A MODEL PROGRAM FOR TEACHING ADVANCED READING TO STUDENTS OF ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE

In the ideal language program for advanced foreign students, the reading component will not be an adjunct to the teaching of oral skills (since reading may be the most important skill to master) but will instead concentrate on reading for its own sake, and will not attempt to teach the reading skill directly (since no one really knows what reading is or how readers do it) but will instead provide instruction in the critical skills required at each level of the reading process and plenty of practice in reading itself. The model reading program posited here subdivides into an intensive program, comprising in-class instruction, and an extensive program, which is mainly outside reading. (Speed reading constitutes an exception to this rule.) The intensive program is designed to increase the student's mastery of the syntax and lexicon of written English, and to provide him with vital crosscultural information and a brief introduction to English rhetoric. One technique recommended for both the teaching and testing of advanced reading is cloze procedure, which draws on all of the critical skills.