How to Develop Senior Students’ Reading Skill through English Classroom Activities

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1、 怎样利用英语教学活动培养高中生的阅读技巧How to Develop Senior Students Reading Skill through English Classroom ActivitiesContentsAbstract1I Introduction.2II The nature of reading2 1. Two types of reading.2 2. The purpose of reading.3 3. The importance of reading skill4III Design different activities according to diffe

2、rent strategies.4 1. Use pre-reading activities to prepare students for reading5 2. Match while-reading activities to the purpose for reading.9 3.Carry out postreading activities for students outputting knowledge.12 IV How to teach reading effectively14 1.Principles for teaching reading.14 2.How to

3、establish goals for a reading class.14 3.Check the level of difficulty of the text15V Conclusion.15References.16How to Develop Senior Students Reading Skill through English Classroom Activities摘 要：为了培养高中生的英语阅读技巧以及帮助他们养成正确的阅读习惯，教师应该更多的掌握各种教学方法以适应新的教学体制。这篇论文着重介绍如何通过阅读前、阅读中、和阅读后三个阶段中的活动来培养学生的阅读技巧。每个阶段都

4、有不同的教学目标，并且侧重不同的教学策略。但是总体的目标都是一致的，即如何才能设计更好的课堂活动来培养学生的阅读技巧。本文还涉及到其他有关方面， 如怎样调动学生的兴趣，使他们积极参与到活动中来。 不是每篇课文都能很容易吸引学生的注意力，因此教师应该设计一些更有趣，更有意义的课堂活动来迎接新的挑战。关键词： 英语课堂活动 阅读技巧 教学策略Abstract: In order to develop students reading skill and help them form right reading habits, teacher must manage to employ as man

5、y teaching methods as possible. This paper has introduced a kind of way about how to teach reading in classroom by three -stage teaching which includes pre-reading, while-reading and post-reading stage. Each stage has a different goal and deals with different reading strategies. The overall aim is t

6、o develop students reading skill and train the students to be efficient readers in the English language. Other aspects have to be considered as well though, such as the interest and motivation of the students. An interesting text can arouse the students will to read, but teachers often have no choic

7、e in the texts they have to teach. In that case, the activities must stimulate the students interest by challenging them, providing them with a chance to use their imagination and creativity , and encourage them to use the language and information gained from the text.Key words: English classroom ac

8、tivities reading skill teaching strategiesHow to Develop Senior Students Reading Skill through English Classroom Activities I Introduction Reading is described in many ways by different people. Some describe it as a thinking (cognitive) process. Others say it is the reconstruction and interpretation

9、 of meanings behind printed symbols. Still others say it is the process of understanding written language. All these explanations of reading are not accurate. The teaching of reading in traditional pedagogy does not reflect how and what people read in real life. Most of the traditional reading exerc

10、ises are actually testing students reading comprehension. In fact, the teaching of reading should focus on developing students reading skill and strategies, which can be achieved through pre-, while- , and post-reading activities. II The nature of reading As everyone knows, reading plays an importan

11、t role in English teaching. But how can the students achieve the best result? The traditional way of teaching reading advocates using bottom-up model which is a passive decoding model. That is to say, the readers only need to read word by word. With the development of applied linguistics and psychol

12、inguistics, we find that reading is not a process of passive decoding, but a process of active“guess-confirm”.In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the English classroom activities used by second language learner and how or whether these activities can be used to improve the students

13、 reading skill . Reading is the fundamental skill upon which all formal education depends. In a reading class , the teacher should construct the reading activities for a purpose that has significance for the students and make sure students understand what the purpose for reading is: to get the main

14、idea, obtain specific information, understand most of the messages, enjoy a story, or decide whether or not to read more. Recognizing the purpose for reading will help students select appropriate reading strategies. 1.Two types of reading Reading aloud and silent are two types of reading practice co

15、mmonly found in English classroom . Many teachers use the activity of reading aloud in teaching reading in the classroom without understanding what it is for .In fact, reading aloud can not replace silent reading as it involves only the skills of pronunciation and intonation, while ones reading abil

16、ity requires the reading skills of skimming, scanning, predicting, etc. With these differences in mind , teachers should know when to practise reading aloud and when to practise silent reading .So effective readers do the following: they have a clear purpose in reading; they read silently ; they rea

17、d phrase by phrase ,rather than word by word ; they concentrate on the important bits ,skim the rest, and skip the insignificant parts; they use different speeds and strategies for different reading tasks; they perceive the information in the target language rather than mentally translate; they gues

18、s the meaning of new words from the context ,or ignore them; they use background information to help understand the text. According to the above, teachers can use different activities to lead students to read effectively.Reading is the communication between the author and his readers. Before reading

19、, students already have some background knowledge in their mind. The process of reading is that of readers justifying their prediction to the text. The teachers role is, by means of students schema, to lead students to search for the information in the text. Different people will pay different attit

20、udes towards reading .In my opinion, it means reading and understanding. Some students will say they can read but they dont know what it means. In this sense, reading is merely decoding -translating written symbols into corresponding sounds. In this way, the students can never really know how to rea

21、d. When beginning to read a text or where there is little or no helpful context, we depend on decoding letters to understand words, but as soon as there is a meaningful context we tend to bring our own interpretation to the word according to its general “shape” and the sense of the text rather than

22、its exact component letters. Thus in reading class, the teachers should stress reading for understanding rather than decoding letters. It means that the teachers should not insist too strongly on students understanding every word, but to encourage them to go for the overall meaning of a text.2. The

23、purpose of readingReading is an activity with a purpose. A person may read in order to gain information, or to verify existing knowledge, or to catch a writers ideas or writing style. A person may also read for enjoyment, or to enhance knowledge of the language being read. The purpose for reading gu

24、ides the readers selection of texts. The purpose for reading also determines the appropriate approach to reading comprehension. A person who needs to know whether she can afford to eat at a particular restaurant needs to comprehend the pricing information provided on the menu, but does not need to r

25、ecognize the name of every appetizer listed. A person reading poetry for amusement needs to recognize the words the poet uses and the ways they are put together, but does not need to identify main idea and supporting details. However, a person using a scientific article to support some viewpoints ne

26、eds to know the vocabulary that is used, understand the facts and cause-effect sequences that are presented, and recognize ideas that are presented as hypotheses and givens. 3. The importance of reading skill Recent years, a new set of textbooks have been to put to use in some senior high school .It

27、 is expected to improve the students English in the four skills as well as to draw some changes in the language teaching. The ability of the English reading comprehension is one of the means of the improvement of English level, and is one of the goals a student who studies English, as a foreign lang

28、uage should achieve. It lays the foundation for the listening, speaking and writing of English. The improvement of the three skills depends on that of the ability of reading comprehension. In the College Entrance Examination held in China every year, the proportion of the score of English reading co

29、mprehension in the subject of English is no less than 40% or even more. Besides, it can alsoprovide comprehensible input, enhance students general language competence, increase the students exposure to the language, increase knowledge of vocabulary, lead to improvement in writing, motivate learners

30、to read, consolidate previously learned language,help to build up confidence with extended texts, encourage the exploitation of textual redundancy and facilitate the development of predicting skills.However, most teachers, especially those with 20 to 30 years of teaching experience are conditioned t

31、o translate English into Chinese and then spend lots of time analyzing grammar and sentence structure. They still give very teacher-centered informational class. During the teacher-centered reading, the students have very few chance to form and develop their reading comprehension. As a result, they

32、never find it easy to deal with reading comprehension exercises and texts. The question that confronts us is that how we can improve the students ability of reading comprehension in a better way. Reading research shows that good readers read extensively integrate information in the text with existin

33、g knowledge, have a flexible reading style, depend on what they are reading, rely on different skills, interacting perceptual processing, phonemic processing and read for a purpose.III Design different activities according to different strategiesThe current theory views reading as an interactive pro

34、cess. This is to say, the brain receiveS visual information and at the same time, interprets or reconstructs the meaning the writer had in mind when he wrote the text. This process dose not only involve the printed page but also the reader knowledge of language in general, of the word, and of the te

35、xt types. During the process of reading, all these factors interact with each other and compensate each other. Therefore, a proficiency reader should have good language skills: recognizing words and phrases, understanding sentence structure. Also, he /she should have relevant knowledge about the wor

36、ld. Based on such understanding, teaching reading in classroom divides reading activities into basically three stages. It is now standard practice in the design of reading tasks to use the pre-, while-, and post-reading stages. The intension is to ensure that reading is taught in the sense of helpin

37、g the students develop increasing ability to tackle texts. This is contrast to more traditional materials in which reading would be tested through a procedure in which students would read a text with or without instruction ,possibly with some pre-teaching of vocabulary ,and then would be required to

38、 answer comprehension questions . 1. Use pre-reading activities to prepare students for reading Pre-reading activities promote students engagement and interest by providing them with means to preview and anticipate the text. Such preparatory activity is critical for comprehension to occur. The purpo

39、se of pre-reading stage is to facilitate while-reading activities. This stage of reading is also called lead-in, where the students and teachers prepare themselves for the tasks and familiarize themselves with the topic of the reading exercises . One of the major reasons for this is to create expect

40、ations and arouse the students interest in the subject matter of text.In order to lay foundation for reading and train the students capacity of gaining knowledge from reading independently, it is necessary to let the students preview the contexts. But it doesnt mean just to tell the students that th

41、e homework is to prepare the new lesson. The teacher should set some assignments to make reading purposeful. The teacher can also tell the students what the context is about or give a brief oral introduction. A outline, a brief statements can be known as guide for the students to preview. The studen

42、ts could be asked to: examine the accompanying visual information (diagrams, maps, photographs) ; reflect on the title or the topic; state what they have already know about the topic; state what they would like to know about the topic; write their own questions whatever they want ; answer the teache

43、rs general questions about the style or topic; brainstorm the topic in groups or whole class ; guess the topic by looking at key words from the text, etc.Followings are some typical activities designed in this stage :(1) Introducing background informationA class may be planning to read about Moscow

44、as an introduction to a unit on Russia. Depending on the purpose of the reading (and it is important to be explicit to students about purposes), the teacher might have students brainstorm individually about what they already know about a national capital that is more familiar to them such as Beijing

45、 and Washington, DC. Most likely, the brainstorm will spark both common associations (such as the president, the Capital, cherry blossoms, or Arlington National Cemetery). The class could then compile and share their brainstorms, which the teacher can use to help the students grasp particular concep

46、ts or vocabulary that will be important to understand the text.(2) Asking questionsIn addition to brainstorming and graphically organizing information, teachers can also instruct students to ask and answer questions before reading. These questions, which can be supplied by the teacher or developed b

47、y students through directed writing or interactive discussion, might include, What do I already know and what do I need to know before reading? and What do I think this passage will be about, given the headings, graphs, or pictures? Before the actual reading, it is better to teach the students to lo

48、ok over the material that they are going to read. This can be done by having them take a quick look at the title, the heading and the picture, etc. Then the teacher goes on to encourage them to raise questions which require them to think globally about the passage. It is possible that not all studen

49、ts in the class can answer these questions at first. However, such questions indeed unable them to consider the text as a whole and not to be too tied to the details of it. This is something that they can do to improve their reading comprehension independently.Let me take Unit 9 Computer for CAAC (S

50、EFC b1A ) as an example. At the beginning of the class, the teacher can let the students have a look at a photo of Bill Gates, and then the teacher can introduce Bill Gates to the students like this:T: Look at the picture, please! Can you tell me who he is?S: Yes, he is Bill Gates.T: Is he famous? W

51、hy or why not?S: Yes, he is. Because he is a computer king.T: Is computer a kind of useful machine?S: Of course.T: What can we do with the help of computer?Then the teacher can give students several minutes to discuss this question, and then come to the theme “Today we are going to talk about what c

52、omputer can do for CAAC.”It is a very good lead-in to attract students attention.(3) Making prediction Predicting the content of the text on the basis of the first sentence of each paragraph, sometimes on just part of the first sentence is one of the most helpful kinds of mental activities. Although

53、 students may not be able to predict every detail from the first sentence, this reading skill can help them understand the text better when they go back for a closer reading or give us a good idea of where in the text to look for to answer specific questions.Reading depends on prediction. Readers br

54、ing their prior knowledge or theory of the world to the text and use it to predict. In the classroom, students can be taught to discover what they have already know and then to use this information to anticipate or predict an authors idea. The process of reading is actually a process of confirming w

55、hat the readers predict in advance. Proper predictions lead to efficient understanding. Therefore it is often helpful to encourage the students to make suppositions and to check if these agree with what the actual reading itself. Maybe their prediction is not so close to the text, however, as they r

56、ead along, with more information received from the text and by making use of grammatical, logical and cultural cues, they will get a clearer picture of the passage. Predicting is an important reading skill. The students predictions, no matter right or wrong, will get his mind closer to the theme of

57、the text to be read. The reading results will be better than the situation where the student starts reading with a blank mind. (4)Use the strategies in real lifeIn real life, students may already have similar experience that the text will talk about. If the teacher can use well-designed questions to

58、 elicit what students have already know about the topic, it will be easier for them to understand the given text. This can be done in the form of general questions (what do you know about-) or true/false or short answer questions that at least some of the students know the answers. Through this meth

59、od, the teacher draws out the students background knowledge related to the text so that they are interested and eager to know the fact that to some extent is close to what they have experienced.I want take Unit 8 First Aid (SEFC b2A) as an example .Specific aim: To train the students to run their ey

60、es over a text quickly in order to get the main idea of the text and locate the specific information.Skills involved: skimming and scanningProcedure:1) Ask the students to form six groups (6-7) and appoint the group leaders.2) Give each group one copy of the text.3) Give students two minutes to find

61、 out what is the text about in groups.4) Use scanning skills to answer the questions about the text. (Tell students that the group representatives will know the first question at the same time. What they need to do is to find out the right answer as quickly as possible. Not until the group represent

62、ative gives the right answer to the teacher will they be given the next question.5) The teacher makes the record of each group. The first group who finds out all the correct answers will win the game. (Awarding the winners might be a good idea)(5) Telling a story to attract students attention .Let me take Unit 1 Good friends (SEFC b1A) as an example . T: Do you have friends?Who is your best friend?Why do you like him/her best?How to be a friend?Too many people want others to be their friends, but they dont give friendship back . T