Techniques and approaches in teaching reading skills to advanced students

Abstract

Teaching a foreign language has been thought of as developing particular skills, such as listening, speaking, reading, and writing. The reading skill in language teaching has gained more importance since the 1970's. After the 1970's the general aim is to teach a foreign language to be used for communication. Taking this into consideration, the major goal of a reading program for advanced students can be defined as to teach them to read unknown authentic texts with adequate comprehension. This thesis attempts to present basic reading skills that have to be mastered to comprehend the text adequately. It discusses techniques and approaches in teaching reading, at three phases; pre-reading, while-reading, post-reading. It attempts to point out-areas in which improvements for reading comprehension should be made. Chapter I gives general information about various methods and approaches that have dominated foreign language teaching since the 19th century. Emphasis is put on the teaching of reading in the discussion of these methods. Text which constitutes the core of a reading program should be selected with great care. As will be discussed in Chapter II, criteria such as linguistic level and content of the material, needs and interests of the students, objectives of the program must be considered in text selection. The foreign language learner reads in different ways depending on the purpose and the type of the text. Basic reading skills, such as skimming, scanning, and comprehending, and other subskills that have to be mastered are discussed with illustrative examples in Chapter II. Various techniques and approaches in teaching reading, focusing on vocabulary, structure, and meaning, at pre-reading, while-reading, and post~reading phases are discussed in Chapter III. These points are later illustrated in a sample text. Improvements in reading comprehension are grouped into two: improvements related to the students and improvements related to the instructor of the program. During this discussion, suggestions are made for more efficient teaching of reading.