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如何提高大学生的英语阅读能力(1)(2)

2013-10-31 01:52 In the whole passage, the first paragraph and the last paragraph are utmost important. Take the following paragraph for example:
“Life in 1999 will be much different from what it is today. For one thing, you will sleep later because your job will start later in the morning. Two machines will do most of your routine work for you. Also you will travel to work on a moving sidewalk. Furthermore, you will take to friends on a picture telephone. Finally, you will take longer vocation in more distant places since transportation will be so much faster and cheaper.” [10]P27 
The first sentence “Life in 1999 will be much different from what it is today.” is the topic sentence. It gives students the main idea of the paragraph. And the following sentences support the topic sentence.
In addition, if college students can make full use of discourse markers, it will be helpful for them to improve their reading speed and their abilities to correctly understand the theme, structure of a discourse and writer`s writing methods. Christine Nuttall has pointed out that, from the reader’s point of view, the markers fall into three main classes:
(1)Markers which signals the sequence in which reported events occurred, such as then, first, at once, next, the following day. For example, the gusts arrived. Then the sports took place.
(2)Markers which signal the writer`s manner of organizing the discourse, such as in conclusion, that is to say, for example, to resume, in short, we must now turn to.
(3)Markers which indicate the writer`s view of the facts, etc. written about, such as moreover, incidentally, similarly, however, as a matter of fact, in any case, therefore, in order to, more importantly. [4]P94
Therefore, mastering the discourse knowledge will help students to understand the main idea and the structure of an article and the writer`s intention, which will improve their reading abilities.

5.3 Emphasis on the acquisition of lexicon
In Basic Reading Skills Handbook, Harvey S. Wiener and Charles Bazerman have pointed out that lexicon is a very important factor in English reading. Reading in fast speed and efficient understanding should depend on the breadth of vocabulary knowledge. Many things, such as thinking and opinions, can be formed through lexicon. It directly affects students` correct understanding in the process of reading. So the ability to determine the meaning of vocabulary items from context is one of the most important aspects of successful reading. Through reading, college students can enlarge their breadth of vocabulary knowledge, and enhance their understanding of words and remember them firmly. [11]P5-53

In An Introduction to English Lexicology, Lin Chengzhang has pointed out that college students can enlarge their breadth of vocabulary knowledge through phonetics, word formation and semantics and so on in the process of lexical learning. But because of polysemy, homonymy and some other features of words, a very simple word may have different meanings in different contexts. [12]P7-283Take the following sentences for example:
(1) He didn`t express himself very clearly, but he means that he wants your help.
(2) In running a company, strict financial management means everything.
In the first sentence, the word “mean” refers to “intend to convey sth, or signify sth”; in the second sentence, the word “mean” refers to “be of importance”.
In the process of reading comprehension, college students always reflect that they can not understand a sentence meaning even though the sentence structure is not complex and words are simple. For example:
(1) They were not a little surprised at the news.
Once reading the sentence, they may think that the sentence means that they were not surprised at the news at all. But, actually, it is on the opposite. It means that they were very surprised at the news. Since the phrase “not a little” means “very”.
(2) You can`t be too careful when you drive a car.
The phrase “can`t be too careful” may be understood as “should not be too careful”. In fact, it means that “the more careful, the better”
What`s more, students can learn words through contexts. It is very difficult for students to confirm lexical meanings if they don`t try to understand the words or phrases in the content of the whole article in the process of reading. Christine Nuttall has pointed out that an article is encoded according to two rules: grammar and meaning. [4]P4-5 Thus, college students can guess lexical meanings with the following rules. For example:
(1) He has gone to football practice;
(2) He has a large practice in London.
The word “practice” in these two sentences has different meanings. The former means “exercise”. The latter means “work of a doctor or lawyer”
When we read an article, we will find that a writer always use the following methods to help readers to figure out lexical meanings:
Definition: e.g. Jane is indecisive, that is, she can’t make up her mind.
Restatement: e.g. It must be lasting and easy to recognize, to divide, and to carry about. In other words it must be ‘durable, distinct, divisible and portable [13]P30
Example: e.g. After a day of hunting, Harold is ravenous. Yesterday, for example, he ate two bowls of soup, salad, a large chicken, and a piece of chocolate cake before he was finally satisfied. [14]P25
Comparison: e.g. Peter was not frugal since he spent money so freely.
Contrast: e.g. Some people like to walk quickly home after work, but I prefer to stroll home and look at the store windows along the way. [13]P31
Related information: e.g. Timken was now angry…Once again he flew into a rage.
In addition to figuring out lexical meanings according to the context, word formation is another method. Remembering some major rules of word formation is helpful. For example:
(1) If students know affix “ped” which means “child”, and “agog” which means “leader”, it is not difficult to figure out “pedagogue” which means “leader of children”, that is “teacher”. [14]P25
(2) The prefix “anti-” means “opposed to, against”. [15]P51
Lexicon is a very important factor of successful reading. Therefore, college students should pay much attention to it. So there are some words, such as antiaircraft (designed to destroy enemy aircraft), antiballistic missile (rocket designed to destroy another in the air), antibiotic (that can destroy or prevent the growth of bacteria). [15]P51

5.4 Reinforcement of learning motivation
Findings of researches show that many college students` intensive motivation in English learning can obviously improve their reading abilities and raise the efficiency of learning. Such kind of motivation reflects their strong desires to master English .And the motivation includes learning goals, attitudes, efforts and a desire to attain the goal. A lot of researches prove that motivation and attitude is inseparable. They play a very important role in English reading. An active and strong leaning motivation and correct learning attitude will pave the way for English reading. （科教论文网 lw.NsEac.com编辑整理）
As long as college students` learning motivation is positive, they will learn autonomously. They will do their best to improve their abilities in reading comprehension in many ways. In the process of reading, they will select different reading skills and strategies to achieve understanding according to their own needs. What`s more, if their learning motivation is strong, they will make full use of their advantage, such as understanding, memory, background knowledge and abundant experiences to fully develop their analysis, judgments, inducing and reasoning abilities to raise their own reading comprehension level.

5.5 Cultivation of good reading habit
Dai Lin has pointed out clearly that good learning habits are the necessary premise of successful study. [6]P93 Lots of college students complain that reading is a difficult task. It can`t give them any benefits and useful information. After an examination in reading, they often say that their reading speed is too slow; they can`t understand what the meaning of the materials is; their reading abilities are poor. If they have good reading habits, they can flexibly use various reading skills in a test to get high marks, and they can improve their reading abilities.
From Christine Nuttall` ideas in Teaching Reading Skills in a Foreign Language, some conclusions can be drawn that there are several reading habits which hinder students` reading comprehension: (1).sub vocalizing (forming the sounds of the words you are reading, and even murmuring them aloud); (2).finger-pointing; (3).head movements; (4).regressions and so on. All of these are bad for them in reading. College students should aware that efficient readers do not have these habits. These habits are harmful.
Therefore, it is necessary for students to cultivate their good reading habits, such as skimming, scanning, silent reading.

6 Training of English reading ability and skills
The improvement of college students` abilities in reading comprehension can’t be isolated from the cultivation and training of reading skills and comprehension skills. In Basic Reading Skills Handbook, Harvey S. Wiener and Charles Bazerman have provided us with good advice for training of English reading ability and skills: building vocabulary, using aids to reading, understanding main ideas, finding information, interpreting what you read, writing to read. [11]Pv-vii And Chen Meimei and the other three people also have provided us some reading skills: grasping main ideas through looking through the whole passage, generalizing the theme after quickly extracting information, drawing inferences and comprehending details, learning to deducing lexical meanings. [3]P83-88 In order to help college students to improve their reading abilities and master some reading skills, teachers should pay attention to the training of the following reading skills in reading teaching.

6.1 Understanding the main ideas

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“A piece of writing often presents many ideas, but these ideas usually relate to one important idea. In order to understand how these ideas fit together, you need to spot the main idea, which gives you an overall meaning to the reading.” [11]P143 In the process of reading, students can look through the passage and don’t need to read it word by word .They just grasp some basic knowledge. After reading and thinking, they can understand the passage. That is to say, they can generalize the main idea of the passage in their own words. If they can’t grasp the main idea, they will always neglect the important part of the passage. Thus they won’t achieve the reading goal. For example:
“Too often young women use work as a stopgap between high school and marriage. The idea is to keep themselves afloat until Mr. Right comes along. Then they can marry and have children. Being a wife and mother is a perfectly valid occupation, but no women should allow it to cancel out her ability to be self-supporting. Life plays too many tricks. Mr. Right doesn`t come along. Mr. Right doesn`t earn enough to support the family and you have to work. You find housewifery boring and you want to work but you have no skills. The marriage doesn`t last and you have to go back to work. Your children grow up and don`t need you so much. You must be prepared” [11]P172
After reading, students will know that the main idea is that life does not always turn out as we hope.

6.2 Generalizing the theme after quickly extracting information
The theme is the soul of a passage. All the details and facts serve the theme. Thus, students can scan or skim the whole passage to extract specific information to understand the main idea. If students can concentrate on the topic sentence of every paragraph, they will grasp the main idea. Of course, sometimes the topic sentence is implied in a paragraph. And students should generalize the paragraph’s main idea by themselves. For example:
“One hundred years ago, school teachers were expected to provide a variety of services in addition to their teaching duties and to behave themselves in an exemplary (serving as an example manner).They cared for the oil lamps, tended the fire, and supplied their students with sharp pencil .After a long day in the classroom, they were expected to spend some time every evening reading the Bible. For Women teachers, Of course, alcohol and tobacco were forbidden. 您可以访问中国科教评价网（www.NsEac.com）查看更多相关的文章。
Which statement best expresses the main idea?
A、Teachers performed domestic tasks.
B、The teaching profession demanded total dedication.
C、Teachers needed the guidance of religion.
D、Teachers get good examples by not using tobacco and alcohol.” [3]P85
After reading, students can know that there is no obvious topic sentence in the paragraph. Looking through the four choices, students will find that the choices A, C and D are details in the passage. All these details support the passage’s main ideas that the teaching profession demanded total dedication one hundred years ago. So the correct choice is B.

6.3 Drawing inferences and comprehending details
In the process of reading, college students must be good at analyzing, thinking, judging and reasoning according to the related information implied in a passage. That is to say, students are able to understand a passage’s implied meaning through the plain sense. At the same time, students should grasp and recognize important details, namely finding out those major facts which can express the main idea, to achieve understanding. For example:
John Henderson was driving home late last night from an exhausting business trip.
The sentence is the first sentence of a paragraph. It tells students the hero of the article, and the time “late last night”. If students carefully read it and think about it, they will infer: 1.John Henderson is a businessman, because he just finished a business trip; 2.John Henderson must be very tired since the trip was exhausting trip.
Therefore, reasonable inference can help students to understand an article much better. And students must remember that they should make full use of facts, analyze the given information and read between the lines to drawing reasonable inferences.

7 Conclusion
Reading is very important in learning foreign language. Efficient reading is affected by many factors. They have their own features in developing reading skills. Even though they have learned English for more than nine years, their reading abilities need to be improved. Since there are still some obstacles to hinder them from improving their abilities in reading comprehension, college students should do their best to overcome obstacles, and master and flexibly make use of reading skills. In teaching reading, teachers still play an important role to improve students` reading abilities. They should train their basic skills in reading comprehension, arouse students` studying enthusiasm, and help students to master some effective studying strategies. Reading comprehension is not an inactive activity. Language is complicated and changeable. Moreover, it is not easy to cultivate language tuition in a short time. Thus, in order to improve college students` abilities in reading comprehension, they should spare no efforts.

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