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Abstract: The quality of course books decides the quality of teaching. It is important to evaluate course books. The author analyzes “Reading and Writing Book” of “21st Century College English” based on the Nuttal’s reading model. Firstly, this model is presented in the opening part. Secondly, then the author discusses suitability of the course book from its content variety, authenticity and the training of language skills. Thirdly, how Nuttal’s reading principles and reading skills are reflected in such book is analyzed. Based on the discussion and analysis, conclusions are drawn that it is suitable for reading instruction; many of the reading principles and reading skills are well embodied and trained in this book. Finally suggestions are presented in the conclusion part. These suggestions include: 1) this book should be adopted more authentic materials such as poems, advertisements, recipes, travel guidebooks and so on; 2) teachers may present and train students’ reading skills systematically; 3) teachers should provide more and better non-linear text, such as colored pictures, reference book list, etc.
Key words: reading model and principles, course books, content variety, authenticity, the training of language skills
[CLC number] H319
[Document code] A
[Article ID] 1006-2831(2007)11-0076-5
I. Introduction
An amount of books being published is increasing. That the riches of published material for English language teaching makes a challenging task to select the right course book. Even if we have little control over the choice of textbooks, we can use them effectively according to their advantages and disadvantages. There are different criterions to evaluate course books. When analyzing the reading content of a general course book, we need to consider whether any help is given to learners in developing good reading strategies, whether reading principles are melted into it. (Cunningsworth, 2002) In the next part, the author analyzes the course book from the perspective of reading theory to find out whether reading theories are well applied to it.
II. Literature Review
According to Nuttal (2002), reading is a purposeful and meaningful activity. It is a communication process in which the reader should be actively involved. Reading is also considered a kind of top-down and bottom-up processing. Questions decided in the text make the reader realize what he does not understand, and pay more attention to the difficult bits of the text.
The overriding purpose of reading is to get meaning from a text. You read because you want to get the message from the writer intended. (Nuttal, 2002) We call reading a communication process because we take advantage of the schema and prediction to make reading more effective and efficient in the process. The more the writer’s shared assumptions are, the better the reader’s understanding will be. A reader who shares many presuppositions with the writer will be able to think along with the writer and use his own experience to resolve difficulties. Prediction is important in that it activates schemata and helps reader to make sense of text and sentences. Moreover, reading is top-down and bottom-up processing. These are complementary ways of processing a text. (Nuttal, 2002) They are both used whenever we read. Sometimes one predominates, sometimes the other, but both are needed. A reader approaching a difficult text can adopt both of them as conscious strategies.
In Nuttal’s opinion, a single sentence has four kinds of meaning: conceptual meaning, propositional meaning, contextual meaning and pragmatic meaning. Contextual meaning is crucial to effective reading and is useful to understand the propositional meaning. Pragmatic meaning involves interaction between the reader and the writer. In order to get propositional meaning or explain a sentence, we have such text attack skills such as understanding syntax, recognizing and interpreting cohesive devices and interpreting discourse markers. For the sake of getting contextual and pragmatic meaning, we have text attack skills such as recognizing functional value, text organization, the presuppositions underlying the text, implications and making inferences and prediction. Besides the previously mentioned skills, word attack skills are discussed in Nuttal’s reading model. They are as follows: say, guessing the unknown words from grammatical function, morphology and inferring the meaning from context. Of course, reading strategies also involve varying in reading rate, skimming, scanning, and utilizing non-linear text like reference apparatus, graphic conventions, figures and so forth.
III. How are Nuttal’s reading principles and reading skills applied in this book?
(1) In this section, the variety and authenticity principles and purposeful reading principle are applied
The majority of the texts are selected from the magazines and newspapers in British and America during the 1980’s and 1990’s. Hence, the language is characterized by current usage. Subject and type of writing are also taken into account. A great variety of subjects and different types of writing are covered. Seen from this point, authenticity of the book is good. By studying these texts, students will expand their understanding of different aspects of contemporary English language.
Reading is a kind of purposeful activity. Students would like to learn something else apart from language knowledge. The time when students studying in college is the key period for them to develop their learning strategies, personality and outlook of the world. The content of the texts are very practical and informative. It motivates students by making their foreign language reading interesting in itself.
For example, text A in Unit 1 “Secret of A Students” introduces some learning strategies of successful students. When students begin their university study, they are very confused about how they will deal with their future study. Every student wants to be successful, so the tips are practically meaningful for them. This kind of meaningful text not only gives them useful information, but also makes them interested in learning the text.
Text B of Unit 1 “Bittersweet Memories” and text C “Leaving” describe the feeling of high school graduates when they leave their high schools and their parents to go to universities. Maybe these are what they want to say but beyond their expression. So why is this kind of texts absorbing?
(2) Numerous language exercises of different kinds are devised so that the students may consolidate and expand their language knowledge and further improve their language skills.
The course books are basic reading material for college students, so the training of language skills can not be neglected. Large numbers of grammar, vocabulary, and writing exercises relevant to each text, such as structure, word building, translation and structured writing are provided. By doing these exercises, the students are expected to consolidate and enlarge their vocabulary. At the same time, these exercises assist them to write articles in different styles, and to enhance their reading ability.
(3) Various types of exercises are designed so that the students may acquire integrated language skills in English.
Listening is a summary of text A. The advantages of this include linking written English to its pronunciation, providing models for stress and intonation and generally bringing the text to life. It integrates the listening skill with the reading skills. Pre-reading Questions is a kind of integration of speaking and reading skills. These exercises are meant to be used in the classroom so as to further train the students’ listening and speaking skills. Each unit has a writing assignment to improve the students’ writing skills. The focus of training, however, is on reading skills. In this case, it can meet student’s need for improving their language skills as well as teaching syllabus’s requirement—students should acquire integrated language skills in English. The four skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing can no longer be treated as four separate single skills, as the relationship among them is that of coordination, correlation and interdependence. Oral discussion is based on reading, but at the same time it promotes reading comprehension and develops writing ability. The writing ability derives from reading; in the meantime it steps up the speaking ability. Reading, providing the students with large language input, is the fountainhead of English study. Thus, we might say that the training of the four skills, though not conducted simultaneously, is an integrative process.
(4) Non-linear texts are used in each unit
In each unit, there is a little picture relevant to the topic of the unit. We know the editor is making use of visual aids to motivate students to read. Different typefaces are used.
(5) Numerous exercises are provided to train students’ reading skills
Preview of text A, B and C gives a brief introduction to the three texts. It acts as a blurb of the unit to help the student understand the texts. Listening is a summary of text A. This is a kind of top-down processing of the texts. We make conscious use of it to try to see the overall purpose of the text, or get a rough idea of the pattern of the writer’s argument, in order to make a reasoned guess at the next step.
Pre-reading Questions
One of the purposes of this section is to elicit the schema and reactivate the students’ existing relevant idea and background knowledge. People of similar background tend to have similar schemata; for them, the shared assumptions are more than for people coming from different background. Let me also take unit 1 for an example. Question 2 “Look at the subheadings, 1-8, in the text. Which of these activities do you already do? In which areas do you feel you need improvement?” Question 3“Are there any ‘secrets’ to your own success as a student? In other words, do you have any special study techniques which have been very successful for you?” These two questions play a very good role in activating students’ schemata.
On the other hand, this section also leads students to make predictions from the title of the text. Question 1 in unit 1 “Based on the title, guess what the text is about” is a good example of making prediction.
Comprehension of the Text
1) According to Nuttal, questions make the reader realize the problems in comprehension and focus his attention on the difficult places in the text. Actually, these exercises also conform to Frank Smith’s model of reading.
Reading is the process of asking appropriate questions and finding relevant answers and comprehension occurs when questions are answered. If the questions are more relevant to the content, we can understand more.
By answering the questions put forward in this part, students can understand texts better.
2) Bottom-up processing is applied here too.
Questions in this part make us do bottom-up processing about texts when an initial reading leaves us confused.
For example, in unit 1, the item type of this section is True or False.
Question 1. ____ The best students are not necessarily those who work the hardest.
Question 2. ____ Intelligence is the key to getting good grades.
Only from the bottom-up processing can we get the author’s idea about these questions.
Responding to the Text
Two or three questions here try to get readers’ response to promote interaction between the writers and the readers. Reading is an interaction between the readers and writers.
Word Building
Students must acquire strategies for dealing with the lexical items that really block comprehension. Word attack skills of using morphology knowledge to deal with new words are well embodied in this section. In this section, not only commonly used affixes are given, but also exercises about them are provided. So students’ this word attack skills can be greatly improved by this training.
Reading Analysis
The section helps students to recognize the organization of the text and this is closely concerned with one of the text attack skills. If we know the organization of an article, our reading will be more effective.
Comprehension Questions after Text B and C.
Reading strategies are reflected in this part. For example:
1) Text attack skill: recognizing implications and making inferences
e.g.: From the context we may infer that “lingua franca” most probably means ____.
a) a mixed languageb)a common language used among people who speak different languagesc) an official of semiofficial languaged) a language used for a special purpose
(Text B of Unit 2)
2) Understanding the contextual meaning.
e.g.: “Being on the bottom rung of the ladder” (para.5) means____.
a) “being a freshman-at the lowest level of an institution of higher learning”
b) “being unpopular among her fellow students”
c) “being looked down upon by the juniors and seniors”
d) all of the above
(Text B of Unit 1)
(6) Text B and Text C in each unit are designed not only to provide the students with more reading materials, but also to provide them an example to use a specific reading strategy presented in front of text B
In this part, students will be taught a particular reading technique or comprehension skill and expected to put it into actual use. Some reading skills are involved in this book like recognizing main ideas, identifying supporting details, etc. For instance, skimming for main ideas and scanning for specific information are trained in unit 10 after Text B and C.
IV. Conclusion
Many reading principles are applied in this course book. It integrates not only the reading skills like skimming, scanning, word attack skills and text attack skills, but also integrates the training of listening, speaking, reading and writing skills. As for the content, it is modern, informative, suggestive even interesting. But if further improvement is made in the following aspects, it will be a better reading course book: 1) adopt more authentic material such as poems, advertisements, recipes, travel guidebooks and so on. The more authentic the material, the more communicative the material, the more interesting the readers will be. 2) Present reading skills systematically. Because the training of reading skills scatters in different places, the training of some skills has been left out. For example, the training of interpreting discourse markers, which is very useful in reading comprehension, is rarely seen in this course book. 3) Provide more and better non-linear text, such as colored pictures, reference book list, etc. The non-linear text helps to motivate the readers’ interest, and at the same time helps them to have a better understanding of the text.
Bibliography
Cunningsworth, A. Choosing Your Coursebook[M]. 上海：上海外语教育出版社，2002.
Nuttall, C. Teaching Reading Skills in a Foreign Language[M]. 上海：上海外语教育出版社，2002
复旦大学. 上海交通大学. 21世纪大学英语读写教程（第一册）. 上海：复旦大学出版社，高等教育出版社.
Key words: reading model and principles, course books, content variety, authenticity, the training of language skills
[CLC number] H319
[Document code] A
[Article ID] 1006-2831(2007)11-0076-5
I. Introduction
An amount of books being published is increasing. That the riches of published material for English language teaching makes a challenging task to select the right course book. Even if we have little control over the choice of textbooks, we can use them effectively according to their advantages and disadvantages. There are different criterions to evaluate course books. When analyzing the reading content of a general course book, we need to consider whether any help is given to learners in developing good reading strategies, whether reading principles are melted into it. (Cunningsworth, 2002) In the next part, the author analyzes the course book from the perspective of reading theory to find out whether reading theories are well applied to it.
II. Literature Review
According to Nuttal (2002), reading is a purposeful and meaningful activity. It is a communication process in which the reader should be actively involved. Reading is also considered a kind of top-down and bottom-up processing. Questions decided in the text make the reader realize what he does not understand, and pay more attention to the difficult bits of the text.
The overriding purpose of reading is to get meaning from a text. You read because you want to get the message from the writer intended. (Nuttal, 2002) We call reading a communication process because we take advantage of the schema and prediction to make reading more effective and efficient in the process. The more the writer’s shared assumptions are, the better the reader’s understanding will be. A reader who shares many presuppositions with the writer will be able to think along with the writer and use his own experience to resolve difficulties. Prediction is important in that it activates schemata and helps reader to make sense of text and sentences. Moreover, reading is top-down and bottom-up processing. These are complementary ways of processing a text. (Nuttal, 2002) They are both used whenever we read. Sometimes one predominates, sometimes the other, but both are needed. A reader approaching a difficult text can adopt both of them as conscious strategies.
In Nuttal’s opinion, a single sentence has four kinds of meaning: conceptual meaning, propositional meaning, contextual meaning and pragmatic meaning. Contextual meaning is crucial to effective reading and is useful to understand the propositional meaning. Pragmatic meaning involves interaction between the reader and the writer. In order to get propositional meaning or explain a sentence, we have such text attack skills such as understanding syntax, recognizing and interpreting cohesive devices and interpreting discourse markers. For the sake of getting contextual and pragmatic meaning, we have text attack skills such as recognizing functional value, text organization, the presuppositions underlying the text, implications and making inferences and prediction. Besides the previously mentioned skills, word attack skills are discussed in Nuttal’s reading model. They are as follows: say, guessing the unknown words from grammatical function, morphology and inferring the meaning from context. Of course, reading strategies also involve varying in reading rate, skimming, scanning, and utilizing non-linear text like reference apparatus, graphic conventions, figures and so forth.
III. How are Nuttal’s reading principles and reading skills applied in this book?
(1) In this section, the variety and authenticity principles and purposeful reading principle are applied
The majority of the texts are selected from the magazines and newspapers in British and America during the 1980’s and 1990’s. Hence, the language is characterized by current usage. Subject and type of writing are also taken into account. A great variety of subjects and different types of writing are covered. Seen from this point, authenticity of the book is good. By studying these texts, students will expand their understanding of different aspects of contemporary English language.
Reading is a kind of purposeful activity. Students would like to learn something else apart from language knowledge. The time when students studying in college is the key period for them to develop their learning strategies, personality and outlook of the world. The content of the texts are very practical and informative. It motivates students by making their foreign language reading interesting in itself.
For example, text A in Unit 1 “Secret of A Students” introduces some learning strategies of successful students. When students begin their university study, they are very confused about how they will deal with their future study. Every student wants to be successful, so the tips are practically meaningful for them. This kind of meaningful text not only gives them useful information, but also makes them interested in learning the text.
Text B of Unit 1 “Bittersweet Memories” and text C “Leaving” describe the feeling of high school graduates when they leave their high schools and their parents to go to universities. Maybe these are what they want to say but beyond their expression. So why is this kind of texts absorbing?
(2) Numerous language exercises of different kinds are devised so that the students may consolidate and expand their language knowledge and further improve their language skills.
The course books are basic reading material for college students, so the training of language skills can not be neglected. Large numbers of grammar, vocabulary, and writing exercises relevant to each text, such as structure, word building, translation and structured writing are provided. By doing these exercises, the students are expected to consolidate and enlarge their vocabulary. At the same time, these exercises assist them to write articles in different styles, and to enhance their reading ability.
(3) Various types of exercises are designed so that the students may acquire integrated language skills in English.
Listening is a summary of text A. The advantages of this include linking written English to its pronunciation, providing models for stress and intonation and generally bringing the text to life. It integrates the listening skill with the reading skills. Pre-reading Questions is a kind of integration of speaking and reading skills. These exercises are meant to be used in the classroom so as to further train the students’ listening and speaking skills. Each unit has a writing assignment to improve the students’ writing skills. The focus of training, however, is on reading skills. In this case, it can meet student’s need for improving their language skills as well as teaching syllabus’s requirement—students should acquire integrated language skills in English. The four skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing can no longer be treated as four separate single skills, as the relationship among them is that of coordination, correlation and interdependence. Oral discussion is based on reading, but at the same time it promotes reading comprehension and develops writing ability. The writing ability derives from reading; in the meantime it steps up the speaking ability. Reading, providing the students with large language input, is the fountainhead of English study. Thus, we might say that the training of the four skills, though not conducted simultaneously, is an integrative process.
(4) Non-linear texts are used in each unit
In each unit, there is a little picture relevant to the topic of the unit. We know the editor is making use of visual aids to motivate students to read. Different typefaces are used.
(5) Numerous exercises are provided to train students’ reading skills
Preview of text A, B and C gives a brief introduction to the three texts. It acts as a blurb of the unit to help the student understand the texts. Listening is a summary of text A. This is a kind of top-down processing of the texts. We make conscious use of it to try to see the overall purpose of the text, or get a rough idea of the pattern of the writer’s argument, in order to make a reasoned guess at the next step.
Pre-reading Questions
One of the purposes of this section is to elicit the schema and reactivate the students’ existing relevant idea and background knowledge. People of similar background tend to have similar schemata; for them, the shared assumptions are more than for people coming from different background. Let me also take unit 1 for an example. Question 2 “Look at the subheadings, 1-8, in the text. Which of these activities do you already do? In which areas do you feel you need improvement?” Question 3“Are there any ‘secrets’ to your own success as a student? In other words, do you have any special study techniques which have been very successful for you?” These two questions play a very good role in activating students’ schemata.
On the other hand, this section also leads students to make predictions from the title of the text. Question 1 in unit 1 “Based on the title, guess what the text is about” is a good example of making prediction.
Comprehension of the Text
1) According to Nuttal, questions make the reader realize the problems in comprehension and focus his attention on the difficult places in the text. Actually, these exercises also conform to Frank Smith’s model of reading.
Reading is the process of asking appropriate questions and finding relevant answers and comprehension occurs when questions are answered. If the questions are more relevant to the content, we can understand more.
By answering the questions put forward in this part, students can understand texts better.
2) Bottom-up processing is applied here too.
Questions in this part make us do bottom-up processing about texts when an initial reading leaves us confused.
For example, in unit 1, the item type of this section is True or False.
Question 1. ____ The best students are not necessarily those who work the hardest.
Question 2. ____ Intelligence is the key to getting good grades.
Only from the bottom-up processing can we get the author’s idea about these questions.
Responding to the Text
Two or three questions here try to get readers’ response to promote interaction between the writers and the readers. Reading is an interaction between the readers and writers.
Word Building
Students must acquire strategies for dealing with the lexical items that really block comprehension. Word attack skills of using morphology knowledge to deal with new words are well embodied in this section. In this section, not only commonly used affixes are given, but also exercises about them are provided. So students’ this word attack skills can be greatly improved by this training.
Reading Analysis
The section helps students to recognize the organization of the text and this is closely concerned with one of the text attack skills. If we know the organization of an article, our reading will be more effective.
Comprehension Questions after Text B and C.
Reading strategies are reflected in this part. For example:
1) Text attack skill: recognizing implications and making inferences
e.g.: From the context we may infer that “lingua franca” most probably means ____.
a) a mixed languageb)a common language used among people who speak different languagesc) an official of semiofficial languaged) a language used for a special purpose
(Text B of Unit 2)
2) Understanding the contextual meaning.
e.g.: “Being on the bottom rung of the ladder” (para.5) means____.
a) “being a freshman-at the lowest level of an institution of higher learning”
b) “being unpopular among her fellow students”
c) “being looked down upon by the juniors and seniors”
d) all of the above
(Text B of Unit 1)
(6) Text B and Text C in each unit are designed not only to provide the students with more reading materials, but also to provide them an example to use a specific reading strategy presented in front of text B
In this part, students will be taught a particular reading technique or comprehension skill and expected to put it into actual use. Some reading skills are involved in this book like recognizing main ideas, identifying supporting details, etc. For instance, skimming for main ideas and scanning for specific information are trained in unit 10 after Text B and C.
IV. Conclusion
Many reading principles are applied in this course book. It integrates not only the reading skills like skimming, scanning, word attack skills and text attack skills, but also integrates the training of listening, speaking, reading and writing skills. As for the content, it is modern, informative, suggestive even interesting. But if further improvement is made in the following aspects, it will be a better reading course book: 1) adopt more authentic material such as poems, advertisements, recipes, travel guidebooks and so on. The more authentic the material, the more communicative the material, the more interesting the readers will be. 2) Present reading skills systematically. Because the training of reading skills scatters in different places, the training of some skills has been left out. For example, the training of interpreting discourse markers, which is very useful in reading comprehension, is rarely seen in this course book. 3) Provide more and better non-linear text, such as colored pictures, reference book list, etc. The non-linear text helps to motivate the readers’ interest, and at the same time helps them to have a better understanding of the text.
Bibliography
Cunningsworth, A. Choosing Your Coursebook[M]. 上海：上海外语教育出版社，2002.
Nuttall, C. Teaching Reading Skills in a Foreign Language[M]. 上海：上海外语教育出版社，2002
复旦大学. 上海交通大学. 21世纪大学英语读写教程（第一册）. 上海：复旦大学出版社，高等教育出版社.