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Abstract: In this paper, the basic definition of intensive reading (IR) has been explained, the purpose of teaching and learning intensive reading has been analyzed, and the present situation and ordinary methods of intensive reading teaching of college English in China has been described. The problems in traditional intensive reading teaching have been discussed and the way to solve the problems has been introduced.
摘要：本文介绍了精读的基本含义，精读教与学的目的，中国当今大学英语教学的现状以及常用的教学方式。文章指出了传统精读教学中存在的问题,并提出了解决这些问题的对策。
Key words: intensive reading (IR) teaching; student-centered method; adaptation of materials; interactive-oriented teaching methods; integration of language skills
关键词：精读教学；以学生为中心的教学模式；课堂教学多样性；语言技能的综合运用
Ⅰ.Introduction
For a long time, intensive reading(IR) has played an important role in language teaching. It takes up much of the teaching time. Recently there have been more and more questions asked about whether IR limits students' improvement in the four language skills and whether IR is good for the development of English language teaching and learning in China. In this paper the problems in intensive reading teaching is discussed and the improvement of IR teaching method is suggested.
Ⅱ.Intensive Reading and Its Traditional Teaching Method
2.1. Definition of intensive reading
According to Jim Scrivener “Intensive reading is the process whereby a text is analyzed for grammatical structure and difficult words, and then explained by the teacher to the listening students who note down any explanations and definitions given.” In terms of language teaching, intensive reading is a teach-centered, rote-teaching method to help the students learn a foreign language. Intensive reading usually involves a careful explanation of a text, and the text itself only has grammatical value. It is concerned with structure, vocabulary and the meaning. So in such lessons, the text and vocabulary items are learned passively.
2.2. The purposes of teaching and learning IR
As we know, there are various purposes of teaching and learning intensive reading. According to Christine Nut Tall (1982) “The aim of IR is to arrive at a profound and detailed understanding of the text, not only of what it means, but also how the meaning is produced. The“how” is as important as“what”, for the intensive reading lesson is intended primarily to train students in reading strategies. So intensive reading is taught to enable the students to use their pre-knowledge of language in reading and to improve not only their reading and writing skills, but also their listening and speaking skills through intensive reading. They are expected to use and speak English fluently and to learn how to learn by themselves. In a word, to improve their English system ethically.
However, the actual result is not satisfactory and efficient. Teachers take a lot of troubles in teaching and students are strenuous in study, but the effect is not good enough. As intensive reading has been taught in a traditional way, which hinders the efficiency greatly.
2.3. Traditional teaching methods of IR
In most of the intensive reading textbooks, teachers try to present vocabulary items one by one, then focus on difficult language points and analyze the text sentence by sentence. There are some disadvantages of teaching intensive reading in this way: students learn the words mechanically and learn by rote; they do not learn the vocabulary items from the context, but in isolation, which makes the students forget what they have learnt easily; and the teachers focus more on difficulties of the text than on the important and useful language items. They also neglect the importance of helping the students to use the language.
Ⅲ. The Problems of IR Teaching
In an intensive reading lesson presented by the way mentioned above, the lesson is completely controlled by the teacher. In a teacher-centered class, the teacher does most of the work and speaks almost from the beginning to the end. Students get very little chance to practice and speak the target language in class. This hinders improvements in their spoken English. On the other hand, many English teachers seldom speak English in English class. The reason is that students do not understand if the teacher speaks too much English. Besides, there is only one period of listening in one week, and the students rarely listen to English programms after class. In this case, the students lose the chance to train their listening skill. In addition, as grammar and difficult language points are over-stresses in intensive reading, students tend to use accurate, not fluent English. As a result, those students who are good at reading and writing may be poor in listening and speaking. Therefore, it prevents the students from developing their four language skills.
Apart from the points mentioned above, another three problems should be pointed out:
3.1. Lack of varieties of the lesson
Usually, what will be taught in one semester is determined beforehand and the textbooks are ordered in advance, so the content is fixed. Generally a textbook is required to be finished from the beginning to the end in one term, no matter how interesting or dull the texts are. On the other hand, presenting vocabulary items in the text one by one and explaining the text, by analyzing structure first, meaning second, result in a wrong guidance in selecting words and expressions. Year after year, the stage of the teacher's teaching method becomes fossilized and the students will lose interest in taking intensive reading lesson.
3.2. Lack of involvement
As teachers completely take charge of the class and speak a lot, they seldom provide activities or tasks that could involve the students' participation. So the students are not activated and gradually they form bad habits and develop a passive attitude towards study. They only need to note down what the teacher says without playing any active role in class. In this case, even if the students attend the lesson, they are not completely involved in the class activities. They are only observers of the teaching process.
3.3. Lack of integration of the four skills
Since the textbooks are designed for grammatical value, not for the communicative function; for expounding the difficult language point; and the focus is primarily on reading, writing, grammar, sentence structure and vocabulary, therefore, listening and speaking are neglected. In addition as intensive reading over-stresses the difficulties, it exerts tremendous influence on students' listening comprehension. Without good listening, good speaking is almost impossible. Step by step, they become timid when opening their mouth to speak and they find that it hard to communicate with each other.
Ⅳ. How to solve these problems and improve IR teaching
4.1. New ideas for intensive reading teaching method
To solve these problems stated above, first of all, both teachers and students' ideas about intensive reading teaching should be changed. Nowadays, some new ideas for intensive reading teaching have been introduced. According to the new ideas, while teaching intensive reading, attention should be paid to the content, not to grammatical forms; students should be expected to get a global understanding of the text and not to understand every single word. The students should not rely too much on the teacher; they should realize that it is their responsibility to learn and to practice using their pre-knowledge of language and newly-learnt knowledge. It is very important for the teachers to make the intensive reading lesson more meaningful, lively and interesting to motivate the students and arouse their interest or get them refreshed.
4.2. Improve teaching method
To make the intensive reading more meaningful, the key point is to improve the teaching method that involves varying the teaching strategies; make careful choice of the textbook, create memorable and workable activities that involve every student and integrate the four skills. In addition to this, there are some extra aspects. The following are some important aspects that need to be improved.
4.2.1 Syllabus
The syllabus should be flexible. Teachers often complain that it is hard to finish the textbooks according to the syllabus that is enacted by the authorities. However, as N. Robb Thomas points out, when making their teaching plans, teachers are not supposed to pay too much attention to the book itself and the time they use to deal with the book, but to focus on teaching the students and improving their ability of using what they have learnt. Though the syllabuses are fixed, they can be used flexibly. To provide variety in intensive reading, two important factors should not be ignored.
i.Reading Material: To make intensive reading lesson interesting, meaningful and memorable, the materials take a decisive role in reading. The textbooks should be created to be interesting, practical and communicative. They should be concerned with the real life experience, stressing students' using language fluently. The textbooks must take students' needs and interests into account, and the balance of integrating the four skills should be regarded. Teachers, while setting up their short-term teaching plan, could decide to select the most appropriate texts or adapt the texts to make them suitable for the students; or they can supplement the methods and materials by omitting some unworkable materials, and replacing with some interesting supplementary materials, flexibly, according to different situations.
ii.Teaching Facilities: Another factor in teaching a good intensive reading lesson is to improve the teaching facilities. Apart from using the blackboard, chalk, cassette tapes, language labs, videotapes, visuals could be provided. With the help of visuals, the students may be immediately interested in what they are going to learn. This helps them get a direct and better understanding of the texts as well. Therefore, an improvement in the teaching facilities is necessary, because with the variety they can offer, students will get more interests in the lesson.
4.2.2 Interactive-based teaching methods
i.Discussion-oriented Teaching
Reading lessons have conventionally centered on a passage of text followed by comprehension questions. In order to attract students' interest and enhance their understanding, teachers should design some student-centered discussions. According to the texts, teachers can ask some questions and divided the students into several groups for discussion, and then each group should ask a reporter to state their views. In fact, hot discussions can arouse students' enthusiasm for English, enlighten their thought, and improve their listening and speaking abilities.
ii.Comparison-oriented Teaching
There are varieties of subjects with rich and enlighten contents in intensive reading, the teacher can compare some texts which have similar subjects, theme, or feeling. For example, If the students compare two mothers of “The Day Mother Cried” (Unit 5, Book Ⅱ) and “You Go Your Way, I'll Go Mine” (Unit 8, Book I), they can find the two mothers have some common characteristics: kind-hearted, strong-minded and diligent. Design of comparison can make the students learn by analogy and gain new knowledge by reviewing old.
iii.Performance-oriented Teaching
Some texts in extensive reading course are suitable for performance. For example, when teaching “My First Job”(Unit 4, Book Ⅱ), the teacher can ask a student to play the role of the boss and others as employees, perform the employing process. In this case, the students may learn with great enthusiasm. They will not only understand the exactly meaning of the content, but also learn perfect pronunciation and intonation. Meanwhile, they will have much self-confidence, and be very brave and active in class.
To sum up, though it is not an easy job teaching students all the knowledge with quite efficiency, as long as the teacher takes various measures, students' range of knowledge can get widened and their reading efficiency can be improved as well.
4.2.3 Integration of the four skills
Another important aspect of improving the intensive reading method is the integration of skills. The aim of integration is to practice and extend the use of grammatical items, to provide a wide range of opportunity for the students to use the four skills in a given context. When students are combining the four skills, they can use the language in different moods; it allows for continuity, offers variety; it is more student-centered, students are allowed to consolidate what they have learned. The practice and production can be made less difficult. In this case, they will more active in finding the chance to practice and learn by themselves either in class or in everyday life.
Ⅴ. Conclusion
So, in this paper, the present situation of IR teaching in China and the problems in traditional IR teaching have been discussed. The way to solve these problems which involves improving the teaching method has been introduced. It includes a flexible adaptation of the syllabus; and a careful selection of the materials, that is, both the course books and supplementary materials are required to be authentic, practical and interesting. The improvement also includes integrating the four language skills. Of course, the dissemination and accepting of the new ideas may not be an easy thing, because most of the Chinese teachers and students have already been used to the traditional teaching methods which they have used for many years. This hinders the improvement of the teaching methods. However, efforts should be exerted to perfect the teaching approaches for improving students' ability of using the language.
Ⅵ. References:
1. Christine Nut Tall Teaching Reading Skills in a Foreign Language. Shanghai Foreign Language
Education Press
2. Fredericka, L. Stroller Making the Most of a Newsmagazine Passage for Reading-Skills
Development. JALT Journal, Vol. 32, No 1, January-March 1994
3. Gao Wen On Cultural Background Information and English Teaching of Intensive Reading.
Journal of Henna Education Institute Feb. 2000 Vol. 19, No.72
4. Jim Scrivener Learning Teaching: A guidebook for English Language Teaching. Shanghai
Foreign Language Education Press
5. Thomas N. Robb EFL Intensive Reading Instruction: Research and Procedure. JALT Journal,
Vol. 12, No. 2 (November 1990)
6. 黄静 谈大学英语教学中阅读技能的培养 兰州商学院学报，总18卷，第4期
7. 赵惠珠 英语教学中的阅读训练 南通师范学院学报（哲学社会科学版），2001年，第17
卷，第2期
摘要：本文介绍了精读的基本含义，精读教与学的目的，中国当今大学英语教学的现状以及常用的教学方式。文章指出了传统精读教学中存在的问题,并提出了解决这些问题的对策。
Key words: intensive reading (IR) teaching; student-centered method; adaptation of materials; interactive-oriented teaching methods; integration of language skills
关键词：精读教学；以学生为中心的教学模式；课堂教学多样性；语言技能的综合运用
Ⅰ.Introduction
For a long time, intensive reading(IR) has played an important role in language teaching. It takes up much of the teaching time. Recently there have been more and more questions asked about whether IR limits students' improvement in the four language skills and whether IR is good for the development of English language teaching and learning in China. In this paper the problems in intensive reading teaching is discussed and the improvement of IR teaching method is suggested.
Ⅱ.Intensive Reading and Its Traditional Teaching Method
2.1. Definition of intensive reading
According to Jim Scrivener “Intensive reading is the process whereby a text is analyzed for grammatical structure and difficult words, and then explained by the teacher to the listening students who note down any explanations and definitions given.” In terms of language teaching, intensive reading is a teach-centered, rote-teaching method to help the students learn a foreign language. Intensive reading usually involves a careful explanation of a text, and the text itself only has grammatical value. It is concerned with structure, vocabulary and the meaning. So in such lessons, the text and vocabulary items are learned passively.
2.2. The purposes of teaching and learning IR
As we know, there are various purposes of teaching and learning intensive reading. According to Christine Nut Tall (1982) “The aim of IR is to arrive at a profound and detailed understanding of the text, not only of what it means, but also how the meaning is produced. The“how” is as important as“what”, for the intensive reading lesson is intended primarily to train students in reading strategies. So intensive reading is taught to enable the students to use their pre-knowledge of language in reading and to improve not only their reading and writing skills, but also their listening and speaking skills through intensive reading. They are expected to use and speak English fluently and to learn how to learn by themselves. In a word, to improve their English system ethically.
However, the actual result is not satisfactory and efficient. Teachers take a lot of troubles in teaching and students are strenuous in study, but the effect is not good enough. As intensive reading has been taught in a traditional way, which hinders the efficiency greatly.
2.3. Traditional teaching methods of IR
In most of the intensive reading textbooks, teachers try to present vocabulary items one by one, then focus on difficult language points and analyze the text sentence by sentence. There are some disadvantages of teaching intensive reading in this way: students learn the words mechanically and learn by rote; they do not learn the vocabulary items from the context, but in isolation, which makes the students forget what they have learnt easily; and the teachers focus more on difficulties of the text than on the important and useful language items. They also neglect the importance of helping the students to use the language.
Ⅲ. The Problems of IR Teaching
In an intensive reading lesson presented by the way mentioned above, the lesson is completely controlled by the teacher. In a teacher-centered class, the teacher does most of the work and speaks almost from the beginning to the end. Students get very little chance to practice and speak the target language in class. This hinders improvements in their spoken English. On the other hand, many English teachers seldom speak English in English class. The reason is that students do not understand if the teacher speaks too much English. Besides, there is only one period of listening in one week, and the students rarely listen to English programms after class. In this case, the students lose the chance to train their listening skill. In addition, as grammar and difficult language points are over-stresses in intensive reading, students tend to use accurate, not fluent English. As a result, those students who are good at reading and writing may be poor in listening and speaking. Therefore, it prevents the students from developing their four language skills.
Apart from the points mentioned above, another three problems should be pointed out:
3.1. Lack of varieties of the lesson
Usually, what will be taught in one semester is determined beforehand and the textbooks are ordered in advance, so the content is fixed. Generally a textbook is required to be finished from the beginning to the end in one term, no matter how interesting or dull the texts are. On the other hand, presenting vocabulary items in the text one by one and explaining the text, by analyzing structure first, meaning second, result in a wrong guidance in selecting words and expressions. Year after year, the stage of the teacher's teaching method becomes fossilized and the students will lose interest in taking intensive reading lesson.
3.2. Lack of involvement
As teachers completely take charge of the class and speak a lot, they seldom provide activities or tasks that could involve the students' participation. So the students are not activated and gradually they form bad habits and develop a passive attitude towards study. They only need to note down what the teacher says without playing any active role in class. In this case, even if the students attend the lesson, they are not completely involved in the class activities. They are only observers of the teaching process.
3.3. Lack of integration of the four skills
Since the textbooks are designed for grammatical value, not for the communicative function; for expounding the difficult language point; and the focus is primarily on reading, writing, grammar, sentence structure and vocabulary, therefore, listening and speaking are neglected. In addition as intensive reading over-stresses the difficulties, it exerts tremendous influence on students' listening comprehension. Without good listening, good speaking is almost impossible. Step by step, they become timid when opening their mouth to speak and they find that it hard to communicate with each other.
Ⅳ. How to solve these problems and improve IR teaching
4.1. New ideas for intensive reading teaching method
To solve these problems stated above, first of all, both teachers and students' ideas about intensive reading teaching should be changed. Nowadays, some new ideas for intensive reading teaching have been introduced. According to the new ideas, while teaching intensive reading, attention should be paid to the content, not to grammatical forms; students should be expected to get a global understanding of the text and not to understand every single word. The students should not rely too much on the teacher; they should realize that it is their responsibility to learn and to practice using their pre-knowledge of language and newly-learnt knowledge. It is very important for the teachers to make the intensive reading lesson more meaningful, lively and interesting to motivate the students and arouse their interest or get them refreshed.
4.2. Improve teaching method
To make the intensive reading more meaningful, the key point is to improve the teaching method that involves varying the teaching strategies; make careful choice of the textbook, create memorable and workable activities that involve every student and integrate the four skills. In addition to this, there are some extra aspects. The following are some important aspects that need to be improved.
4.2.1 Syllabus
The syllabus should be flexible. Teachers often complain that it is hard to finish the textbooks according to the syllabus that is enacted by the authorities. However, as N. Robb Thomas points out, when making their teaching plans, teachers are not supposed to pay too much attention to the book itself and the time they use to deal with the book, but to focus on teaching the students and improving their ability of using what they have learnt. Though the syllabuses are fixed, they can be used flexibly. To provide variety in intensive reading, two important factors should not be ignored.
i.Reading Material: To make intensive reading lesson interesting, meaningful and memorable, the materials take a decisive role in reading. The textbooks should be created to be interesting, practical and communicative. They should be concerned with the real life experience, stressing students' using language fluently. The textbooks must take students' needs and interests into account, and the balance of integrating the four skills should be regarded. Teachers, while setting up their short-term teaching plan, could decide to select the most appropriate texts or adapt the texts to make them suitable for the students; or they can supplement the methods and materials by omitting some unworkable materials, and replacing with some interesting supplementary materials, flexibly, according to different situations.
ii.Teaching Facilities: Another factor in teaching a good intensive reading lesson is to improve the teaching facilities. Apart from using the blackboard, chalk, cassette tapes, language labs, videotapes, visuals could be provided. With the help of visuals, the students may be immediately interested in what they are going to learn. This helps them get a direct and better understanding of the texts as well. Therefore, an improvement in the teaching facilities is necessary, because with the variety they can offer, students will get more interests in the lesson.
4.2.2 Interactive-based teaching methods
i.Discussion-oriented Teaching
Reading lessons have conventionally centered on a passage of text followed by comprehension questions. In order to attract students' interest and enhance their understanding, teachers should design some student-centered discussions. According to the texts, teachers can ask some questions and divided the students into several groups for discussion, and then each group should ask a reporter to state their views. In fact, hot discussions can arouse students' enthusiasm for English, enlighten their thought, and improve their listening and speaking abilities.
ii.Comparison-oriented Teaching
There are varieties of subjects with rich and enlighten contents in intensive reading, the teacher can compare some texts which have similar subjects, theme, or feeling. For example, If the students compare two mothers of “The Day Mother Cried” (Unit 5, Book Ⅱ) and “You Go Your Way, I'll Go Mine” (Unit 8, Book I), they can find the two mothers have some common characteristics: kind-hearted, strong-minded and diligent. Design of comparison can make the students learn by analogy and gain new knowledge by reviewing old.
iii.Performance-oriented Teaching
Some texts in extensive reading course are suitable for performance. For example, when teaching “My First Job”(Unit 4, Book Ⅱ), the teacher can ask a student to play the role of the boss and others as employees, perform the employing process. In this case, the students may learn with great enthusiasm. They will not only understand the exactly meaning of the content, but also learn perfect pronunciation and intonation. Meanwhile, they will have much self-confidence, and be very brave and active in class.
To sum up, though it is not an easy job teaching students all the knowledge with quite efficiency, as long as the teacher takes various measures, students' range of knowledge can get widened and their reading efficiency can be improved as well.
4.2.3 Integration of the four skills
Another important aspect of improving the intensive reading method is the integration of skills. The aim of integration is to practice and extend the use of grammatical items, to provide a wide range of opportunity for the students to use the four skills in a given context. When students are combining the four skills, they can use the language in different moods; it allows for continuity, offers variety; it is more student-centered, students are allowed to consolidate what they have learned. The practice and production can be made less difficult. In this case, they will more active in finding the chance to practice and learn by themselves either in class or in everyday life.
Ⅴ. Conclusion
So, in this paper, the present situation of IR teaching in China and the problems in traditional IR teaching have been discussed. The way to solve these problems which involves improving the teaching method has been introduced. It includes a flexible adaptation of the syllabus; and a careful selection of the materials, that is, both the course books and supplementary materials are required to be authentic, practical and interesting. The improvement also includes integrating the four language skills. Of course, the dissemination and accepting of the new ideas may not be an easy thing, because most of the Chinese teachers and students have already been used to the traditional teaching methods which they have used for many years. This hinders the improvement of the teaching methods. However, efforts should be exerted to perfect the teaching approaches for improving students' ability of using the language.
Ⅵ. References:
1. Christine Nut Tall Teaching Reading Skills in a Foreign Language. Shanghai Foreign Language
Education Press
2. Fredericka, L. Stroller Making the Most of a Newsmagazine Passage for Reading-Skills
Development. JALT Journal, Vol. 32, No 1, January-March 1994
3. Gao Wen On Cultural Background Information and English Teaching of Intensive Reading.
Journal of Henna Education Institute Feb. 2000 Vol. 19, No.72
4. Jim Scrivener Learning Teaching: A guidebook for English Language Teaching. Shanghai
Foreign Language Education Press
5. Thomas N. Robb EFL Intensive Reading Instruction: Research and Procedure. JALT Journal,
Vol. 12, No. 2 (November 1990)
6. 黄静 谈大学英语教学中阅读技能的培养 兰州商学院学报，总18卷，第4期
7. 赵惠珠 英语教学中的阅读训练 南通师范学院学报（哲学社会科学版），2001年，第17
卷，第2期