should have a rationale for all exercises given to the students. They must know that a good reader does not need to go back over the text and does not need to stop at unfamiliar words or look up dictionary and does not need to move lips.
Integration of four skills is very important in teaching a foreign language. One of the main skills in teaching a second language is reading. Teaching reading is a significant aspect because without eloborating on the reading texts of a language, we cannot say that we are experts on the language. The written world is all around. It confuses us and enlightens us, amuses and sickens us. We have to learn about all these things around us.
As we said before, interrelationships of skills are very important. We consider the subject from that perspective. While teaching reading as integrated with the other three skills (listening, speaking, writing) we should give particular significance to some points about reading.
Exercises must be somewhat challenging but never too difficult. Also the types of materials for reading instruction should include guessing from context, skimming and scanning, vocabulary development, pre-reading, reading rate recognition drills, phrased reading, paced reading, extensive outside reading materials, analytic reading materials (interpreting complex information and presupposition, drawing global inferences, synthesizing information and evaluating information ).
Another task is to teach students at a normal rate, using the relevant reading skills and strategies. The necessity of using different reading strategies depending on the purpose and the material should be told the students. Students read an assigned textbook differently from research materials or newspaper. These include scanning, recognition practice, reading rate practice. The second one is to include the standard, recognizable task of teaching appropriate grammar and vocabulary development and the third one is to teach students to read and work with extended pieces of texts comfortably, applying those skills and strategies that are part of the native reader’s skills- for example, reading for general information and maintaining concentration over extended periods of time. This forces students to read like native readers.
Students should know that even native speakers sometimes have difficulty while reading texts which are full of unknown words or unfamiliar topics. And the last one is to teach students to use careful, analytic reading skills such as forming inferences, noting textual relations, synthesizing information, recognizing discourse information and forming reasoned opinions. Cohesion, coherence, author’s stance and application skills match this component. Apart from these micro-skills, there are main points that we can apply to teach reading;
2.5.1. Extensive Reading
Learners can learn better in an atmosphere which is comfortable and relaxing and enriched with surroundings. The power of extensive reading shows us that instructional programmes in reading should give strong consideration to the teaching of extensive reading. We do not suggest that learner should give up intensive reading but extensive reading must be foregrounded in the way of teaching and learning reading in a second language
2.5.2. Bottom-up and Top-down Processing are Important Points in Reading
In bottom up processing, readers recognize linguistic signals (morphomes, phrases, grammatical cues, syllabus) and this knowledge is used to make out of the meaning from the context.
Nuttall (1996:16–17) resembles bottom-up process to the image of a scientist with a magnifying glass or microscope eloborating on every small detail of the text given.
Goodman (1970:72) characterized the bottom-up model of the reading process as the ‘common sense notion’ that ‘ reading is a precise process involving exact, detailed, sequential perception and identification of letters, words, spelling patterns and larger language units’.
This bottom-up model assumes that a reader proceeds by moving his eyes from left to right across the page. The reader takes in letters, combines these to form words, then combines the words to form the phrases, clauses and sentences of the text.
Top-down processing is resembled to taking an eagle’s eye view of a landscape below (Nuttall 1996:16-17). Also these two processings can be interrelated which is called interactive reading. ‘Interactive’ refers to both the interaction of the several kinds of knowledge and the interaction of the reader and the text. The reader must know both the written forms and the meanings of the structures and words of which this sentence is composed. This knowledge comes from the knowlegde of alphabetic system and the conventions (left-to-right word order, capital letters, punctuation, etc.). The reader must know grammatical form of the sentence and should guess the following one. For instance, the reader should learn if conditionals and when seeing the first part of the sentence, he can guess the following one; its cause and effect relationships. If a reader knows the passive form very well, he recognizes and decodes the passive form of the verb in the main clause. According to interactive model, beyond this linguistic knowledge, he must also know about real-world attitudes toward behaviour. For example, telling the truth is a praiseworthy action. In
the absence of such knowledge, the meaning in the clause will be lost for the reader. So we can say that comprehension of a sentence depends on a complex interaction between identification of forms and the setting up of a semantic prediction.
In order to guess the probable meaning, reader can use top-down processing and in order to check whether this is really what the writer wants to say, reader can use bottom-up processing. Goodman (1970: 75) describes top-down model as:
Reading is a selective process. It involves partial use of available minimal language cues selected from perceptual input on the basis of the reader’s expectation. As this partial information is processed, tentative decisions are made to be confirmed, rejected or refined as reading progresses. More simply stated, reading is a psycholinguistic guessing game. It involves an interaction between thought and language. Efficient reading does not result from precise perception and identification of all elements, but from skill in selecting the fewest, most productive cues necessary to produce guess which are right the first time.
Top-down reading has an important status among the second language teachers because of the notions that this model urged. According to top-down model, reconstruction of meaning based on a text, the use of linguistic redundancy, the crucial power of the prior knowledge, prediction and the necessity of reading at a reasonable rate are accepted ideas. These are important for effective reading and this approach is based on a better understanding of the reading process than common sense approaches.
Top-down model give a higher value on the interpretive skills. Becoming a more proficient reader is up to increasing reliance on the prior linguistic and conceptual knowledge for making out of the text as a whole. A reader should pass from the lower skills to his interpretive skills which require accurate predictions and guesses and the reader must draw a maximum of meaning from a minimum number of visual cues.
2.5.3. Background Knowledge
Constructing meaning and infering the message of the writer out of the text are the points related to our schemata; that is, our culture, information, knowledge,
emotion, experience. When the reader is confronted with a new knowledge, he or she brings old knowledge about the subject to his or her mind. Reader comments on the new material under the effects of his or her culture, emotions. This is called as ‘schema theory’. According to Mark Clarke and Sandra Silberstein (1977:136-137);
Research has shown that reading is only incidentally visual. More information is contributed by the reader than by the print on the page. That is, readers understand what they read because they are able to take the stimulus beyond its graphic representation and assign it membership to an appropriate group of concepts already stored in their memories…..Skill in reading depends on the efficient interaction between linguistic knowledge and knowledge of the world.
What we understand from a text is up to our schemata. We comment on everything according to our background knowledge and evaluate all newly acquired information according to our schema so that we compose new schemas.
2.5.4. Literacy Level of Teaching of Adults
Another issue in reading is adult literacy training. Both bottom-up and top-down approaches are used in adult literacy training.
Generally adults are expected to gain certain background knowledge but as all target language readers come from different lives, academic backgrounds, it is hard to find out a certain reading level for all of the students. In case there may be some people who do not have any idea about the subject, materials should be used. Advanced and adult learners tend to be interested in current media articles, journals etc. We can choose a media material which is related to the topic of text and before the readers start to read the text, they gain background knowledge about the issue so that they can easily infer meanings out of the context and deduce the main idea.
2.5.5. Culture and Effect
Language ego, self-esteem, empathy, and motivation play a very important role in being successful at reading. If a student’s self-esteem is high, it’s more probable that he or she will learn reading efficiently.This self-confidence can be gained through mastering upon the reading strategies. These strategies are quite motivator
efficiently, they will reach more advanced level voluntarily.Also culture plays an active role in motivating and rewarding people for literacy. Cognitive factors cannot be effective alone. They should be assisted by the cultural factors.Because from childhood to adulthood, person is affected by the cultural factors of the community in which he lives.
On the other hand, many second language readers suffer from a lack of confidence in their skills when they sit down to read authentic materials in the language. Such a reader is typically insecure reader who believes that to comprehend a text, he must comprehend every word in the text. He may read slowly, proceeding word by word looking up every word in the dictionary. In practice, such a reader should abandon this word-by-word strategy and learn about the strategies which are beneficial and necessary for a reader.
2.5.6. Strategies for Reading
Developing appropriate, efficient reading strategies is very important. In reading, you need to use a variety of different strategies in order to answer the general questions directed by the teacher or the book, itself.
1- Identify the Purpose: Identifying the purpose of the text enables the reader to find out what he or she is looking for and can weed out potential distracting information. You must be aware of what purpose you have.
2- Overviewing a Passage: Whatever your purpose for reading is, you should always begin by getting the picture or overview of the passage.
How to overview:
• read the title and headings firstly to make out what the passage is about • look at the titles of every diagrams, tables, graphs and illustrations
• do not read word by word and do not follow the text with your finger or a pen
That strategy facilitates reading by helping students to predict what they are reading about and students feel more secure with this prior knowledge. They focus on the passage and this increases the motivation. It can be practised with supplementary readings.
Overviewing a passage must not take more than two minutes. After overviewing you should know the topic; what the passage is about, the purpose of the writer; does the writer describe a process, make a comprasion or give recommendations?
3- Understanding the Main Points: In each paragraph, there is generally a summary sentence giving clues about the main idea of the paragraph. The other sentences of the paragraph expand, illustrate, explain this main idea. The summary sentence is generally the first or second sentence of the paragraph and a reader should locate this sentence in each paragraph.
4- Understanding Relationships in Passages: Locating the summary sentence of a paragraph provides the reader to increase reading effectiveness.Other relationships also exist between the sentences in a paragraph and between whole paragraphs. Recognizing the relationships between the paragraphs helps the reader to read more effectively. Discourse markers in English demonstrate the relationships between ideas so we can analyze the discourse markers to make out the relationships among the sentences. If a reader can comprehend these relationships, that increases the reader’s efficiency in reading.
Discourse markers are divided into six groups:
a- Enumerative: Demonstrates the time relationships between the words, sentences and paragraphs. First(ly), second(ly), third(ly), one, two, next, then, finally, last(ly), for one thing, for another thing, subsequently, eventually, in the end.
b- Additive: They are the markers of adding new information.Some of them are reinforcing markers. They introduce confirmation of what has preceded. Again, moreover, furthermore, in addition, above all can be counted among these.
The others are transitions which introduce a new stage in the sequence of presentation of information. Now, well, incidentally, by the way, fine.
c- Logical Sequence
1- Summative: They introduce a summary of what has preceded. So, so far, altogether, overall, then, thus, therefore, in short, sum up, to conclude, to summarize.
2- Resultative: They introduce an expression of the result or consequence of what preceded. So, as a result, consequently, hence, now, as a consequence
d- Explicative: They introduce an explanation or reformulation of what preceded. Namely, in other words, that is to say better, rather.
e- Illustrative: They introduce an illustration or example of what preceded. For example, for instance.
f- Contrastive: They introduce an alternative to what preceded. Alternatively, again, rather, then, on the other hand. Some of them introduce information in opposition to what preceded. They are called as antithetic. Conversely, instead, then, on the contrary, by contrast, on the other hand are among these. Some of them are concessive markers which introduce information unexpected in view of what preceded. Anyway, anyhow, however, nevertheless, nonetheless, notwithstanding, still, though, yet, for all that, all the same, in spite of, at the same time (McKay 1987:254).
Understanding the relationships between sentences in a paragraph and between paragraphs makes you a more competent reader and facilitates note-taking.
5- Interpreting Diagrams, Tables and Graphs: There may be some diagrams, tables and graphs in the reading passages as they do not give information line by line. If a reader wants to interpret these figures correctly, he or she should match a written information with a linear text and interpret the information contained in a non-linear text.
6- Checking References: In order to read efficiently, you need to know the references taking the place of words. Which word refers to which one must be known by the reader.
7- Finding the Information You Need: In order to read efficiently, you need to locate specific information. When a reader wants to locate information rapidly, firstly he or she should focus on his or her objective information. Secondly, the reader needs to look in likely places. Knowing the organization of the text makes the reader decide which parts of the text are more likely. Thirdly, the reader needs to run his or her eyes over the text looking for words and phrases associated with the target information. Lastly, the reader should use print style; names, numbers, italics, bold prints etc.
8- Evaluating Information: As a reader, you should understand the points and evaluate the information critically. Distinguishing between facts and opinions is useful.
The reader can achieve this by determining the writer’s point of view or comparing two or more statements and deciding whether they have the same meaning.
9- Understanding Unknown Words: All the words in a text may not be understood or may not be known by heart.In order to carry out all the tasks of the reading text, the reader does not have to know the meaning of all the unknown words.It is essential to guess the meaning of the word from the context of the text. One way of guessing is to use your knowledge of possible relationships between words, phrases, sentences and paragraphs. It is the most probable thing that the word that the reader does not understand is related to the other words in the passage.In order to understand unknown words you can:
* look for prefixes (co-, inter-, un-…) that may give clue * look for suffixes (-tion, -tive, -ally …)
* look at the semantic context for clues
* look for grammatical contexts signalling information
10- Using Silent Reading Techniques for Comprehension in Advanced
Classes: As the beginning level students have a limited vocabulary knowledge, this
academic reading.If advanced readers use silent reading technique, they can gain time as the speed is increased and their efficiency is increased,too. There are some points to use the silent reading technique;
a- do not pronounce each word to yourself b- try to perceive more than one word
c- If a word is not so significant, skip it and try to guess its meaning out of the context
11- Skimming: It means to run your eyes over the text quickly so that the reader can predict the message, purpose of the writer, main topic, supporting ideas. The students may be given thirty seconds to skim a passage and they can be told to explain what remained in their minds. According to Eddie Williams (1989: 217) the purpose of skimming is simply to see what a text is about. The reader skims to satisfy a general curiosity about the text and to find out the main ideas of the text.
Teacher may urge the students to look through the text to find out what subject matter is and supply a several pictures to illustrate the text. Teacher needs some kinds of materials to illustrate the text in the minds of the students so the use of materials in skimming strategy is very crucial. The material should be chosen according to the level of the students and the current book which the students study on and it should comprise no language problems at all. We can say that in that matter, authentic materials are perfect for the readers.
As we mentioned before, skimming is useful in the way of increasing the reading speed but without insistence, this time limit should be carried out or else it may be harmful.
What the reader has comprehended in the text is much more important than how many minutes the reader has read the text.
During the skimming, it is impossible for a reader to keep in mind all the words in the text but they should have a general understanding of the text.
12- Scanning: It means searching for some particular piece or pieces of information in a text. In scanning exercises, the readers may be asked to look for
names or dates, to find out definiton of a key concept, to list a number of supporting details. The purpose of the scanning is to extract specific information from the text without reading the whole text.
Scanning is essentially important for academic English so it has to be used in advanced level classes. Scanning is very crucial in dealing with genres like schedules, manuals, forms, etc…All in all, scanning means going through a text quickly to find specific information.
13- Using Semantic Mapping or Clustering: Readers may be confronted by a mass of ideas or events. It will be useful to group ideas into meaningful clusters so that order can be achieved. Everything can be understood easily and chaos between the sentences of the ideas can be eliminated. This strategy can be carried out individually or collectively.
14- Distinguish between Literal and Implied Meanings: All of the words or sentences cannot be understood just analyzing their literal meanings. This can be inefficient. Syntactic surface structure makes special demands on readers. Implied meaning has to be deduced in order to infer the whole message of the text. Because what the writer wants to tell may be different from what we understand from the first meaning of the words inferred from the passage at the first sight.
2.5.7. Principles of Teaching Reading
Reading should be taught step by step and particular principles have to be followed in order to teach reading efficiently. Reading development is a matter of comprehending the texts. Comprehension can be achieved by applying certain principles which are informative and instructive.
1- Using motivating techniques
Choose the materials which are interesting and relevant for the students. Real life texts are very important. We should use this kind of authentic text to demonstrate the real life language to the students.
Also focusing on the goals of the students is quite necessary. Reading teacher must choose the texts which are relevant to those goals.
In reading lessons, creating material is the core point of intrinsic motivation. Gaining self-esteem is the result of creating reading material and choosing sequenced readings and instructional strategies that are success-oriented. This active involvement gives further intrinsic motivation to the reader. Also checking their progress through periodic instructor-initiated and self assessment is beneficial for the advanced readers.
2- Balance authenticity and readability in choosing the texts:
While teaching reading, teachers should be aware of the authentic language. Readers who do not analyze upon the authentic language cannot be said to know the real second language. Native speakers of a language are the sources of the target language. Then it is compulsory to give authentic texts but these texts may be very complicated so be careful about the level of the students. If the level of the students is lower, then we should introduce more simplified texts. On the other hand, if the students are advanced level students, their texts have to be authentic passages and these authentic texts have to reflect the real language of native speakers. Hence, they can learn about target language used today. Authentic texts can be ads, labels, reports, essays, etc...Authentic texts have natural redundancy, humour, wit and they captivate features of the original material.
Nuttall (1996: 26) offers three criteria for choosing reading texts for students: 1- suitability of content: material that students will find interesting, enjoyable, challenging, and appropriate for their goals in learning English.
2- exploitability: a text that facilitates the achievement of the certain language and content goals, that is exploitable for instructional tasks and techniques and integratable with other skills (listening, speaking, writing).
3- readability: a text with lexical and structural difficulty that will challenge students without overwhelming them.
3- Encourage the development of reading strategies 4- Include both bottom-up and top-down techniques
Sometimes teaching written language can be forgetten during the communicative activities in the classroom. We should not omit teaching the native written language in the class to meet the students’ learning authentic language needs.
5- Follow the ‘SQ3R’ sequence
This is a process consisting of following five steps: a- Survey: Skim the text to find main ideas
b- Question: Asking questions about what the reader want to get out of the text c- Read: Reproduce some points using oral and written language
d- Review: Evaluate the importance of what one has just read and incorporate it in long term associations.
6- Build in some evaluative aspect to your techniques
Teacher infers comprehension from other behaviour; that is, reading is unobservable. On the other hand, assessing the students’ development and comprehension is very important.
So a reading teacher should pay attention to some points in order to understand students’ development.
a- Doing: the reader responds physically to a command. b- Transferring: the reader summarizes orally what is read.
c- Choosing: the reader selects from alternatives orally or in writing. d- Answering: the reader answers questions about the passage. e- Condensing: the reader outlines or takes notes on a passage. f- Extending: the reader provides an ending to a story.
g- Duplicating: the reader translates the message into the native language or copies it.
h- Conversing: the reader engages in a conversation indicating appropriate processing of information.
7- Subdivide your techniques into pre-reading, during-reading, after-reading
phases.
In reading lessons, a detailed instruction has to be made during three main phases and the lesson is treated in these phases. The reading phases can be effective by the means of the principles told above. Motivating techniques, balancing authenticity and readability in choosing the text and building some evaluative aspects are the influential aspects of teaching reading.
2.5.7.1. Before Reading
Introduce a topic and urge students to skim, scan, predict and activate schemata. The more refined the array of schemata and scripts are, the more likely for a student to understand the text is. Students practising a pre-reading text perform better than other students as their internal schematas have been activated. These students can incorporate information from the text to adjust what might crude knowledge based schemata of the subject matter so they can interpret the material better in other phases.
If a reader wants to ease a passage and comprehend it totally, he or she should bring the best of their knowledge and skills to a text. Motivating learners about the main topic belongs to this phase. Then all items of the text like title picture or diagram, contents list, preface, map, index, appendix are introduced. Also vocabulary items whose meanings cannot be guessed from the context are discussed. Then teacher writes sign-post questions on the board and the students are expected to answer all these questions. At least teacher makes them pay attention to the points which questions are related to. The aim of the first reading is to familiarize the readers with the gist.
Previewing is among the pre-reading activities. Previewing activities are opinion polls, discussions and vocabulary in context exercises. In addition to previewing, vocabulary in context exercises are given to the students before they start to read. Vocabulary in context exercises should be done in class not as homework. Students should not use their dictionaries too much because the purpose of the vocabulary exercises is to minimize the dictionary usage. So the students guess
the meanings of the unknown words out of the context. By the means of vocabulary exercises, students become familiar with the topic and content of the passage. During these vocabulary activities, students should learn that they cannot rely on dictionaries every time. They need to learn strategies to figure out the meanings of the words. Students should look at the contextual clues for instance functional clues, synonyms, antonyms, description, parentheses etc. The focus of a vocabulary in context exercises should be on how students recognize the clues as opposed to what the corrrect definitons are.
Thanks to vocabulary in context exercises, students learn a lot of new words, they develop a sense of the content of the core reading, they learn to identify the clues which aid them in understanding new vocabulary items, they feel more confident in themselves to guess meanings of the words.
2.5.7.2. During Reading
Rhetorical devices and certain facts are taken as notes by students. Teacher makes the students be aware of the importance of finding the purpose of reading. They do not just read the text; they have to analyze it. Analyzing is possible by reading the passage and answering the questions about each paragraph.
During reading, students underline the main ideas of each paragraph. They should learn to mark or highlight the text in order to facilitate study of important facts and ideas. As they read, they should underline important information. Besides that, they must learn to write comments in the text margins and they can take notes on a separate paper to write a summary after reading. The reader must take an active role during the reading.
2.5.7.3. After Reading
There are a variety of activities including skimming, scanning, recognizing rhetorical patterns, reading critically. The main activity is comprehension questions. Vocabulary sections, identifying the purpose of the writer and discussing the line of reasoning are important points of this phase. In addition to checking comprehension, the quizzes forces the students to read the material beforehand and to come to class prepared. Skimming and scanning are useful for several reasons. They focus on
vocabulary, grammar, author’s style. Students can skim a reading passage for the main ideas and subpoints or for the thesis statement and supporting ideas. Students can scan a passage to find answers to comprehension questions. They can also write the number of the paragraph in which the correct answer can be found. Students examine grammatical structures and do writing exercises related to the passage. Summarizing, matching, outlining, drawing or completing maps/diagrams, discussing various views given in the text, jigsawing, ordering, linking the content with the reader’s own experience or knowledge, comparing two or more texts, recognizing relationships of cause and effect, putting facts and events into chronological sequence are the activities of after-reading phase. Recognizing the rhetorical patterns is important point, too. It is important not only for writing skills but also for reading comprehension as well. It will provide a deeper understanding of the author’s purpose or message. Such typical rhetorical devices can be identified by observing, predicting, describing, generalizing at sentence and paragraph level. Other activites are choosing the appropriate paragraph, conclusion or introduction for a passage or choosing correct topic sentences. Scrambled paragraphs are another activity which is useful to identify the rhetorical structures and organization. Scrambled paragraphs can be reordered. Also students can identify the function of the each paragraph; how it is related to the entire passage. Students identify the passages presenting background information, introduction, thesis statement examples and conclusion. If this kind of exercise is difficult, it can be done in a group of students instead of being done individually. Analyzing rhetorical patterns makes students gain a deeper understanding with the passages so that they can improve their academic reading skills.
Critical reading is another important part of the after reading phase. This phase is important for academic students because they must read a variety of writing styles. The succesful student should recognize the author’s purpose and author’s point of view, make inferences, draw conclusions, separate fact from opinion, separate own opinion from the text.
These kinds of exercises which focus on critical reading teach the students to read thoughtfully and analytically. Students learn to question, evaluate and criticize.
Newspapers and magazine articles work well for critical reading exercises. Most of the students are interested in current events so they find these authentic readings interesting. Reading different magazines and articles, students compare the same event by looking at different sources. Newspapers contain lots of materials for developing critical reading. In an academic course, after doing critical reading exercises, students should synthesize the information which they gained with the old information which they had earlier. This synthesizing is important for writing assignments and class discussions.
2.6. Second Language Reader
Second language reader does same things in kind as native speakers do. They have same problems so the teacher should be aware of designing and teaching reading courses.
Firstly, for most second language readers, the major problem in reading is the gap between what they know and what an educated native speaker knows in relation to language and the content of texts. This comprehension gap differs from reader to reader and from text to text but every second language reader will suffer from linguistic, pragmatic and cultural deficiencies. Even academic language students may still suffer from these deficiencies.
Another problem is one-word, one-meaning problem. Since the second language learner does not always acquire the full range of meanings that a word has, he may assign a single meaning to that word. When the word appears in a context where it has a different meaning, the reader may not comprehend it and thinks the word’s first meaning.
The second problem is heavy noun phrases. A noun phrase is a sequence of words functioning as a single complex phrase. The third problem is assigning proper meanings to lexical cohesion markers like however and thus. These cohesion markers signal certain relationships between parts of the text.
Another problem is the confidence problem. Many readers suffer from a lack of confidence in their skills when they read authentic texts. Such a reader thinks that he/she has to understand every word in the text so he reads slowly and looks up
every word. Such a reader should be made to give up this word-by-word strategy. He must be encouraged to make the best use of his knowledge so a teacher should direct the students to read a quantity of materials. If these materials are authentic texts, it will be more beneficial for them. When they focus on the authentic texts mainly, they will see that they can understand them slowly and they will build up self-confidence about the reading.
The second language teacher should develop sensitivity to what his students know and what his students can do and adapt his approach to the level of the students. And the second language reader can use the important strategies mixing the bottom-up and top-down models. Once a reading material is appropriate to the level and interests of particular students, their reading skills develop more quickly. Knowing what to do is one thing, doing it is another. Teacher’s main tasks are to find the right materials and induce the students to read them and gain previous knowledge and develop their reading abilities by the means of authentic texts.
2.6.1. Levels of Readers
There are three levels of reading learners. Although we will examine on the advanced learners in the next parts, three of them are equally important for teaching reading.
2.6.1.1. Elementary Students
It is the early stage of the reading teaching. In this phase, the reading passages must be clear and be read carefully. Explanations should be done clearly. New grammatical points are given in detail. New vocabulary items are explained and pronunciation points are taught.
After the lesson, students are questioned about the topic in order to understand whether they could understand the issue or not.
2.6.1.2. Intermediate Students
Vocabulary, new grammatical subjects, pronunciation points are still taught. But the focus is on the skill anymore. Learning reading strategies and techniques gain importance in this phase. Not only strategies and techniques should be taught
but also real life skills should be improved, too. By the means of real life skills, students can overcome all the problems that they will come across in a real life situation. Intermediate reading teaching consists of both recognition of writing symbols for the spoken form and getting information from what is read. During the lesson, teacher asks questions to the students about the passages in order to understand whether they could comprehend the text. The questions are asked with the words from the passages so this kind of reading is intensive.
2.6.1.3. Advanced Students
Teacher introduces advanced level materials in this phase. Introducing just the textbook will not be sufficient for the advanced learners. They need extra materials in order to develop academic reading skills. Also they need to read real life language and eloborate on that language so some authentic materials have to be arranged and introduced for advanced readers. Authentic materials mean culturally suitable texts; passages taken from magazines, essays, articles, plays, etc..If the student wants to learn the language efficiently, they should not be unfamiliar with these texts. Authentic materials are prepared by native speakers and these texts reflect the target language culture and current usage of it.
The advanced level academic student needs to be able to read rapidly with good comprehension. This requires perceptual skills as skimming and scanning and comprehension skills as critical reading. To develop the reading ability, the advanced reading course should contain three kinds of development components; Rate development component, Core reading component, Extensive reading component.
Rate development component contains paced readings, timed readings. It has skills like previewing, skimming, scanning, rate and comprehension. Core reading component contains authentic materials and textbooks. Its skills are previewing, skimming, scanning, vocabulary in context, recognizing rhetorical patterns. Extensive reading component contains authentic materials and textbooks. Its skills are previewing, skimming, scanning, rate and comprehension, vocabulary in context, recognizing rhetorical patterns, critical reading.
2.7. Teaching Reading to Advanced Level Students
Teaching reading to advanced level students is different from teaching reading to beginner and intermediate levels. Grammatical points, structures are expected to have been taught beforehand and critical thinking gains importance. In order to think critically, certain skills are needed.
2.7.1. Skills Needed for Advanced Level Students
An advanced level reader should have certain skills and have the capacity of using these particular skills. There are some components required for readers to apply at advanced level. These components are the basic skills that can make the reader proficient. These are the steps of pacing in the field of reading.
2.7.1.1. Rate Development Component
The rate development component focuses on rate and comprehension skills as well as previewing, skimming and scanning skills by using paced and timed readings to improve rate and comprehension levels.
Paced reading is read at an imposed rate whereas a timed reading is read at their own rate. Paced readings can be practised with many types of reading passages. For example, a 500 word passage is marked with a dot at every hundred words and the teacher makes the students read every 100-word section within a time period. After reading the passage, students answer the comprehension questions and if the comprehension questions’ scores are below 60% teacher should slow the phase down. If the comprehension questions’ scores are 90%-100%, teacher should speed up the phase. The purpose of paced readings is to make students read at a faster rate than they do on their own. There may be some problems between slow readers and fast readers. But this problem can be solved by wanting more accuracy from faster readers and less accuracy from slow readers. Paced readings are most effective if the students apply them twice a week. If the students set their own aims, they get involved in the activity. They should note their scores about the comprehension questions so that they can learn their improvement till the end of the semester.
