Techniques of reading and speaking teaching in vocational school

金前英

【Abstract】The students have learned English in the middle school， They learned the skills of reading writing listening and speaking. But of the four skills， speaking is usually the poorest for the students of learning English in China， most of students are lack of reading ，they learned English just for exam， but in vocational school， reading is the skill that the students will be judged upon . A lots of problems exist in the English teaching especially in the teaching of reading. In this paper， the importance and methods of reading will be further discussed.

【Key words】reading； techniques

Introduction

Classes should be learner-centered， with meaningful， functional activities， often， classes begin by finding out what the students dont know. Teachers who hold this assumption view students as plants waiting passively to be fed and watered. But I think the students should be regarded as explorers， active learners who bring a great deal to the learning process and at the same time， draw from their environment as they develop new understandings. The basic principle will be used in the teaching of reading.

How to teach reading

I. Reading is an important way of gaining information in foreign language learning， It is a basic skill for a foreign language learner. There are many reasons why getting students to read English texts is an important part of the teachers 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.

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. 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 beimmersed 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

Of course， it is important to study reading texts for the way they use language， how many paragraphs they contain and how many times they use relative clauses. But the meaning， the message of the text， is much more important. Teachers should help students understand that the main reason to read is for them. They have to have their own purpose to read and reading must make sense， they have to find ways of doing something about it. They should be encouraged either to reread or to continue reading to gain meaning. But they must realize that the meaning is not in the teacher， but in the interaction between the reader and author. Students should be encouraged to ask themselves repeatedly， “Does this make sense to me？” Students should be encouraged to reject and to be intolerant of reading materials that do not make sense.

iii）Encourage students to guess or predict

Readers guesses or predictions are based on the cumulative information and syntactic structure they have been learning as they have been reading. Therefore， their guesses are more often than not appropriate to the materials. Students have to realize that risk taking in reading is appropriate； that using context to decide what words mean is a proficient reading strategy and that they have the language sense to make appropriate guesses which can fit both the grammatical and semantic sense of what they are reading.

References：

[1]Gu Xueliang，The Basic Technical Training in English Teaching，Hangzhou University Press，1998.

[2]Wilga M.Rivers & Mary S.Temper ley，A practical guide to the teaching of English as a second or foreign Language，New York：Oxford University Press，1978.

[3]Smith F.Understanding Reading（2d ed），New York：Holt， Rinehart and Winston，1978.

[4]Huang Yuefa.English Teaching Methodology.1991.7.