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课程： Extensive Reading

主讲：徐晶xujing0611@yahoo.cn

My favorite saying:• A teacher has two jobs. Fill young

minds with knowledge, yes. But more important, give those minds a compass so that that knowledge doesn’t go to waste.

-From Mr. Holland’s Opus

Extensive Reading (Book 1)• Unit 1 Little House in the Big

Woods

• Unit 2 Fool’s Paradise

• Unit 3 William Shakespeare

• Unit 4 Migratory Birds and Coffee

• Unit 5 Cheating

• Unit 6 The Call of the Wild( )Ⅰ• Unit 7 Henry Ford

• Unit 8 Two Boxes of Gold( )Ⅰ• Unit 9 Techniques That Might

Smile upon Mona Lisa

• Unit 10 London

Extensive Reading (Book 1)

• Unit 11 The All-American Slurp

• Unit 12 On the Wrong Side of the Global Divide

• Unit 13 Miracle on Christmas Day

• Unit 14 The Confidence Game

• Unit 15 Starting Over at 85

Extensive Reading (Book 1)

How to improve Students' Reading Comprehension

徐晶

xujing0611@yahoo.cn

Decide if you agree with them or not.• Reading has only one purpose, i.e.

to get information.

• Reading is a silent activity. Reading aloud does not help understanding.

• Reading with a purpose will be most effective.

• Reading is an individual activity.

• We need to read and understand all the words in order to understand a text.

• We read everything at the same speed.

• When reading in a foreign language, we mentally translate everything in order to understand.

• It t is helpful to use a dictionary to find the meaning of all new words.

• The lack of cultural knowledge may affect the rate of reading comprehension.

Purposes of Reading:• enlarge their vocabulary

• familiarize themselves with background information about English

• cultivate( 培养 ) students' careful observation and their logic thinking

• improve students' comprehension

Ways: • skimming and scanning

• author's viewpoint

• structure of the passage

• structure of paragraphs

• students' anticipation

• punctuation

• summarizing

 1. Skimming and Scanning: • Skimming reading （略读） : readi

ng for the gist or main idea;

• Scanning reading （查读） : reading to look for specific information.

Sample:• Soap opera is the name given to

continuing fictional stories dramatized for radio or television. Opinions differ as to other essential qualities, but most successful soap operas, often referred to as “soaps”, are aimed largely at women and follow the fortunes of a family or group of characters living or working closely.

What’s the topic of the passage?

A. What a soap opera is.

B. The history of the soap opera.

C. The audience of the soap opera.

D. Introduction to a popular soap opera.

Sample:

2. The author’s viewpoint:• to make guesses about the position

of the author: Is the author neutral or does the author show his own opinion?

Sample 1: • I had supposed that no one would

ever produce a book on this subject with which I would find myself in complete agreement; but Professor Smith has now done the impossible!

Sample 2:• There is little in Professor Smith’s

latest book that is new, and there is much that recent scientific studies have shown to be untrue.

3. The structure of the passage:

一篇文章有三个部分：开头 (Introduction) 、正文 (Body) 和结尾(Conclusion) 。

• a title and sometimes a subtitle

• the introduction and the body

• a conclusion or summary

An Essay

Introductory Paragraph

Body Paragraph One

Body Paragraph Two, Three, ……

Concluding Paragraph

4. The structure of paragraphs: The Topic Sentence ( 主题句 )

The Supporting Sentence(s)

( 扩展句 1 扩展句 2 扩展句 3)

The Concluding Sentence ( 结尾句 )

5. Students' Anticipation( 推测 ): • Determine the word class, i.e. a

verb, a noun, an adjective, an adverb, etc.

• Determine its function in the sentence, i.e. is it an attributive or an adverbial?

• Contextual clues, is the context in which we find this word positive or negative; what does the context tell us about the word?

• Word formations, is there any relation between this word and a word that is familiar to you?

• Guess the eventual meaning of the word logically and reasonably.

5. Students' Anticipation( 推测 ):

Inference/General Knowledge Clues:• As you look down from the

tower, you have the panorama of sea, bay, city and countryside.

A. real beauty B. great excitement

C. whole idea D. complete view

• Elvis Presley was afraid of being assassinated, and he wore a bullet-proof vest, but he couldn’t stay away from the crowds who loved him.

A. laughed at B. killed

C. taken away D. beaten

Inference/General Knowledge Clues:

Definition Clues & Synonym Clues:

• To dribble a ball is to bounce it along with one hand.

• Spontaneously, that is, without planning, the students lifted the teacher onto their shoulders.

Antonym Clues & Example Clues:• Some students tried to help, but

some tried to hinder him.

• The little boy enjoys all kinds of beverages, such as milk, cola, coffee, juice and tea.

Cause and Effect Relationship & Modifier Clues:

• Susan got drenched during the rainstorm because she left her umbrella at her office.

• The government is trying to improve the living conditions in ghettos, where many poor people live.

6. Punctuation: • Punctuation marks also indicate how

the author wants the student to interpret a piece of passage.

Samples:• He has no concept of what is

ethical——no idea of what is right and wrong.

• The principal ——money he put in his savings account to earn interest ——was safe even though the bank was closed by the police.

• The black-and-white TV is becoming obsolete; the color TV is in great demand.

A. in short supply B. in use

C. out of date D. low in price

Samples:

• The play contained a variety of morbid events: the death of a young child, the suicide of her mother, and the murder of an old sister.

A. moral B. immoral

C. healthy D. gloomy

Samples:

7. Summarizing: • Familiarize( 熟习 ) with the materia

l

• Select important information

• Paraphrase the information

• Insert links between sentences and paragraphs

• Adjust the length of the summary

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