ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Abstract:

The presente paper is intended to briefly show the author`s viewpoint about the teaching of reading nowadays and the way teachers and students deal with it. Reading in FLT must be seen not only as an ability to form and develop in the students, but also as a necessary activity on which their growing in all fields of life depend. It is in this sense that teachers must become a real model of a reader to demonstrate how rewarding reading can become. We as teachers, are the first to be conscious of increasing reading since educational researchers have demonstrated that there is a correlation between reading and academic success, and later, to succeed in life. There is also a correlation between reading and vocabulary acquisition. From the psychopedagogical viewpoint, reading is also a good tool because it relieves tension and loneliness and make the students become better citizens.

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Key words: teaching, learning, reading, extensive, intensive.

In our days, teaching Reading is essential, not only as one of the abilities for learning a language, but also as a way to getting some other elements as culture, information about various fields, and knowledge in general, i.e., Reading is a great source of knowledge .From the author`s viewpoint, Reading can be defined as the activity by means of which we make sense of the printed word. We read in order to get something from the text, whether it be a dictionary, a newspaper, a novel, or a scientific text. What is important is that we must have a reason for reading. That is why in our roles as teachers, we have to be aware that our students be able not only to read, but also to discuss and criticize. We have to teach them how to develop their intellectual capabilities while analyzing a text. The ability to read is highly valued; it is also important and necessary for social and economic advancement, but it is not an ability easy to get and it is the teacher`s task to develop it in the students.

For a better teaching of it, Reading has been divided into intensive and extensive. I consider that both approaches are essential in the teaching of a second language and they share some of the same strategies. Intensive reading focuses on a short text. Its aim is to help the students understand it by using a variety of skills. Students are encouraged to work out, for example, how the writer leads them to infer the message implicit in it. Further, by focusing on a short text, the students learn how to cut it up in order to understand the exact meaning.

Firstly, I consider that all materials selected must be stimulating for the students because it commonly happens that the texts contained in textbooks, are not really of the interest of the them; it may seem that the authorities in the field of education in the country have suddenly turned their attention to the matter of reading and have put together an amount of reading materials in books as if it were the correct way for having the pupils get the habits of reading, but the results are quite far away from the intention, since this is a process that has to be built using certain strategies and following certain methodologies. It is a fact that our students have not been trained since they started elementary school (and in their own mother tongue) to be good readers, so that it becomes a hard task in foreign language learning. Secondly, I believe that while reading, they need to feel they can contribute with their personal opinions to enrich that one of the author.

In an intensive reading lesson, we must lead the students to practice scanning and skimming skills. Scanning a text is the activity by means of which a student reads very rapidly in order to find out a particular piece of information, for example, dates, names, or any other details that may further take them to comprehension. It is also used to ascertain whether a text is useful, for example, whether the chapter contains relevant information they may use later in their own school woks as in writing essays. This indications can be given orally to encourage reading quickly. On the other hand, skimming a text is when students read for gist. For instance, when we ask the class to find out what topics the text deals with ensures fast reading. Both scanning and skimming techniques need a systematic practice.

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