Reading in academic contexts

Reading in academic contexts

Whenever educators teach academic reading, they are expected to choose from a set of approaches, such as the psychological approach, the linguistic approach, the content-oriented approach and the pedagogically-oriented approach (Bloor, 1985; as cited in Jordan, 1997). These approaches will be explained in detail.

According to Bloor (1985), the psychological approach takes place when teachers provide students with a piece of writing so as to involve them in the processes of reading. The aim of this activity is to teach and acquire specific vocabulary. Once students have dealt with the given articles, they are asked to put the new set of vocabulary into practice. Students might answer some questions, solve a task related to that vocabulary and many other activities.

In reference to the linguistic approach (Bloor, 1985), students are asked to deal with the words or sentences of a given text in order to solve some grammatical exercises. For instance, if educators are teaching the present perfect tense, they give their students an article not only to work on the specific vocabulary, but also to do some tasks related to the mentioned tense (information-gap activities, questions and answers, etc).

Taking into account the content- oriented approach and its main purpose focused on reading, if teachers provide students with a specific purpose for reading, they will be interested in fulfilling the task they are intended to do (Bloor, 1985). For instance, teachers could give their learners a particular brochure so that they can create their own piece of writing once they have read it. After students have read and analysed the giving brochure, they create their own one.

As regards the pedagogically- oriented approach, the learning theories are essential to motivate students to read. Therefore, students have the opportunity to choose from a given set of materials provided by the teacher. They select what they want to read and work at their own pace. In this way, pupils feel strongly motivated to read because they can read and work on what they really appreciate.

In conclusion, reading should be emphasized in order to develop the ability of writing, because the more we read, the better we write. Once students have been engaged in the process of reading, they will develop their own writing processes. Both processes are closely related to each other.



Reference

Jordan, R. (1997). English for Academic Purposes – A guide and resource book for teachers. Cambridge, UK: CUP.