A brief analysis of english teaching in senior high school

A-Level: Sociology

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Section One------ How to teach reading
I. Why teach reading
There are many reasons why getting students to read English texts is an important part of the teacher’s job. In the first place, many of them want to be able to read texts in English either for their careers, for study purposes or simply for pleasure. Anything we can do to make reading easier for them must be a good idea.
Reading texts provide good models for English writing, provide opportunities to study language vocabulary, grammar, punctuation, and the way to construct sentences, paragraphs and texts. Lastly, good reading texts can introduce interesting topics, stimulate discussion, excite imaginative responses and be the springboard for well-rounded, fascinating lessons.
The last but not the least, students must read widely because only a fraction of knowledge about the world can come from other experiences in their short lives.
II. What kind of reading should students do?
When the teachers give reading class to students, they should notice a balance----a balance to be struck between real English on the one hand and the students’ capabilities and interests on the other. There is some authentic written material which beginner students can understand to some degree: menus, timetables, signs and basic instructions, for example, and, where appropriate, teachers can use these. But for longer prose, teachers can offer their students texts, which, while being like English, are nevertheless written or adapted especially for their level. Anyway, the materials to be read should be interesting and meaningful. Teachers should become better acquainted with books written specially for teenagers and dealing with their problems.
III. What are the principles behind the teaching of reading?
i) Permit Students To Read
No one has learned to swim by practicing the skills of backstrokes, flutter kicks or treading water while staying on the edge of the swimming pool. Yet, in the teaching of reading teachers often do just that. Rather than let the students into “the water”, teachers keep them in skills books learning rules about letters, syllables or definitions of words rather than letting them into the book itself, permitting them to be immersed in the language which comes from the authors as the readers try to reconstruct the written message.


ii) Encourage students to respond to the content of a reading text, not just to the language
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