StrategiesofImprovingCollegeStudents’EnglishCompetence基础部高薇.docVIP

Strategies of Improving College Students English Competence摘要：在五种基本英语技巧中，阅读技巧通常被认为是大学生们在以后的工作中经常使用到的一种。因此，提高阅读能力是大学英语教学的重要目标之一。帮助学生养成良好的阅读习惯有助于提高他们的阅读能力；同时，有效的阅读策略也有助于他们更好的使用阅读技巧，从而提高阅读能力。文章讨论如何在阅读过程中尽可能的利用有效的阅读策略提高阅读能力。关键词：英语阅读，阅读技巧，策略，阅读能力Abstract: In the five basic English skills, reading is usually regarded as a commonly used one for the college students in their future work. Therefore, improving the reading competence is one of the important objectives in the college English teaching. Helping students to foster a good reading habit will be very useful for them to improve their reading competence. At the same time, effective reading strategies will be helpful for students to have a better command of their reading skills，which can also contribute to improving the reading competence. The paper discusses how to make the most of effective reading strategies in the reading process.Key words: English reading, reading skills, strategies, reading competence Introduction“Readers can take the responsibility for determining the meaning of the text. They can work as though they were doing something other than finding ideas already there on the page and they can be guided by their own impressions or questions as they read.” David Bartholomae, Anthony Peteosky. Ways of Reading M. New York: ST.MARTINS PRESS, 2002. P880 As previously stated, to grasp and interpret the meaning of the text is the responsibility for a reader. However, it is also the test-stone for the English reading ability of the college students. On the other hand, the motivation of todays college students is more practical and definite. In order to become well-learnt people that the society needs, most college students long for extensive English reading, hoping to do preparation for the future job by this way. Therefore, the motivation of the majority of college students is definite. It is also obvious that the English reading materials gradually change from the paper materials to the electronic reading materials. The Internet that opens another window for the college students becomes the most convenient tool for college students to get information. Now the serious problem is that college students can read on some level, but many do not read effectively. In other words, many college students take it for granted that they could understand concepts or lessons by memorizing the English words and information rather than understanding the ideas that are expressed by the words. Consequently, information is retained mainly for the purpose of passing an exam; memorization is mistaken for learning. The Strategies in the Preparation Before ReadingCollege students in the school can make use of the library resources to support their study and self-learning. The kinds of resources include English books, English journal articles, English magazines, etc., as well as a wide range of library services. Now thousands of books, magazines, journal articles and newspapers have electrical versions. It is no doubt that the college students task will be much easier if they know some websites they really want to find online.As we all know, both library and websites are two effective ways of getting access to the countless English materials. Nevertheless, choice reading is a key to select the useful materials from the information world. Choice reading actually is a process of selecting English materials. The reader should clearly recognize the classification of the English books and should certainly know which type of English book he is reading. It is best if the reader know his purpose of reading before reading starts. It means that the reader should turn his attention to practical goals. To receive the information, the readers can read not only the book title, the subtitle, the table of contents, but also the authors preface, the abstract introduction and the index. These are all the information that authors want to transmit to the reader. According to these clues, the college students can choose different types of English reading materials with the different demands. The college students should also be aware that different reading skills should be adopted when the English reading material are different. In order to get useful information, the college students had better answer the following two questions: How well those English sources meet the purpose of reading? How reliably the author presents those ideas and information in the book? The college students have better read things they are interested in so that the hard work required for comprehension will seem much more pleasurableAlso，the college students will be much more eager to understand what they are reading，not only as a means to improve their reading comprehension，but also as a means to better understand the interesting subject-matter. The process of selecting an English source includes examining its publisher, its reference and its author(s). Depending on the readers purpose of reading, it can also involve assessing timeliness. Some ways of selecting English sources are follows:(i) Paying more attention to the timeliness. When a book is published, it always has a special social background. For example, if a reader wants to find some information about computers, hed better check the materials published after 1940s.(i) Evaluating the publisher of an English book. Experienced readers may have some information about a books publisher. He may know the book that is published by an individual, an organization or government agency. Generally speaking, authors and publishers usually have a bias about a particular topic or issue. When the publisher is a scholarly or professional journal, the reader can often gain an understanding of what kinds of articles it publishes by looking over the contents of several issues of the journal or by reading a few of the articles found within it. It is very important for the English majors to know some famous publishers of the English-speaking countries.(ii) Evaluating the relevance of an English book. If a reader reads with a definite purpose, such as for a research project, he should have a look at the relevance firstly. Relevance is the extent to which a source provides information that person can use in evaluating the materials. There are several ways to determine whether the information presented in a scholarly or professional journal article is likely to be relevant to the readers reading purpose. There are two main strategies to help the reader to determine whether the article is relevant to readers needs and interests. An abstract-a brief description of the article and its results-often appears at the beginning of the article. When an abstract is not used, an articles introduction often provides similar information.(iii) Evaluating the author(s) of an English book. In order to get a better understanding of a book, the reader had better know the author(s) as much as possible. No matter what kind of book the reader chooses to read, its important to know its author or authors. “Most scholarly or professional journal articles contain a short biographical note about the author of an article. If these biographical notes have not been included and the reader would like to learn more about them, he might consider searching for each author on the net. An increasing number of authors have created home pages on which they list information about themselves, such as their educational background, professional experience, and interests.” 莫提默.J.艾德勒 查尔斯.范多伦 How to Read a Book M. 北京：商务印书馆，2004 p30 In addition to selecting the appropriate reading materials, a college student should also be equipped with abundant background knowledge of social culture. From the perspective of cross-culture communication, one cannot ignore the rule of culture knowledge in the process of English reading.Social culture, consists of histories, values, mode of thinking, customs, religion and life style, plays a crucial part in the comprehension of the text, while it is also the part easily being ignored in the teaching process. The difference of cross-cultural background in reading comprehension of English can be classified as the following aspects: historical culture, regional culture, social culture, and religious culture. As the carrier of culture, the cultural background of language is rather extensive. Lacking of the necessary cultural background may hinder people from comprehending language. Such knowledge covers all aspects of the feature of the nation, and cannot be acquired in a day. College students need diligence and interest to pursue it. The Strategies in the Process of Reading There are different ways that the college students can employ to comprehend the English text. Firstly, skimming and scanning are the most common skills. Skimming reading is a reading technique that can help one to read more quickly, and decide if the English text is interesting and whether the reader should read it in more details. Scanning is a skill to find a particular point of information quickly in a text. Use skimming to get the gist of a page of an English textbook to decide whether it is useful and should therefore be read more slowly and in more detail. Use scanning to find a particular number in a telephone directory. Scanning is used to obtain specific information from a piece of English text. Sometimes, the college students can use both reading methods. They can skim a piece of English text to find out something interesting; they may wish to use scanning techniques to locate specific information. When the college students use skimming reading method, they shouldnt read the whole text word-for-word. The college students should use as many clues as possible to get some background information and find some key words. Much slower than skimming and scanning, in-depth English reading is the most essential of all reading skills. It involves reading an English text thoroughly in order to comprehend the ideas and argument it contains. College students may find reading in-depth is useful to read the opening paragraphs and conclusion first and certain sections of a difficult English text are to be read more than once. By in-depth reading, the college students can understand the writers main ideas and arguments, and the overall message of the text well.Critical reading is a further dimension of in-depth reading. It requires reading skill beyond the thorough comprehension stage of reading. It is expected on the part of student to arrive at a critical judgment of the authors discourse as they would in their own language. Reading an English text critically means that the college students do not accept the whole value of what they are reading. This doesnt necessarily mean that the college students should find fault with a text, but rather that they should question and judge the merit and worth of the information it contains. The college students should remember that the purpose of English reading is to analyze and solve problems and make a valuable comment of the English text by absorbing information or using received information. Thus, critical English reading proves to be quite helpful. Critical English reading involves a number of inter-related processes. They are interpretation, analysis and evaluation. The three steps are indispensable for the college students to gasp the messages the text contains. When the students read critically for interpretation, they read to determine what conclusions could be drawn about the various messages. Analysis is the process by which the reader examines the way, the ideas and messages in an English text fit together to create the overall meaning while English reading. And evaluation is a process by which the reader establishes the worth or merit of an English text. Evaluation is a higher order process that involves all of the other processes described above. It is always being stressed that reading actively is helpful for college students when they are reading an English document in detail. Active reading mainly involves making notes. Students can highlight, underline and annotate the important information on the materials. The college students should be active in connecting what they have already known to what they encounter as readers. Even the ownership of an English book doesnt necessarily mean that the book really belongs to the buyer; the best way of making a book become a part of a student is to take notes. A good reader can work in his own personal ways to make the core of an English book become a part of himself. Making notes is not an easy job, and it contains the following ways and steps: drawing lines; marking the most important statement and the paragraph of an English book with asterisks; writing down other page numbers in the blank, and emphasizing the same opinion that the author has mentioned in other parts; circling the key words or the sentence; using a small notebook for each essay; using file cards and allowing one note per card; keeping readers notes on separate cards from relying too heav