Teaching written as a type of communication

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CONTENS

 

INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………3                                                                                     

 

CHAPTER I. THE CONTENT OF TEACHING READING

                           

1.1 Reading skills…………………………………………………………4

1.2 The content of teaching reading………………………………………4                                                     

1.3 Difficulties which pupils have in reading in the English language…...6

 

CHAPTER II. WAYS IN TEACHING READING

 

2.1 Some ways how to teach reading……………………………………..8

2.2 Pupil’s mistakes and ways how to correct them……………………...10

 

CONCLUSION………………………………………………………………16                                                                                     

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………………17                                                                                 

 

APENDIX……………………………………………………………………19                                                                                   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

INTRODUCTION

 

What is reading? Reading is one of the main skills that a pupil must acquire in the process of mastering a foreign language in school. Reading is about understanding written texts. It is a complex activity that involves both perception and thought. Reading consists of two related processes: word recognition and comprehension. Word recognition refers to the process of perceiving how written symbols correspond to one’s spoken language. Comprehension is the process of making sense of words, sentences and connected text. Readers typically make use of background knowledge, vocabulary, grammatical knowledge, experience with text and other strategies to help them understand written text. Through reading in a foreign language the pupil enriches his knowledge, of the world around him. He gets acquainted with the countries where the target language is spoken.

Reading develops pupils' intelligence. It helps to develop their memory, will, imagination. Pupils become accustomed to working with books, which in its turn facilitates unaided practice in further reading.

Teaching reading is very important, because it helps to develop others skills: speaking and writing. This theme very relevant, because sometimes in school teachers don’t develop this skill right way, and spare a little time for it. Therefore I chose this theme for research.

 

        The aim of this work: To know about reading skills and teaching reading.

Tasks:

- To know about content of teaching reading

- To know about kind of reading

- To know about pupils’ difficulties have in learning reading

- To know how to teach reading

- To know about pupils’ mistakes in reading and how correct them

 

The term paper includes: Introduction, Two chapters, Conclusion, Bibliography and Appendix.

In first chapter considers reading skills and content of teaching reading. In second chapter considers practical part, ways how to teach reading, pupils’ mistakes have in learning reading and how correct them. In this work were use next sources: Rogova G.V. Methods of teaching English

Rogova G.V. Technique in teaching of English language.

Starkov A.P., Dixon R.R.  The Fifth Form English

Рогова Г. В., Мануэльян Ж.И. Методика работы над текстом в старших  классах средней школы. - «Иностранные языки в школе»

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER I

THE CONTENT OF TEACHING READING

 

1.1 Reading skills

 

Reading is one of the main skills that a pupil must acquire in the process of mastering a foreign language in school. The syllabus for foreign languages lists reading as one of the leading language activities to be developed. It runs: "To read, without a dictionary, texts containing familiar grammar material and no more than 4—6 unfamiliar words per 100 words of the text the meaning of which, as a rule, should be clear from the context or familiar word-building elements (in the eight-year school). Pupils are to read, with the help of a dictionary, easy texts containing familiar grammar material and 6—8 unfamiliar words per 100 words of the text (in the ten year school)." Therefore reading is one of the practical aims of teaching a foreign language in schools.

Reading is of great educational importance, as reading is a means "of communication, people get information they need from books, journals, magazines, newspapers, etc. Through reading in a foreign language the pupil enriches his knowledge, of the world around him. He gets acquainted with the countries where the target language is spoken.

Reading develops pupils' intelligence. It helps to develop their memory, will, imagination. Pupils become accustomed to working with books, which in its turn facilitates unaided practice in further reading. The content of texts, their ideological and political spirit influence pupils. We must develop in pupils such qualities as honesty, devotion to and love for our people and the working people of other countries, the texts our pupils are to read must meet these requirements. Reading ability is, therefore, not only of great practical, but educational, and social importance, too.

Reading is not only an aim in itself; it is also a means of learning a foreign language. When reading a text the pupil reviews sounds and letters, vocabulary and grammar, memorizes the spelling of words, the meaning of words and word combinations, he also reviews grammar and, in this way, he perfects his command of the target language. The more the pupil reads, the better his retention of the linguistic material is. If the teacher instructs his pupils in good reading and they can read with sufficient fluency and complete comprehension he helps them to acquire speaking and writing skills as well. Reading is, therefore, both an end to be attained and a means to achieve that end [7, 177-178].

 

1.2 The content of teaching reading

 

Reading is a complex process of language activity. As it is closely connected with the comprehension of what is read, reading is a complicated intellectual work. It requires the ability on the part of the reader to carry out a number of mental operations: analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction, comparison.

Reading as a process is connected with the work of visual, kinesthetic, aural analyzers, and thinking. The visual analyzer is at work when the reader sees a text. While seeing the text he "sounds" it silently, therefore the kinesthetic analyzer is involved. When he sounds the text he hears what he pronounces in his inner speech so it shows that the aural analyzer is not passive, it also works and, finally, due to the work of all the analyzers the reader can understand thoughts. In learning to read one of the aims is to minimize the activities of kinesthetic and aural analyzers so that the reader can associate what he sees with the thought expressed in reading material, since inner speech hinders the process of reading making it very slow. Thus the speed of reading depends on the reader's ability to establish a direct connection between what he sees and what it means. To make this easier to understand it may be represented as follows:

visual                                  thoughts

analyzer                     

 

 

kinesthetic                           aural  analyzer

analyzer 

 

 

 

There are two ways of reading: aloud or orally, and silently. People usually start learning to read orally. In teaching a foreign language in school both ways should be developed. Pupils assimilate the graphic system of the target language as a means which is used for conveying information in print. They develop-this skill through oral reading and silent reading.

When one says that one can read, it means that one can focus one's attention on the meaning and not on the form; the pupil treats the text as a familiar form of discourse and not as a task of deciphering. "The aim of the teacher is to get his pupils as quickly as possible over the period in which each printed symbol is looked at for its shape, and to arrive at the stage when the pupil looks at words and phrases, for their meaning, almost without noticing the shapes of the separate letters” [5, 58]. A good reader does not look at letters, nor even at words, one by one, however quickly; he takes in the meaning of two, three, or four words at a time, in a single moment. The eyes of a very good reader move quickly, taking long "jumps" and making very short "halts". We can call this ideal reading "reading per se". Reading per se is the end to be attained. It is possible provided:

(1) the reader can associate the graphic system of the language with the phonic system of that language;

(2) the reader can find the logical subject and the logical  predicate of  the sentences:

                  The man there  is my neighbor.

                  There were many people in the hall.

                  It was difficult for me to come in time.

(3) the reader can get information from the text (as a whole). 
These are the three constituent parts of reading as a process.

As a means of teaching reading a system of exercises is widely used in school, which includes:

1 graphemic-phonemic exercises which help pupils to assimilate grapheme-phonemic correspondence in the English language;

2. structural-information exercises which help pupils to carry out lexical and grammar analysis to find the logical

subject and predicate in the sentences following the structural signals;

3. semantic-communicative exercises which help pupils to get information from the text.

The actions which pupils perform while doing these exercises constitute the content of teaching and learning reading in a foreign language. [6, 178-180].

 

1.3 Difficulties which pupils have in reading in the English language

 

Reading in the English language is one of the most difficult things because there are 26 letters and 146 graphemes which represent 46 phonemes. Indeed the English alphabet presents many difficulties to Russian-speaking pupils because the Russian alphabet differs greatly from that of the English language. A comparison of the two languages shows that of the 26 pairs of printed letters (52 — if we consider capital and small letters as different symbols) only 4 are more or less similar to those of the Russian alphabet, both in print and in meaning These are K, k, M, T. 31 letters are completely new to pupils. These are b, D, d, F, f, G, g, h, L, 1, I, i, J, j, N, n, Q, q, R, r, S, s, t, U, u, V, v, W, w, Z, z. The letters A, a, B, C, c, E, e, H, O, o, P, p, Y, y, X, x occur in both languages, bit they are read differently. They are, therefore, the most difficult letters for the pupil to retain. Obviously in teaching a pupil to read English words, much more attention should be given to those letters which occur in both languages but symbolize entirely different sounds. For example, H, p ... (Pupils often read How as [nau]. Therefore, in presenting a new letter to pupils the teacher should stress its peculiarity not only from the standpoint of the English language (what sound or sounds it symbolizes) but from the point of view of the Russian language as well.

It is not sufficient to know English letters. It is necessary that pupils should know graphemes, how this or that vowel, vowel combination, consonant, or consonant combination is read in different positions in the words (window, down).

The teacher cannot teach pupils all the existing rules and exceptions for reading English words. Nor is it necessary to do so. When learning English pupils are expected to assimilate the following rules of reading: how to read stressed vowels in open and closed syllables and before r; how to read ay, oo, on, ow; the consonants c, s, k, g; ch, sh, th, ng, ck and tion, tsion, ous. The rules are not numerous, but they are important to the development of reading.

Pupils should learn the reading of some monosyllabic words which are homophones. For example: son — sun; tail — tale; too — two; write — right; eye — I, etc.

At the very beginning, the pupil is compelled to look at each printed letter separately in order to be sure of its shape. He often sees words and not sense units. For instance, he reads: The book is on the desk and not (The book is) (on the desk).

The most difficult thing in learning to read is to get information from a sentence or a paragraph on the basis of the knowledge of structural signals and not only the meaning of words. Pupils often ignore grammar and try to understand what they read relying on their knowledge of autonomous words. And, of course, they often fail, e. g., the sentence He was asked to help the old woman is understood as Он попросил помочь старушке, in which the word he becomes the subject and is not the object of the action. Pupils sometimes find it difficult to pick out topical sentences in the text which express the main ideas.

To make the process of reading easier new words, phrases and sentence patterns should be learnt orally before pupils are asked to read them. So when pupils start reading they know how to pronounce the words, the phrases, and the sentences, and are familiar with their meaning.

Consequently, in order to find the most effective ways of teaching the teacher should know the difficulties pupils may have.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER II

WAYS IN TEACHING READING

 

2.1 Some ways how to teach reading

 

The teacher can use the whole system of exercises for developing pupils' ability to read which may be done in two forms — loud and silent.

Reading aloud. In teaching reading aloud the following methods are observed: the phonic, the word, and the sentence methods. When the p h o n i c method is used, the child learns the sounds and associates them with graphic symbols — letters. In the word method a complete word is first presented to the child. When several words have been learnt they are used in simple sentences [7]. The sentence method deals with the sentences as units of approach in teaching reading. The teacher can develop pupils' ability to read sentences with correct intonation. Later the sentence is split up into words [7]. The combination of the three methods can ensure good reading.

Pupils are taught to associate the graphic symbols of words with their meaning already learned orally. All the analyzers are at work: visual, auditory, kinesthetic. The leading role belongs to the visual analyzer, It is necessary that the graphic symbols (images) of words should be fixed in the pupils' memory. In teaching English in schools, however, little attention is given to this. Pupils are taught how, "to sound" words rather than how "to read" them. They often repeat words, combination of words without looking at, what they read. They look at the teacher. The teacher does not realize how much he hinders the formation of graphic images (symbols) in the pupils' memory by teaching to read in this way.

Reading in chorus, reading in groups in imitation of the teacher which is practiced in schools forms rather kinesthetic images than graphic ones. The result is that pupils can sound the text but they cannot read. The teacher should observe the rule "Never read words, phrases, and sentences by yourself. Give your pupils a chance to read them." For instance, in presenting the words and among them those which are read according to the rule the teacher should make his pupils read these words first. This rule is often violated in school. It is the teacher who first reads a word, a column of words, a sentence, a text and pupils just repeat after the teacher.

Teaching begins with presenting a letter to pupils, or a combination of letters, a word as a grapheme. The use of flash cards and the blackboard is indispensable.

Flash cards when the teacher uses them allow him:

(a) to present  a  new  letter  (letters);

(b) to make pupils compose a word (several flash cards are distributed among the pupils, for example, p, n, e; they compose pen);

      (c) to check pupils' knowledge of letters or graphemes;

      (d) to make pupils recollect the words beginning with he letter shown (p -pen, pencil, pupil, etc.);

      (e) to make pupils show the letter (letters) which stand for the s6und [ou], [a:], [ө], etc.

When teaching reading the teacher needs a set of flash cards at hand. If the teacher uses the blackboard instead he can write printed letters on it and pupils can recollect the words they have learnt orally which have this or that letter, compose a word, etc.

The same devices are applied for teaching pupils to read words, the task being different, however:

(a) pupils choose words which are not read according to 
the rule, for example: lake, plane, have, Mike, give, nine;

(b) pupils are invited to read the words which they usually misread:

yet — let                             cold — could

form — from                   called — cold 

come — some                   wood — Would

does — goes                    walk — work

(c)       pupils are invited to look at the words and name the letter (letters) which makes the words different:

though — thought          since — science

through— though           with — which

hear — near                     content — context

hear — hare                     country — county

(d) pupils in turn read a column of words following the 
key word

 (e) pupils are invited to pick out the words with the graphemes oo, ow ea, th, ...

 

In teaching to read transcription is also utilized. It helps the reader to read a word in the cases where the same grapheme stands for different sounds: build, suit, or words which are not read according to the rule: aunt, colonel.

In modern textbooks for the 5th form transcription is not used. It is given in the textbooks for the 6th and the 7th forms. Beginning with the 6th and the 7th forms pupils learn the phonic symbols so that they are able to read unfamiliar words which they look up in the word-list or a dictionary.

All the exercises mentioned above are designed to develop pupils' ability to associate the graphic symbols with the phonic ones.

The structural-information exercises .are done both in reading aloud and in silent reading. Pupils are taught how to read sentences, paragraphs, texts correctly. Special attention is given to intonation since it is of great importance to the actual division of sentences, to stressing the logical predicate in them. Marking the text occasionally may be helpful.

At an early stage of teaching reading the teacher should read a sentence or a passage to the class himself. When he is sure the pupils understand the passage, he can set individuals and the class to repeat the sentences after him, reading again himself if the pupils' reading is poor. The pupils look into the textbook. In symbols it can be expressed like this: T — C — T — P1 — T — P2— T — Pn — T — C (T — teacher; C — class; P — pupil).

This kind of elementary reading practice should be carried on for a limited number of lessons only. When a class has advanced far enough to be ready for more independent reading, reading in chorus might be decreased, but not eliminated: T — C — PiP2Pn.

When the pupils have learned to associate written symbols with the sounds they stand for they should read a sentence or a passage by themselves. In this way they get a chance to make use of their knowledge of the rules of reading. It gives the teacher an opportunity to see whether each of his pupils cart read. Symbolically it looks 1ike this: PiP2Pra T (S) C (S — speaker, if a tape recorder is used).