Effective Ways of Extensive Reading Teaching

Abstract:Compared with intensive reading， extensive reading can arouse students’ interest in reading， and enrich their background knowledge about western countries. Therefore， we should improve both and pay special attention to the extensive reading so that students’ reading ability can be enhanced. The following points should be noticed when teaching extensive reading.

Key words: extensive reading; interest; background knowledge

1. Know the general aims of extensive reading

Extensive reading is practice， aiming to solve the reading problems in the text. So the first step is to improve students’ overall understanding， and the second detailed understanding when carrying out the practice. The reading problems should test the understanding and designing should start with the general understanding of the whole passage， not certain words or concrete details. We should know the aims in two ways:

(1)Getting information in the fixed time to get the basic content and main idea. The aim focuses on the main idea， so the details can be passed and even vocabulary and grammar points.

(2)Setting goals for different levels. There are three levels for reading exercises:

a. The surface understanding. It is only required to understand the words and students need to repeat the main idea mechanically and recall the content in the mind. The junior middle students are asked to do so.

b. High level is understanding the implied meaning， which requires students’ creativity to absorb some implied meaning both the known information and the students’ social background knowledge. The problems are difficult and connected with the topic but not clearly stated， so at the beginning， such problems should be limited.

c. Evaluating understanding problems belong to the last level which requires students’ evaluation about the reading material， so reading is for evaluating by absorbing the information and for gaining the communication ability in English. It’s the ultimate objective of reading.

In general， teachers should train reading from the first to the last level to ensure the students’ understanding can be improved and the students can gain skills with their knowledge based.

2. Effective ways of extensive reading

Modern education pays more attention to students' self-cultivation， so it requests that the teachers teach the students not only the required knowledge but also the required skills of mastering and using English. According to different reading aims， the teachers should teach students to read with different methods and approaches in a suitable order， from the surface understanding to implied meaning， from the concrete to abstract content.

It is the first step to have enough vocabulary. If the students have no enough words， they feel it hard to understand the passage. So the accumulation of vocabulary is the key to improving reading ability. How to remember words? Methods of mastering words are important. Students can remember them clearly by their meaning， category， and words root. One word may have different meaning， but its specific meaning only can be clear in the context. Also， new words can’t be avoided in reading comprehension， yet the meaning can be inferred in the context. Thus， in the teaching process， students should be encouraged to read passages with a certain number of new words， dispose the new words properly and change the bad habit of depending on Chinese translation. Sometimes you can see you can understand the whole passage， even though you meet with the new words， so it’s ok to let the new words go.

Besides， a mastery of grammar is necessary as it’s the rule of using English in communication. To master and handle grammar skillfully is the basic training in improving reading comprehension. As to English learners， a good mastery of grammar and good use of the grammar rules in the activities of reading can help you get good results with half of the time. It’s better to have a good grammar book.

Then， logical reasoning ability should be enhanced. In reading we should predict， confirm， explore and then confirm explore again. We have to analyze the problems and infer the attitude and purpose of the author. As is often the case， the reasons and implied meaning can be seen between lines. Because it’s impossible for us to get the right answer merely by reading for words meaning， it often requires judgment and inference according to the context. For example， we can get the meaning of a new word in a sentence by compassion between the description of two events or by getting the opposites.

In addition， master certain reading skills. We’ll talk about fast reading skills， which can be called a scientific way of leaning--reading massive materials in a short time. Fast reading contains:

a. Skimming. Skim the whole passage to grasp the general idea. Find the topic sentence and get the main idea in every reading passage， where the topic sentence is related with the facts and details.

b. Skipping. Skip for the needed information， for example， age， number， names， etc， by finding the conjunctives， tense， voice and so on， in order that the students can get the outline of the passage.

c. Study reading. Pay more attention to details， language organization， main facts， and key words to reveal the implied connection for further understanding. A passage is an organized body in which paragraphs are logically related to each other and each paragraph is contributed to the theme， so it’s important to make clear how the passage is organized， as it’s easier for readers to grasp the main idea and the author’s purpose.

d. Reading for inference. Students should infer the new implied meaning， the cause-and-effect relation and the new words meaning and guessing is useful when dealing with new words， expressions and grammar items. Thus we help them improve reading speed and ability， which is most important and interesting in foreign language teaching.

By training students' reading skills students can get rich background knowledge and specialized knowledge. In class the communication between teachers and students is good to arouse students’ enthusiasm. Also the students’ communication also increases their interest， and enlarges their information input to make their knowledge communicative. At the same time， their thinking abilities can be trained， their cognitive ability will be improved， their independent study ability will be cultivated， and their competence can be achieved， so that their English can be promoted wholly.

3. Conclusion

Extensive reading plays an important role in English language teaching. Facing the situation that our students have the extensive reading ability far below than what they should have， we English teachers should work out new ways to help our students so that they feel more ready to read independently with good speed and comprehension， which can be achieved through raising students’ interest in reading， developing their reading skills and strategies and so on. Hope the ideas suggested in this essay can be helpful for teachers to design their own extensive reading tasks creatively.