Teaching Second Language Reading at the Advanced Level: Goals, Techniques, and Procedures

Abstract

The oral approach to teaching ESL rightly emphasizes oral skills at the beginning and intermediate levels, yet reading fluency, which cannot be achieved by simple transfer of oral skills, is much more important in the long run for most adult students in technical and academic programs. Directed to the classroom teacher, this paper focuses on three primary aspects of the teaching task at the advanced level: (1) definition of reading skill goals; (2) techniques for reading skill improvement; (3) classroom procedures. The student's general goal-getting information from the printed page efficiently, rapidly, and with full understanding-requires development in five skill areas: reading speed, vocabulary recognition, and comprehension of sentences, paragraphs, and complete reading selections. Techniques and exercises for improvement in each of the five areas are illustrated by examples compiled from ESL texts. Five types of questions for comprehension are described and ranked. Vocabulary improvement by means of word analysis and through use of context clues to meaning is discussed and illustrated. Classroom procedures involve three stages: (1) pre-reading preparation to minimize linguistic interference and provide motivation and purpose, (2) actual reading, and (3) oral and written follow-up activities. 1.0 Introduction. 'Hearing before speaking, speaking before reading, reading before writing.' (Defense Language Institute, American Language Course: Intermediate Phase, Instructor Text, p. 1.) This prescription has dominated contemporary second language teaching in America at least since 1941, the year that marked the entrance of the United States into World War II and, with that, the end of our 'linguistic isolation', as Moulton remarks in his excellent survey of language teaching in the '40s and '50s (Moulton 1961, pp. 84-85). The armed forces soon found that the recently established ACLS Intensive Language Program could meet the need for teaching large numbers of military men a practical speaking knowledge of many languages, most of which were completely unfamiliar to any Americans including the nation's linguists. But the linguists were soon at work analyzing the languages and designing course materials guided by such linguistic principles as these-principles which became, as Moulton puts it, language teaching slogans of the day: 'Language is speech, not writing. A language is a set of habits. Teach the language, not about the language.' Thus it was that the 'oral approach'