REFERENCE
1. Akker J., Kuiper W., Hameyer U. (Eds.).
(2003).Curriculum Landscapes and trends.
London: Harcourt Brace College Publishers
2. Black P., William D. (1998).Assessment
and Classroom learning. Assessment in
Education 5(1), pp 7-73.
3. Black P., William D. (2004). Inside the
Black Box: Phi-Delta Kappan, 86(1):9-21
4. Brookhart, S.M. (2001). Successful stu-
dents’ formative and summative use of as-
sessment information. Assessment in educa-
tion 8,153-169
5. Brookhart, S.M. (2003). Developing meas-
urement theory for classroom assessment
purposes and uses. Educational measure-
ment: issue and practice
6. Nitko, A.J., (Eds.). (2004). Educational As-
sessment of Students (4th ed).Ohio: Merrill
Prentice Hall
7. Pratt, D. (1998). Curriculum planning: A
handbook for professionals. London: Har-
court Brace College Publishers
8. Stiggins, R.J. (1992).Relevant classroom
assessment training for teachers. Educa-
tional measurement: issue and practice 10
(1), 7-12
9. Stiggins, R.J. (2001). Student-involved
classroom assessment (3rd ed). Upper Sad-
dle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
10. Shepard, L.M. (2001). The role of class-
room assessment in teaching and learning.
In V. Richardson (eds.), Handbook of re-
search on teaching (4th ed). Washington:
AERA
11. Smith, K.J. (2003).Reconsidering reliabil-
ity in classroom assessment and grading.
Educational measurement: issue and prac-
tice 22(4), 26-3.
12. Cleveland Van Cecil, eHow Contributor.
What is self-assessment? Retrieved from
http://www.ehow.com/
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УДК 811.111
TEACHING EFFICIENT EFL READING
Sadvakassova L., Chzhan Y.
Studying of a foreign language is a
complicated but at the same times an interest-
ing and absorbing process. It takes time and
passion. Any nation has its own differentiating
features in culture, in the way of living and in
the way of life seeing. Native language unites
all those features and reflexes them in sounds,
constructions, traditional comparison and alle-
gories. Programs and methodic for teaching to
any language take that into consideration and
help foreigners to find the right way for learn-
ing the language. That is way the system of
teaching includes grammar understanding,
listening and realizing the idea of speakers,
speaking unit which develops the speaking
skills and abilities.
What is efficient EFL reading?
According to the organization to Read-
ing in a Second Language: Hypotheses, Or-
ganization, and Practice, ESL reading is un-
derstood in terms of «matching flexibility of
the educated native speaker as he performs all
reading-related tasks presented in his envi-
ronment. These include reading and under-
standing newspapers and popular magazines,
personal letters, business correspondence, of-
ficial documents such as driving application
forms, stories, academic textbooks, and scien-
tific and technical reports». This means that
the objective of an ESL reading course is to
produce efficient ESL readers who, like edu-
cated native speakers, have flexibility in per-
forming all reading-related tasks in their envi-
ronment [2, p. 32].
Flexibility in reading includes flexibility
in speed as well as comprehension. Edward
Fry discusses this in detail in his book Teach-
ing Faster Reading: A Manual. According to
Fry, educated naive speakers of English gen-
erally need at three different speeds, depend-
ing on their purpose, the difficulty of the mate-
rial, and their background on their edge. The
first type of speed is study speed (200-300
words per minute). This is the slowest speed,
used for reading textbooks and difficult mate-
rials such as legal documents, when the reader
desires a high rate of understanding as well as
good retention. In this type of reading the
reader studies the material carefully in order
not to miss a single point.
The second type of speed is average
reading speed (25-500 wpm). This course is
the speed that educated native speakers native
speakers use to read everyday materials such
as newspapers, magazines, novels, and stories.
At this sped the rate of comprehension is low-
ered (usually about 70%). They sometimes
even skip over paragraphs or pages that don’t
interest them.
The third type of speed is skimming
speed. This is faster speed that native
speaker’s use, when they wish to cover the
material in a hurry and high comprehension is
not required. Generally speaking the skim-
ming speed of educated native speakers is at
least twice as fast as their average reading
speed. Some of them can skim more than 800
wpm. At this speed they intentionally accept a
much lower comprehension [6, p. 38].
So we can see that, like the two sides of
coin, speed and comprehension are insepara-
ble in efficient reading. An efficient reader can
not only read slowly with good comprehen-
sion, but can also read fast with needed com-
prehension
when
circumstances
require.
Therefore, the major objective of an EFL read-
ing course should be to improve the average
and skimming speeds of our students, and to
help them cultivate the ability to vary their
speed in reading different materials for differ-
ent purposes.
What is the rationale for efficient EFL
reading?
Efficient reading is based on the psy-
cholinguistic models of reading proposed by
Goodman and Smith. According to Goodman,
reading is a «a psycholinguistic guessing
game» that involves an interaction between
thought and language. According to Smith,
two types of information are necessary in
reading: visual information (which we get
from the printed page) and non-visual infor-
mation (which includes our understanding of
the relevant language, our familiarity with the
matter, our general ability in reading, and our
knowledge of the world).
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The psycholinguistic models of reading
can be summarized as the following process:
The reader approaches a text with ex-
pectations based on his knowledge of the sub-
ject. He uses only minimal sampling of the
text in deriving meaning by relying on his
knowledge of the language and the subject, as
well as his background knowledge. On the
basis of sampling, he makes predictions as to
what message he expects to get form the text.
As he progresses into the material, he tests his
predictions, confirming or revising them, and
makes still more predictions on the basic of
what he has been reading. By making use of
minimal orthographic, syntactic, and semantic
clues in the material, he internally re-creates a
replica of the textual message. Once such re-
construction has taken place, he will test its
accuracy against previous information, which
includes the information extracted for the text,
as well as the store of information in his long
term memory relevant to the topic. Based on
the psycholinguistic models of Goodman and
Smith, Coady has developed a model of effi-
cient ESL reading. According to Coady, effi-
cient ESL reading depends on the successful
interaction among three factors: higher-level
conceptual abilities, background knowledge,
and process strategies, which he diagrams as
follow:
Conceptual abilities refer to intellectual
capacity such as the ability to analyze, synthe-
size, and infer. Background knowledge in-
cludes, in particular, socio-cultural knowledge
of the English-speaking communities. Process
strategies refer to the abilities and skills to re-
construct the meaning of the text through
sampling based on the knowledge of graph-
eme-morphophonemic correspondences, syl-
lable-morpheme information, syntactic infor-
mation (deep and surface), lexical meaning,
contextual meaning, and cognitive strategies
[1, p. 50].
Through diagnostic tests and observa-
tion student have the following five major
reading problems:
Reading word by word, relying too
heavily on their visual information, this
greatly impedes their reading speed and ham-
pers their comprehension. Focusing too much
attention on form at the expense of meaning.
Playing too much attention to details, with the
result that they often miss the main ideas and
see only the trees instead of the forest. A small
reading vocabulary and heavy reliance on the
use of the dictionary for word meaning. The
task before the teacher, then, is to help her
students change their reading habits by teach-
ing those efficient reading skills. An effective
way to do this is through guided reading. The
tem guided reading reeds to timed reading
conducted in class under the control and guid-
ance of the teacher. In guided reading not only
can students learn how to read I different ways
at different speeds for different purposes, but
the teacher can observe how her students actu-
ally read so that she can give them prompt
help by correcting reading habits such as sub
vocalization and pointing at the words they
read. What is more, in guided reading the
teacher can teach different efficient reading
skills [3, p. 50].
We know that we don't read everything
in the same way with the same attention to
detail. Some reading activities require deep
attention, and others don't, but students don't
always know this. They go about reading in
the exact same manner, no matter the goal.
Here are some strategies that you can
model and suggest when assigning reading
that will help students to be more efficient and
effective in their reading.
1) Skimming - getting the gist of some-
thing, getting a broad overview. This involves
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looking at chapter and section headings, read-
ing the first sentences in paragraphs, summary
sections, or the first and last paragraphs of the
chapter. Readers should be ignoring details
and reading just for the main ideas.
2) Scanning - looking through a text for
specific information. Think of the way you
look up a phone number in the phone book.
You look in a much focused way for specific
pieces of information, ignoring everything else
so you can quickly find the info you are look-
ing for.
3) Surveying - this strategy is great at
the beginning of a semester, or when students
are gathering materials for research papers.
Students look broadly at the text, its table of
contents, the index and bibliography, any ab-
stract information available, introductions,
forewords, or reviewer's comments in order to
get a general idea of the scope and purpose of
the text.
4) Detailed Reading - actively reading
in great detail to learn new material. This is
covered in more detail in the next section,
Reading to Learn.
5) Word –attack skills. These skills en-
able the reader to work out the meaning of
unfamiliar words and phrases without looking
them up in the dictionary.
6) Reading in meaningful units. One of
the factors that determine reading speed and
comprehension is the number of words the
eyes can see at one glance. The more words
students can see and comprehend at one
glance, the greater will be their reading speed
and the better will be their comprehension.
Students should be able to read in meaningful
units instead of isolated words [5, p.142].
A useful way to train students to read in
meaningful units is to break up a sentence into
sense groups and have students focus their
eyes on the middle of each sense group ar-
ranged in separate lines and try to see words
on each side of the middle line, e.g.
7) Prediction: According to the psycho-
linguistic models of reading efficient reading
depends, to a large extent, on making correct
predictions with minimal sampling. This abil-
ity will greatly speed, and enhance our com-
prehension. Therefore, it is a very useful skill.
Students can learn to make predictions based
on the title, subtitles, and their knowledge of
the topic, the linguistic context, and the non-
linguistic context, such as diagrams, graphs,
tables, pictures, and maps, which serves the
same purpose as gestures facial expressions in
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conversation.
8) distinguishing general statements
from specific details: General statements usu-
ally contain main ideas, and specific details
are usually explanations and examples that
support the general statements. Therefore,
general statements are more important to
comprehension. Very often they are intro-
duced by signal words such as in general,
above all, in conclusion, and it can be seen
that. Students should learn to direct their atten-
tion to these signal words. They should also
learn to identify expressions of probability,
frequency, and quantity that indicate different
levels of generality. Some of these can be
shown in the following table:
Probability
Frequency
Quantity
certain
always
all
probable
usually
most
likely
often
many
possible
sometimes
some
Unlikely
rarely
few
impossible
never
no
9) Inference and conclusion: Compre-
hension involves understanding not only what
is stated explicitly but also what is implied.
That is to say, the reader has to make infer-
ences based on what is stated. To do so require
the ability to analyze and synthesize For ex-
ample, for the sentence Age affects hearing,
we can infer that with age hearing either in-
creases decreases, or changes. Conclusion is
different from inference in that the former is
based on putting stated facts together, whereas
the latter is based on deduction of what is im-
plied from what is stated. For students learn-
ing English, reading is more useful than the
other skills because all of them will have to
read in their future work although only a small
percentage will use the other skills. Therefore,
the teaching of EFL reading is more meaning-
ful, and its improvement more urgent and
worthwhile [4, p. 35-38]
Reading unit which unites grammar
knowledge, vocabulary and the ability to un-
derstand the sense of words in the sentence
and in the context. Learning to read is an im-
portant educational goal. It opens up new
world and opportunities. It is the way to gain
new knowledge by reading newspapers,
magazines, instruction manuals, belles-lettres,
historical literature and other. Reading helps to
learn the language from the inside, to see the
world as the native language speakers see. Be-
sides reading develops the vocabulary and en-
rich it with the flavor of comparisons and
rhymes, proverbs and sayings and other
winged words which are so clearly under-
standable for native speakers and so compli-
cated in understanding for foreigners. There-
fore reading unit takes an important place in
the language teaching process and needs the
correct techniques. It should be based on the
goals which are ought to be gained. But the
goals in their turn are different. The strategy
should be chosen taking into account the age
of learners. At primary school for instance the
goals are simple. They are the following:
- To learn to read aloud pronouncing the
words correctly correspondently to the phonet-
ics of the language;
- To understand the idea of short text
like children stories and fairy-tales with child-
ish vocabulary.
At the secondary school there appears
one more aim which is to understand more
difficult texts, retell them briefly and be able
to speak about them. New vocabulary goes as
self-evident. But at a high school and universi-
ties the tasks of learners are more complicated.
They should be able to review long texts, get
the main idea and additional information
which helps the author to form that main idea,
be able to answer the tangled questions and
discuss to the theme of the text. That is studied
in the unit which is called “critical reading”.
Critical reading is necessary part of language
learning in the institutes of higher education. It
teaches people to analyze in the studding lan-
guage [7, p. 78].
Quality assurance helps to support
teachers and build expertise and capacity in
the education system to deliver positive out-
МЕТОДИКА ИЗУЧЕНИЯ ИНОСТРАННЫХ ЯЗЫКОВ
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comes for children and young people. Through
sharing, understanding and applying standards
and expectations, quality assurance helps to
raise standards and expectations, and levels of
consistency across teachers and schools. It is
important in the planning and coordination of
professional development activities that a
partnership and inter-establishment approach
is adopted to ensure cross-service and cross-
sector working on standards and expectations.
Quality assurance in education is part of the
day-to-day work of pre-school centre’s, pri-
mary, special and secondary schools, services
and local authorities. Staff uses a wide range
of activities to ensure that high standards are
maintained and outcomes improved for chil-
dren and young people. These include moni-
toring, self-evaluation and planning for im-
provement. Since assessment is integral to
learning, teaching and the curriculum, these
quality assurance approaches apply equally to
assessment.
Moderation helps to raise standards and
expectations and levels of consistency across
teachers and schools. This ensures that there is
an appropriate focus on outcomes for learners,
that learning is at the appropriate level and
that learners develop the skills for learning,
skills for life and skills for work, including
higher order thinking skills, which will allow
them to be successful in the future.
Teachers being involved in developing
their assessment approaches through participa-
tion in moderation activities is a highly effec-
tive form of professional development.
REFERENCES
1. Coady, James. 1979. «A psycholinguistic
model of the ESL reader. In reading in a
second language 1979», c. 46-55
2. Fry, Edward. 1981. «Teaching faster read-
ing», c. 29 – 41.
3. Goodman, Kenneth. 1982. «Reading», c.
50.
4. Mackay R., Barkman B., and Jordan R.R,
eds 1979. «Reading in a second language
Hypotheses, organization, and practice».
Rowley, Mass.
5. Moore, John ET al. 1979. «Reading and
thinking in English», c. 134-152.
6. Saville-Troike, Muriel, 1979. «Reading and
the audio-lingual method. In Reading in a
second language», с. 74
7. Smith, Frank. 1978. «Reading. Cambridge
University Press», c. 78-80
УДК 811.111: 378
THE USE OF SITUATIONAL EXERCISES FOR THE SPEECH
DEVELOPMENT IN THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING AT THE
AVERAGE STAGE OF COMPREHENSIVE SCHOOL
Fillipova L.N.
The main problem in teaching a foreign
language at school is the recreation of situa-
tions at a lesson which would be identical to
the situations of the real communication. The
most important constituents of natural com-
munication are speech situations; these are
such conditions and circumstances which
prompt students to speech activity concerning
the personal interests of students. The thematic
direction of foreign language communication
allows teachers of comprehensive schools to
create educational speech situations in class;
thereby they not only develop speaking skills
of students, but also, develop their mental out-
look, shape moral values, the relation to peo-
ple around, etc. Such situations are of great
importance in modern society; they force stu-
dents to express their thoughts, assert their
opinions on different things and phenomena.
Therefore today teachers of public schools,
gymnasiums, lyceums are interested in apply-
ing an approach which allows developing stu-
dents’ conversational skills in EFL class-
rooms.
This article is devoted to the importance
of situational exercises in the development of
speaking skills in teaching English as a foreign
language. In order to apply such exercises in a
classroom correctly, first of all it is necessary
to explain some theoretical concepts and, cer-
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