The traditional bottom-up approach of teaching reading has been popular in China's English classes for a long time. The result, however, is disappointing. Many non-English majors who have scored rather high at the...The traditional bottom-up approach of teaching reading has been popular in China's English classes for a long time. The result, however, is disappointing. Many non-English majors who have scored rather high at their CET Band 4 are still frustrated by their inefficiency in reading. The reason is that the traditional approach is based on a misconception of the nature of the text and of reading. A text is traditionally believed to contain all the information the writer intends to convey and reading is a passive and solitary activity in which readers follow a linear bottom-up process of decoding the individual written symbols. Research shows a text does not provide all the linguistic clues for readers to make sense of it and reading is an active thinking process. How much readers understand a text depends on how much they bring into it. Through a top-down information process, efficient readers use their background knowledge to help them comprehend the text. Reading is also a communication between the reader and the writer. It is high time that we adopted a sound teaching approach based on these new insights into reading. Special suggestions are made on how to implement the new approach.展开更多
文摘The traditional bottom-up approach of teaching reading has been popular in China's English classes for a long time. The result, however, is disappointing. Many non-English majors who have scored rather high at their CET Band 4 are still frustrated by their inefficiency in reading. The reason is that the traditional approach is based on a misconception of the nature of the text and of reading. A text is traditionally believed to contain all the information the writer intends to convey and reading is a passive and solitary activity in which readers follow a linear bottom-up process of decoding the individual written symbols. Research shows a text does not provide all the linguistic clues for readers to make sense of it and reading is an active thinking process. How much readers understand a text depends on how much they bring into it. Through a top-down information process, efficient readers use their background knowledge to help them comprehend the text. Reading is also a communication between the reader and the writer. It is high time that we adopted a sound teaching approach based on these new insights into reading. Special suggestions are made on how to implement the new approach.
