The role and place of reading in foreign languages in the middle, and in subsequently and in high school is determined primarily by tasks facing high school graduates, namely:
– The education system is structured so that learning and upbringing of the younger generation were closely related to life, productive labor;
– Secondary education should provide solid knowledge. Fundamentals of sciences, labor and political training in accordance with the increasing level of development of science and technology, taking into account needs of society, abilities and desires of students.
It is the realization of the connection with life and the ever-increasing level science and technology require graduating from high school such possession reading skills in a foreign language that would allow them in the future read literature in their specialty in a foreign language.
At the present stage of human development reading is one of the most important means of obtaining information, therefore the importance of read in a foreign language now does not cause anyone doubt.
Reading is a complex psycholinguistic process. Perception of the text, the result of which understands. In other words, reading refers to the receptive type of speech activity, since the main the purpose of learning to read as a type of speech activity is development of the ability to extract information from the text.
However, as rightly noted by OD. Kuzmenko and G. V. Horny software requirements for reading in a foreign language by many teachers are not fully implemented. Therefore, in the middle stage of education pupils have poor reading skills and understanding read. The main reason, according to some researchers, is that in recent years very little attention has been paid developing the methodology of reading in a foreign language.
The focus is now on the development of speaking skills, and unwittingly the teacher subordinates all the work on reading to the decision of this tasks. For example, instead of students reading the text and completed the task, showing his understanding, they are invited to read, translation, retelling of the text and answers to questions on the text. In this way, reading in the classroom loses its independence and turns in the attribute of oral speech, and reading material — only in additional stimulus for the development of speaking skills.
However, it would be unfair to assume that oral communication took one from the main places in learning a foreign language and kind of supplanted reading.
She did not force out reading, but subjugated it to herself, which should not be. Oral speech and reading are two types of speech activity. With all their relationships, they have their own specifics, so learning each they should be carried out according to the developed methodology, taking into account this specificity. Currently there is a big confusion in terminology, which prevents the teacher from understanding how content learning to read, and in the choice of methods of learning to read to perform software requirements.
There are a variety of methods for teaching reading. Classifications of types of reading. What is the content embedded in the concept «Kind of reading»?
So, some authors emphasize the psychological factors of the process. reading. In this case, the features of mental processes accompanying it:
– analytical, synthetic reading;
– reading with primary and secondary synthesizing;
– impressive, expressive reading.
Others pay more attention to the organizational side.
Learning process:
– cool;
– laboratory;
– programmed;
– homemade;
– individual, group.
Along with the above, there are classifications emphasizing the nature of the reading process due to the installation reading:
– reading — search;
– reading — review;
– detailed reading;
– critical reading;
– reading for fun.
All these classifications objectively reflect some side.
However, in this regard, there are many controversial and controversial opinions. In particular, G. V. Horn and O. D. Kuzmenko consider insignificant consideration of classifications types of reading. They point to the negative side of the latter: since each of the classifications reflects one of the sides of this multifaceted process, then all learning activity takes one-sided, and reading mechanisms are not formed.
The teacher in the learning process cannot be limited one of the parties. It should take into account pedagogical and psychological factors in solving methodological problems.
Our experience shows that existing types of reading are used in practice with excessive straightness, resulting in reading as the process is broken. For example, in analytic reading the analysis of linguistic difficulties are often carried out for the sake of analysis, and not clarification and deepening meaning, while his communicativeness is lost. Hobby same synthetic reading leads to a reading surface that also reflects on the quality of understanding the content. Prepared reading often taken by the teacher as prepared both in form and in content, so reading as a source of new information, actually absent. Having read the text, the content of which is already known from the study, the students learn nothing new. For them, it is unclear.
Thus, we conclude that when developing a methodology reading reliance on these types of reading cannot be reliable basis. The teacher does not get a really tangible system of techniques, which would help him in his work. For example, if the teacher guided by the classification of analytical, synthetic reading, he needs to teach students to analyze the text, but this the classification does not disclose what techniques to do this.
The adoption of such a classification as non-translational and translational reading helps a little, as specific teaching methods virtually no reading. For translation training required give trainees a strict prescription of the actions they need learn to perform in a certain sequence.
In this case, given the program, the number of hours, the level preparing students, the learning process is advisable to build such so that each type of speech activity is not only located in close connection with other species, but would also successfully contribute developing the skills and abilities inherent in them; and also to study alone the type of speech activity would be both the goal and at the same time the means which would contribute to mastering other types of speech activities. Only when performing the above techniques is possible avoidance of one-sided nature of educational activities.
Reading, as an object of study at the middle level, suggests first of all, the extraction of information that takes into account all levels of semantic content of the text:
– clarification of what is at stake;
– understanding of what is said in the text (semantic links);
– insight into the essence of presentation;
– understanding of the main meaning of the text
It should be remembered that the perception of semantic content text may be multifaceted in the selection of the necessary information. It can be a detailed penetration, a perception of a common meaning, understanding the main theme of the text. In addition, understanding the content.
The text may be different in tempo depending on the individual abilities of the student and the degree of difficulty of the source itself.
In real conditions, the natural need for one hundred percent the perception of a large volume of text does not occur often. Basically, the reader is faced with the need for detailed text processing when reading secondary texts. The reading rate here is mainly related to language readiness of the reader and the ability to use auxiliary literature — dictionary, reference book, etc.
Consequently, skills that achieve quantitative and quality indicators for one hundred percent understanding of the text should be laid down initially. At the same time they should serve for achieve the ultimate goal — the perception of common sense at a high pace reading, mastering the mechanism of extracting basic information of the text when fast paced reading.
This raises the question of what should be considered the main information and how to distinguish it from the secondary content information. It is known that any natural language is inherent redundancy, which reaches 65–80 %. If part of the excess information neglected while maintaining the required minimum understanding, it will significantly speed up the pace of reading. Exist several types of information redundancy:
– grammatical redundancy. This includes service, drill words — articles, auxiliary verbs, particles, etc.;
– lexical redundancy. These include replays, comparisons, rhetorical question, etc.
It is known that reading proceeds successfully if attention the reader is focused only on the content of the text, and his language side does not cause any difficulties. Therefore it is very important to send maximum effort to create the necessary base for free orientation in the text in terms of its language content.
References:
- Gryzulina A. P. Teaching reading popular science literature on English language. Moscow, 1978.
- Dzagania N. B. Using authentic texts when working on conversational topic // Foreign languages at school. No. 2, 1999.
- Winter I. A. Psychology of teaching foreign languages at school. Moscow, 1991.
- Klychnikova Z. I. Psychological features of learning to read on foreign language. Moscow, 1983.
