YEAR III. READING

Course title	Course type	Completion requirements	Semester	Hours/week	Total hours
reading	classes	exam	1 and 2	2	60

Course objectives:

The focus is on further developing the micro-skills of the previous two years but adding to these the ability to recognize different registers and styles and to recognize the author's tone and attitude.

The course will:

- further develop the techniques for the analysis of the structure and discourse features of texts,

- further develop the ability to deal with unfamiliar lexical items,

- further develop students' ability to interpret and analyze non-textual material,

- assist students to extract quickly the main ideas from academic articles and texts,

- enable students to recognize different styles and registers,

- enable students to recognize the tone of a text,

- enable students to identify authorial stance,

- enable students critically to evaluate how well the author's purpose is achieved,

- enable students to deal with complex sentences,

- encourage students to react subjectively to a text by separating what the writer says from what they feel about a particular subject.

Course content:

Students are exposed to a wide variety of text types (or genres) during their reading course, including:

Instructional: timetables, diagrams, advertisements, operating manuals, instructions, rules and regulations, application forms,

Informative: textbooks, ELT methodology books, graphs and tables, encyclopedias, dictionaries and thesauruses, academic articles, journals and reviews,

Persuasive: advertisements, newspaper reports, editorials,

Literary: fairy tales and fables, children's literature, classic and modern novels, drama and poetry, critical reviews, literary criticism,

Popular entertainment: nursery rhymes, songs, popular romance, comics, science fiction, detective stories, thrillers, humour, popular journalism,

Social Interaction: personal letters, postcards, greetings cards, telegrams, messages.

Classroom Approaches:

Pre-Reading Phase:

— To introduce the topic and arouse interest/expectation,

— To motivate students to read the text,

— To provide language preparation for the text.

While-Reading Phase:

— To clarify text content, moving from global understanding to details,

— To consider the writer's purpose,

— To analyse text structure,

— To consider lexis, collocation and structure,

Post-Reading Phase:

— To consolidate and reflect on the reading passage,

— To relate the text to the readers' knowledge, interests and opinions.

Requirements for crediting the course:

Attendance and participation, vocabulary quizzes, and in-class reading exams. Reading exams take 60 minutes to complete and require the students to read three texts followed by a set of tasks that check comprehension. The tasks may include: multiple choice, sentence gap fill, sentence completion, matching synonyms, open ended questions, true/false, sequencing of cut-up strips of text, labelling of text, vocabulary in context, diagram completion/construction.

Selected bibliography:

Bowman, P Issues Nelson

Glendinning, E and B Holmstrom Study Reading CUP

McGovern, D et al Reading Prentice Hall Int.

Seal, B Academic Encounters CUP

In addition to the books mentioned above the Reading sections from CPE materials are used.

Resource and Reference Book for Teachers

Carrell, PL et al Interactive Approaches to Second Language Reading CUP

Davies, F Introducing Reading Penguin (App Ling Series)

Grellet, F Developing Reading Skills

Grundy, P Newspapers OUP

Hess, N Headstarts Pilgrims Resource Books Longman

Holme, R Talking Texts Pilgrims Resource Books Longman

Nuttall, C Teaching Reading Skills in a Foreign Language Heinemann

Silberstein, S Techniques and Resources in Teaching Reading OUP

Wallace, C Reading OUP

Williams, E Reading in the Language Classroom Macmillan