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National Research Tomsk Polytechnic University

Institute of Natural Resources

Department of Foreign Languages

ESP reading

Tatiana Fyodorovna Dolgaya

Annotation

The article is devoted to ESP reading as one of the skills while understanding the professional English language, its interactive process, ways and methods of reading, learner's action while reading.

Key words and phrases: reading comprehension; specific material; specific needs; pre-reading activities; postreading activities; motivation.

Аннотация

reading professional interactive english

Статья посвящена чтению как одному из навыков развития устной речи в обучении студентов профессиональному английскому языку, интерактивному процессу, способам и методам обучения, действиям обучаемого в процессе чтения.

Ключевые слова и фразы: способность понимания; профессионально-тематический материал; необходимость профессионально-тематического материала; предтекстовые упражнения; послетекстовые упражнения; мотивация.

As we have entered the new millennium, there are some realities that few people would contest. The first is that English is an essential world language today. The second is that the Internet, international affairs, meetings and participation in conferences, professional growth are here to stay [9].

Teaching at different levels we began to discuss ways to better motivate and challenge the students. First we wanted the material to be authentic and up-to-date. Second, we wanted the students to have more choice and greater autonomy in their reading. Furthermore, we had to make sure that the students were reading with a purpose and that their reading had meaning for them. No less important, we hoped that the reading would be enjoyable because it is connected with their future occupation.

The primary objective of ESP course is to teach the students who must be able to do the following:

1. Understand specific terms and give definitions to these terms and processes.

2. Describe various diagrams, schemes using the terminology of the subject they are taught.

3. Read and translate ESP texts.

4. Take part in presentations and discussions, scientific seminars on the subject of their study.

5. Develop skills in note-taking, summarizing, writing annotations, abstracts and reports.

ESP is designed

• To meet specific needs of the learners.

• For professional use.

ESP is centered on specific material.

ESP is generally for students who have enough knowledge of English to widen specific vocabulary while reading, to develop reading, speaking, writing, and listening skills.

Object of study is ESP reading skills development.

Subject of study is ESP intensive reading methodology for thorough understanding. As regards reading effectiveness, it will be achieved if:

• The texts are exploited to teach specific reading skills.

• A group of exercises is designed to determine the readers' general ability to comprehend.

Goal of the work is to:

• Select and adapt authentic ESP materials for classroom use.

• Teach important “kinds of reading”.

What is reading?

Reading is an activity with a purpose. A person may read in order to gain information or verify existing knowledge. A person may also read for enjoyment, or to enhance knowledge of the language being read. A person using a scientific article needs to know the vocabulary that is used, understand the facts and cause- effect sequences that are presented, and recognize ideas that are presented as hypotheses and givens.

Reading is an interactive process that goes on between the reader and the text, resulting in comprehension. The text presents letters, words, sentences, and paragraphs that encode meaning. The reader uses knowledge, skills, and strategies to determine what meaning is.

For many students of English as a foreign language reading English is both a primary means, by which they become acquainted with the content of the subject they are studying, and the most important way to develop their knowledge of the language itself.

How can older readers use reading to learn?

Older readers already know how to read: they decode, understand and respond to printed text. Their skills need to be developed so they can read in different ways to suit the purposes [11]:

• Skim read for speed, to “get the gist” e.g. an article of general interest.

• Scan read, to find specific information in a text e.g. date and venue of a seminar.

• Steady read, to enjoy the content and mood e.g. a novel, a biography or information text.

• Study read, to examine the style and language of a text, or data and argument e.g. a literary or academic text. 3 Kinds of reading have been chosen to develop reading comprehension:

Scanning. We scan the text when we want to get specific information - a date, a place, a definition, etc. We want to find a peculiar point in the text. The readers are asked to find the answers to explicit questions given in advance. In scanning we focus our search only on the information we want, passing quickly over all irrelevant material. The key to scanning is to decide exactly what kind of information we are looking for and where to find it.

Scanning is a kind of reading frequently used by all. In the morning when we fetch the mail from our letter boxes, we scan the headlines of newspapers eager to know what is going on in the world, leaf through the pages of thick magazines and booklets to find out what we shall read first. Or more often than not we have to use reference books and encyclopedias where we can find the information we need at the moment. We needn't, of course, read reference books from cover to cover: we are looking for the information we want, running our eyes rapidly along the lines. There are some methods that may help you scan rapidly and effectively. They are the following:

1. Decide in advance what information you are going to look for.

2. Limit your search to 2 or at most 3 items at a time.

3. Be aware of the form the information you want: if you want a name, you will have to look for capital letters; if you want a date, you will certainly look for figures; if you want to find a definition or a description of an event, look for key words.

4. Stop reading the text the moment you have found the necessary information.

Skimming. This kind of reading is more complicated than scanning. We skim when we want to look for the gist of the text. Now we are concerned with general meaning of the text and sometimes it is difficult to grasp it. While skimming we try to understand the main idea (ideas) in the text. We are not concerned with understanding every detail and every word. The effective method of reading for general understanding may be briefly summarized as follows:

1. Concentrate on finding and following the writer's central idea. Do not attempt to remember details such exact dates, lists of names, large numbers, and the like.

2. If you find an occasional word which you do not understand, or lose the sense of a word or phrase, do not stop to re-read the material, continue reading (in case if students don't have much time).

Full (thorough) understanding. We read for full understanding when we want to understand both the central idea and the supporting details.

Here are some hints for you:

1. Force yourself to read a bit faster than seems comfortable. Rapid reading will actually help you to concentrate better on ideas and the relations between ideas, for you will not have time to concern yourself with individual words.

2. As you read, try to get a sense of the writer's organization. Look for the central ideas, but do not neglect the supporting details which the writer uses to reach the conclusions or support his argument.

3. Do not stop if you come across an unfamiliar word, continue reading, and quite likely the general meaning of the sentence may make the meaning of the new word clear to you. If it doesn't, look up the unfamiliar word in a dictionary.

4. Try to avoid going back and re-reading words and phrases. Readers who develop a habit of re-reading parts of sentences generally harm rather than help their comprehension. Start with the idea that you will comprehend everything the first time, and you will soon lose the habit of going back over parts of the material you have already read.

A good way to teach our students is to read in meaningful units.

Reading in meaningful units. One of the factors that determine reading speed and comprehension is the number of words the eyes can see at one glance. The more words the students can see and comprehend at one glance, the greater will be their reading speed and the better will be their comprehension. Students should be able to read in meaningful units instead of isolated words [6].

A useful way to train students to read in meaningful units is to break up a sentence into sense groups and have students focus their eyes on the middle of each sense group arranged in separate lines and try to see words on each side of the middle line, e.g.:

Successful improvement

of your reading

depends upon

your eagerness

to improve

and your willingness

to practice.

At the beginning each line can be very short, and later the lines can be longer.

A fully developed reading activity supports students as readers through pre-reading, while reading and postreading activities.

Use pre-reading activities to prepare students for reading.

• Using the title, subtitle, and divisions within the text to predict content and organization or sequence of information.

How can learners prepare themselves before reading?

More time will probably be spent talking about the text before it is read, than actually reading the text! In this way learners will feel familiar with the text and more confident. By talking about the title, pictures, topic, it will [8]:

Encourage learners to think about the topic, activate what they know, e.g. list ten linked words.

Rehearse and introduce phrases which learners will find in the text.

Allow learners to predict what the text might say, e.g. make 3 questions the text might answer.

• Looking at pictures, maps, diagrams, or graphs and their captions.

• Presenting key - words or new vocabulary if it's necessary.

• Reviewing vocabulary or grammatical structures.

• Reading over the comprehension questions to focus attention on finding the information while reading.

• Doing guided practice with guessing meaning from context or checking comprehension while reading.

Pre-reading activities are most important at lower levels of language proficiency and earlier stages of reading instruction. As students become more proficient at using reading strategies, you will be able to reduce the amount of guided pre-reading and allow students to do these activities themselves.

How can learners help themselves during reading?

It is important to highlight the purpose and to use the appropriate reading strategies. If only specific details are wanted, learners will scan. This is suitable if the text will be generally understood but details are required for subsequent discussion or decision -making activities. For many purposes, a general grasp of the text is needed before detailed study is sought.

Learner action:

Reading should be silent, followed by comment in pairs/groups. Learners should find out: - What is the general meaning?

- Which is fact/opinion? Can I find examples and evidence?

- What do I associate with these? What surprises me? What have I learned?

Comprehension should be supported by learner strategies such as:

• Guessing meaning from context.

• Testing predictions.

• Identifying logical links to establish significance, cause/consequence.

• Using punctuation clues to build up phrasal relationships.

• Finding lexical groups, synonyms/antonyms.

• Spotting grammar patterns to establish sequence.

• Integrating new understandings with existing knowledge.

A post-reading activity must reflect the real - life uses to which students might put information they have gained through reading. It must require students to demonstrate their level of reading comprehension by completing some task.

Product: How can learners respond after reading: negotiate/discuss in pairs/groups?

Learner action:

• Comparing predictions, interpretations, response.

• Checking understandings by responding to the given questions.

• Clarifying meanings of specific lexical items, terms.

• Summarizing key points.

• Transforming the text into visual/graphic form to reorganize text. This could be done with a timeline (if information is chronological), a map (if spatial description), or a chart/grid (if information is comparative/categorical) [10].

Language can be both recycled and developed in these activities.

Reflection:

• Look at the selected extracts and notice the different purpose of the reading, the different strategies, the different levels and types of comprehension.

• What vocabulary and grammar are also revealed in the text? How does the text help to demonstrate the meaning, function or form?

• What opportunities are there for pair and group work where learners can use new language, consolidate or extend their understandings?

Warning! Don't make students do exercises simply because they are in the book; this destroys motivation.

References

1. Гальскова Н. Д., Гез Н. И. Теория обучения иностранным языкам. М., 2004.

2. Егоров Т. Г. Психология овладения навыком чтения. М., 1963.

3. Кузменко О., Рогова Г. Учебное чтение, его содержание и формы // Иностранные языки в школе. № 5. 1970.

4. Маслыко Е. А. Настольная книга преподавателя иностранного языка: справочное пособие. Минск, 1999.

5. Фоломкина С. К. Зависимость типов упражнений от видов чтения: методические записки по вопросам преподавания иностранных языков в ВУЗе. М., 1970.

6. Barnet M. A. More Than Meets the Eye: Foreign Language Learner Reading Theory and Practice. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall Regents, 1989.

7. Bernhard E. Reading Development in a Second Language. Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1991.

8. Bruner J. S. Process of Education. Cambridge, 1962.

9. Darian S. Adapting Authentic Materials for Language Teaching [Электронный ресурс]. URL: http://eca.state.gov/forum/vols/vol39/no2/p2.htm

10. Grellet F. Developing Reading Skills: а Practical Guide to Reading Comprehension Exercises. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.

11. Michurina K. A., Zhukova L. P. Reading and Comprehension. M.: Vysshaya Shkola, 1982.

12. Villiers S., Ward T. Oxford Professional Development Program: methodology booklet. Oxford University Press, 2006.

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