X Международная студенческая научная конференция Студенческий научный форум - 2018

In the age of globalization English language learning becomes an inevitable part and objective necessity of contemporary society, and consequently, of the system of secondary and higher education. International integration, and, in particular, foreign policy of the Republic of Kazakhstan strengthen the importance of the English language as the main language of international and intercultural communication, and widen the range of its application.

Currently, in the theory and practice of teaching foreign languages, the search for and adoption of new approaches to learning and studying the language is actively continuing. Communicative, cognitive approaches in the teaching of foreign languages, widespread in recent decades, have ensured a high degree of proficiency in the language form at all levels of language and speech.

Reading is an incredibly active occupation in which people extract meaning from the discourse they see. It is not a passive skill. To do it successfully, we have to understand what the words mean, see the pictures the words are painting, understand the arguments, and work out if we agree with them. If we do not do these things then we just scratch the surface of the text and we quickly forget it [1,11].

Extensive reading – especially where students are reading material written specially at their level – has a number of benefits for the development of a student’s language. This kind of reading makes students more positive, improves their overall comprehension skills, gives them a wider passive and active vocabulary, enables students to read without constantly stopping and provides an increased word recognition. It is the best possible way for them to develop automaticity.

Comprehension is the only reason for reading, especially extensive reading. Without comprehension, reading is a frustrating, pointless exercise in word calling. It is no exaggeration to say that how well students develop the ability to comprehend what they read has a profound effect on their entire lives. A major goal of teaching reading comprehension, therefore, is to help students develop the knowledge, skills, and experiences they must have if they are to become competent and enthusiastic readers.

For many years, teaching reading comprehension was based on a concept of reading as the application of a set of isolated skills such as identifying words, finding main ideas, identifying cause and effect relationships, comparing and contrasting, and sequencing. Teaching reading comprehension was viewed as a mastery of these skills. Comprehension instruction followed what the study called mentioning, practicing, and assessing procedure where teachers mentioned a specific skill that students were to apply, had students practice the skill by completing workbook pages, then assessed them to find out if they could use the skill correctly. Instruction neither did little to help students learn how or when to use the skills, nor was is ever established that this particular set of skills enabled comprehension.

Latest research indicates that comprehensions built through the teaching of comprehension strategies and environments that support understanding of a text. It is important for educators to teach students active strategies and skills to help them become active, purposeful readers. Teaching reading comprehension is an active process of constructing meaning, not skill application. The act of constructing meaning is:

interactive– it involves not just the reader, but the text and the context in which reading takes place.

strategic – readers have purposes for their reading and use a variety of strategies as they construct meaning.

adaptable – readers change the strategies they use as they read different kinds of text or as they read for different purposes. [2]

Various methods are used to improve reading comprehension that include training the ability to self-assess comprehension, actively test comprehension using a set of questions and by improving metacognition. Theoretical teaching (teaching conceptual) and a better knowledge of language can also prove of immense help. Practice plays more pivotal part in development and honing the skills of reading comprehension. Self-assessment with the help of elaborate interrogation and summarizing also helps.

Williams' top ten principles to the teaching extensive reading [3]:

The reading material is easy

This clearly separates extensive reading from other approaches to teaching foreign language reading. For extensive reading to be possible and for it to have the desired results, texts must be well within the learners' reading competence in the foreign language. In helping beginning readers select texts that are well within their reading comfort zone, more than one or two unknown words per page might make the text too difficult for overall understanding. Intermediate learners might use the rule of hand -- no more than five difficult words per page. Hu and Nation suggest that learners must know at least 98% of the words in a fiction text for unassisted understanding. [4]

It follows that, for extensive reading, all but advanced learners probably require texts written or adapted with the linguistic and knowledge constraints of language learners in mind. In discussing first language reading development, Fromkin observes that "Beginning readers do better with easier materials". [5] This is all the more true with extensive reading because learners read independently, without the help of a teacher. Those teaching English are fortunate that the art of writing in English for language learners is well-developed: a great variety of high-quality language learner literature is published for learners of all ability.

2. A variety of reading material on a wide range of topics must be available

The success of extensive reading depends largely on enticing students to read. To awaken or encourage a desire to read, the texts made available should ideally be as varied as the learners who read them and the purposes for which they want to read. Books, magazines, newspapers, fiction, non-fiction, texts that inform, texts that entertain, general, specialized, light, serious. For an inside track on finding what your students are interested in reading, follow Williams' advice: "Ask them what they like reading in their own language, peer over their shoulders in the library, ask the school librarian...".

3. Learners choose what they want to read

The principle of freedom of choice means that learners can select texts as they do in their own language, that is, they can choose texts they expect to understand, to enjoy or to learn from. Correlative to this principle, learners are also free, indeed encouraged, to stop reading anything they find to be too difficult, or that turns out not to be of interest.

What Henry noticed about her L1 non-reading undergraduates is no less true in foreign language reading: "my students needed to read for themselves, not for me". [6] For students used to working with textbooks and teacher-selected texts, the freedom to choose reading material (and freedom to stop reading) may be a crucial step in experiencing foreign language reading as something personal.

4. Learners read as much as possible

This is the "extensive" of extensive reading, made possible by the previous principles. The most critical element in learning to read is the amount of time spent actually reading. While most reading teachers agree with this, it may be the case that their students are not being given the opportunity or incentive to read, read, and read some more.

5. The purpose of reading is usually related to pleasure, information and general understanding

In an extensive reading approach, learners are encouraged to read for the same kinds of reasons and in the same ways as the general population of first-language readers. This sets extensive reading apart from usual classroom practice on the one hand, and reading for academic purposes on the other. One hundred percent comprehension, indeed, any particular objective level of comprehension, is not a goal. In terms of reading outcomes, the focus shifts away from comprehension achieved or knowledge gained and towards the reader's personal experience.

6. Reading is its own reward

The learners' experience of reading the text is at the center of the extensive reading experience, just as it is in reading in everyday life. For this reason, extensive reading is not usually followed by comprehension questions. It is an experience complete in itself.

7. Reading speed is usually faster rather than slower

When learners are reading material that is well within their linguistic ability, for personal interest, and for general rather than academic purposes, it is an incentive to reading fluency. Nattal notes that "speed, enjoyment and comprehension are closely linked with one another". [7] She describes "The vicious circle of the weak reader: Reads slowly; Doesn't enjoy reading; Doesn't read much; Doesn't understand; Reads slowly. . ." . Extensive reading can help readers "enter instead the cycle of growth. . . . The virtuous circle of the good reader: Reads faster; Reads more; Understands better; Enjoys reading; Reads faster. . .".

8. Reading is individual and silent.

Silent, individual extensive reading contrasts with the way classroom texts are used as vehicles for teaching language or reading strategies or (in traditional approaches) translated or read aloud. It allows students to discover that reading is a personal interaction with the text, and an experience that they have responsibility for. Thus, together with freedom to choose reading material, individual silent reading can be instrumental in students discovering how foreign language reading fits into their lives.

9. Teachers orient and guide their students

As an approach to teaching reading, extensive reading is very different from usual classroom practice. Students accustomed to wading through difficult foreign language texts might drown when suddenly plunged into a sea of simple and stimulating material. [8] Serious-minded students, for example, in thrall of the macho maxim of foreign language reading instruction, No reading pain, no reading gain, might not understand how reading easy and interesting material can help them become better readers.

Students thus need careful introduction to extensive reading. Teachers can explain that reading extensively leads not only to gains in reading proficiency but also to overall gains in language learning. The methodology of extensive reading can be introduced, beginning with choice: students choosing what to read is an essential part of the approach. Teachers can reassure students that a general, less than 100%, understanding of what they read is appropriate for most reading purposes. It can be emphasized that there will be no test after reading. Instead, teachers are interested in the student's own personal experience of what was read -- for example, was it enjoyable or interesting, and why?

Orientation is the first step. [9]Guidance throughout the extensive reading experience is also needed, in light of the independence and choice extensive reading allows learners. Teachers can keep track of what and how much each student reads, and their students' reactions to what was read. Based on this information, teachers can encourage students to read as widely as possible and, as their language ability, reading ability and confidence increase, to read at progressively higher levels of difficulty. Guidance implies a sharing of the reading experience, which leads us to the final principle of extensive reading.

Further, in Henry's opinion, teachers of extensive reading "have to commit to reading what their students do". She explains, "By reading what my students read, I become a part of the community that forms within the class". When students and teachers share reading, the foreign language reading classroom can be a place where teachers discuss books with students, answer their questions and make tailor-made recommendations to individual students. It can be a place where students and teachers experience together the value and pleasure to be found in the written word.

Effective reading comprehension is the culmination of mastering vocabulary, phonics, fluency and reading comprehension skills. Person having good comprehension skills is considered as active reader, with an ability to interact with the words by understanding its complete meaning and the concept behind it. Thus, skill of reading comprehension distinguishes an active reader from a passive reader who just read the text without getting its meaning.

There is much difference between good readers and poor (passive) readers.

Before reading, good readers tend to set goals for their reading. During reading, good readers read words accurately and quickly, while dealing with meanings of words. Good readers are selective as they read. Good readers use their background knowledge (schema) to create mental images, ask questions, and make inferences. Good readers monitor their comprehension as they read.

Poor readers do not have sufficient awareness to develop, select, and apply strategies that can enhance their comprehension. Poor readers rarely prepare before reading. During reading, poor readers may have difficulty decoding, reading too slowly, and lack fluency. Poor readers often lack sufficient background knowledge and have trouble making connections with text. [10] Some poor readers are unaware of text organization. After reading, poor readers do not reflect on what they have just read.

One of the fundamental conditions of a successful extensive reading is that students should be reading material, which they can understand. If they are struggling to understand every word, they can hardly be reading for pleasure – the main goal of this activity. This means that teachers need to provide books, which either by chance, or because they have been specially written, are readily accessible to students.

We need to devise some way of keeping track of the books in the library. The role of the teacher in extensive reading programs is crucial. Most students will not do a lot of extensive reading by themselves unless they are encouraged to do so by their teachers. Perhaps, for example, teachers can occasionally read aloud from books they like and show, by their manner of reading, how exciting the books can be.

Having persuaded the students about the benefits of extensive reading, teachers can organize reading programs where they indicate to students how many books they expect them to read over a given period. They can explain how students can make their choice of what to read, making it clear that the choice is theirs, but that they can consult other students’ reviews and comments to help them make that choice. They can look for books in a genre (be it crime fiction, romantic novels, science fiction, etc.) that they enjoy, and that they make appropriate level choices. Teachers can act throughout as part organizer, part tutor.

Before starting extensive reading, the tasks should be set. Because students are allowed to choose their own reading texts, following their own likes and interests, they will not all be reading the same texts at once. For this reason, and to prompt students to keep reading, teachers should encourage them report back on their reading in a number of ways.

One approach is to set aside a time at various points in a course – may be every two weeks – at which students can ask questions and/or tell their classmates about books they have found particularly enjoyable, or noticeably awful. However, if this is inappropriate because not all students read at the same speed – or because they often do not have much to say about the books in front of their colleagues, we can ask them each to keep a weekly reading diary either on its own, or as a part of any learning journal they may be writing. Students can also write short bookreviews for the class notice board. At the end of a month, a semester, or a year, they can vote on the most popular book in the library.

Teachers can also put comment sheets into the books for students to write in (with giving rating and comments about books).

It does not really matter which of these tasks students are asked to perform if that what they are asked to do helps to keep them reading as much and often as possible.

Though, the ability to read is considered one of the most important skills that learners of English as a Second Language and English as a Foreign Language need to acquire, extensive reading is still most often seen as additional or supplemental to the main program, which can be omitted if time does not allow. However, it should be a core part of every language program’s curriculum, and all language programs should have an extensive reading component to deepen and enrich the language the learners meet in their coursework.

References

1 http://www.readingresource.net/

2 Williams, R. (1986). 'Top ten' principles for teaching reading. ELT Journal.

3 Hu and Notion (2008). Developing reading fluency: A study of extensive reading in EFL. Reading in a Foreign Language.

4 Fromkin R.M. (2003). Promoting English language development and the reading habit among students in rural schools through the Guided Extensive Reading program. Reading in a Foreign Language.

5 Henry, M. (1986). The relationship of pleasure reading and second language writing proficiency. TESOL Quarterly

6 Nattal (2002), Reading alone together: Enhancing extensive reading via student-student cooperation in second-language instruction.

7 Tanny Mc Gregor. Comprehension Connections. Heineman, 2007.

8 Debbie Miller. Reading with Meaning. Stenhouse Publishers, 2002.

9 Flavell, J. H. (1979). Metacognition and cognitive monitoring: A new area of cognitive-developmental inquiry. American Psychologist

10 Day, R. R. and Bamford, J.(1998) Extensive reading in the second language classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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