Reading as a means of teaching integrated skills in the EFL classroom

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Reading as a means of teaching integrated skills in the EFL classroom

S. Drozdova, L. Lukianenko

Effective EFL teaching has always been a question which is much discussed in professional literature. Questions about what kind of approach to choose and whether it is possible to combine some of them have fueled considerable amount of research. The task of the teacher in the EFL classroom is to provide profound language development by creating a situation close to real life communication. Reading is one of the most important means of communication which is usually integrated with other macro skills such as listening, speaking and writing. Scholars such as S.P.Corder, R.Kaplan, H.H.Stern emphasized the importance of teaching integrated skills stating that “the teaching of language skills cannot be conducted through separate and discrete structural elements”[2,74].Over the last thirty years H.G.Widdowson, SJ.Savignon, D.Nunan have made significant changes in the integration system implementing new ways to combine these four productive and receptive skills, reading in particular. A text taken for teaching purposes is a basis for developing speaking and writing skills. Reading is also an effective means of acquiring language aspects. When reading a text, learners review sounds and letters, vocabulary and grammar, memorize the spelling and meaning of words and, in this way, they broaden the knowledge of the target language.

The purpose of this article is to consider the problem of using the educational potential of reading as a means of teaching other communication skills, speaking and writing in particular, as well as such language aspects as vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation. Without pretending to treat all the aspects of the problem, the authors of this article make it their aim to present a variety of activities and exercises stimulating EFL students' motivation in learning the target language that can be done on the basis of a text where reading is used as a means of teaching integrated skills and language aspects.

There is no denying the fact that reading is an effective means of enlarging learners' real and potential vocabulary.According to S.Krashen, we acquire vocabulary and spelling by reading. When the language acquisition device is involved, language is subconsciously acquired - while you are acquiring, you don't know you are acquiring; your conscious focus is on the message, not form. Thus, the acquisition process is identical to what has been termed “incidental reading”[5,442]. A. Mofareh supports Krashen's ideas. The researcher claims that guessing from context encou rages learners to take risks and guess the meaning of the words they do not know[6, 29]. It is evident that guessing from context helps students to become more involved in the process of reading. Their attention span becomes longer. The more learners read, the better their retention of vocabulary items is. teacher reading integrated language

Students' knowledge of English grammar is also consolidated through reading texts. The mnemonic activity which accompanies the process of reading provides keeping both lexical units and grammatical structures in mind. If the text is meant for intensive reading, learners try to understand it as fully as possible using all the skills they have acquired. There are different approaches to teaching grammar. One of them is used in the context of reading. It is descnbed by R.Ellis who offers tasks for EFL learners that can be done at several levels:

1. Listen to Comprehend. The instructor reads aloud a text containing a repeated grammatical structure, and students listen with a view to identifying it.

2. Listen to Notice. The teacher reads aloud a text. Students listen for the grammatical structure and then do a gap-fill exercise in which they write down the grammatical form as they heard it read.

3. Understand the Grammar Form. Students read sentences or excerpts from the text, all of which contain the target grammatical structure. They use the examples to determine the grammar rule that applies to them.

4. Correct the Grammar Form. The teacher gives learners a written passage with errors in grammar which they are supposed to identify and correct.

5. Apply the Grammar Form. Students use what they have learned about the target grammatical structure to produce writing or oral examples that integrate it” [3,89]. Although the researcher has created tasks for English language learners, we should consider the possibility of using some of these approaches for EFL learners, thus, regarding reading as a tool of better grammar acquisition of the target language.

Reading is also an effective means of teaching pronunciation to EFL learners. A. Hilferty believes that phonemic awareness - noticing the individual sounds in a word - helps with comprehension of the spoken language, and knowledge of spelling patterns contributes to improving pronunciation [4].

If a text is read for a serious study purpose, learners need to look up key words in a dictionary. When the text itself is the lesson focus, EFL teachers should remove barriers to its understanding by presenting new words and grammar structures at the pre-reading stage. Students should also be acquainted with the pronunciation of some new words including proper names such as names of persons, geographical names, names of newspapers and magazines, boats, hotels, public buildings, etc. At the while-reading stage, using such a technique of fast reading as scanning, they can find the words in bold and explain their meaning in English or suggest synonyms or opposites for the highlighted words. Besides, they can find English equivalents in the text for a number of words and word-combinations in their mother tongue. The role of reading as a means of teaching language aspects is also essential at the post-reading stage, when students are given the task to paraphrase the parts of sentences in bold using words and word-combinations from the text. They can do a lot of matching activities, for example, match the words or phrases from the text to their meaning, their synonyms or opposites in the list.

According to A. Hilferty, print experience helps learners acquire spoken language forms, for example, function words, such as conjunctions, prepositions and articles, and derivational word endings which are endings that form new words [4]. As we can see, reading is an instrument of overcoming difficulties connected with developing EFL students' speaking skills. This viewpoint is shared by a number of scho lars, in particular by M. Peacock who claims that thanks to reading, learners have the opportunity to find phrases used in our daily conversation in dramas, plays and dialogues because they are all based on one person talking to another. The researcher comes to the conclusion that using authentic texts has a positive effect on learning the target language by developing communicative competence [7,145].

Reading as a means of teaching speaking can be presented at each stage of reading. In pre-reading teachers try to arouse students' curiosity and increase their motivation by involving them into discussion about the topic of the text based on its title, pictures or quotations taken from it, by encouraging them to express hypotheses about the content of the passage based on previous knowledge.

At the while-reading stage, when learners interact with the text thoroughly and repeatedly by reading and rereading the whole text and its parts to determine its gist, to search for specific pieces of information or establish logical connection between separate facts, teachers can instruct them to find evidence in the text to support some statements and discuss it in small groups. By giving the tasks to identify some statements as true or false, teachers can ask learners to give their arguments against some points together with justifications and examples.

At the post-reading stage the role of reading as a means of teaching speaking is especially important. When students got the gist of the text, enriched their vocabulary, improved their grammar skills, they are able to analyze and give interpretation of the text. The work to be done at this stage may include eliciting a personal response from the readers, linking the content with their experience, discussing ideas or characters if EFL students work with fiction.

Considering the question of integrating reading and writing in the EFL classroom, we should note that there is a close link between these two skills. They can promote language development mutually reinforcing each other. Researchers such as R.Spack, G.Church and J.Carson have described these two skills as interdependent and transactive taking into consideration their nature [10, 31]. Writing helps students to read and reread some parts of the text in order to see the sentence, rhetorical structures of English and acquire new vocabulary better. This view is supported by J.Reid who states that writing serves as a vehicle through which students organize and clarify their thoughts on a piece of literature they have read. It makes comprehension of reading visible providing teachers with opportunities to assess students' proficiency and to spot any misconceptions or areas of confusion [9, 47]. G.Cobine emphasizes the fact that the integration of reading and writing allows creating multiple approaches for tasks covering all learning styles [1].

Reading as a means of teaching writing is presented mainly in post-reading when writing is used as a follow-up to reading activities. At this final stage of reading learners can be encouraged to make notes about something or somebody, to write letters, compositions, articles related to the text and even do some project work in writing. O.L.Pysarchyk and N.V.Yamshynska propose some teaching strategies which can be quite useful in the EFL classroom. Among them are questionnaires, peer compositions and contrast essays [8]. Doing these activities, students can considerably improve their language skills, which will help them to develop their confidence in their reading ability.

To sum up, the importance of reading as a means of communication cannot be overestimated. It involves a great number of techniques and methods of working with the text. In this way, it becomes not only the aim of teaching but also an effective means of teaching integrated skills and language aspects in the EFL classroom.

References

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