К.пед.н. Гапон Ю.А.

Киевский национальный авиационный университет

TEACHING COMMUNICATIVE READING

TO STUDENT TRANSLATORS

The factors which determine the content and sequence of exercises used in teaching communicative reading are represented by the following skills: 1) to sort out specific information; 2) to generalize facts; 3) to compare separate parts of the text in order to arrange described facts and events in a logical sequence, group or classify facts, identify logical connection between events or phenomena, find the beginning and end of a theme, etc.; 4) to draw personal conclusions or make predictions on the basis of received information; 5) to evaluate facts; 6) to interpret (construe, explain, comment upon) received information [3]. Actually, these very skills enable proficient readers to satisfy their communicative needs and comprise the objectives of teaching communicative reading at proficiency levels C1 and C2 [4].

Separate presentation of skills in communicative reading does not mean, however, that one should learn/teach them separately. This artificial isolation is done for the sake of psychological analysis of reading as complicated mental activity which is to be acquired. In communicative reading, as well as in all other types of speech activity, all skills comprising communicative competence are closely interrelated. That is why when designing an exercise aimed at training a certain communicative skill one should understand that this skill, inseparable from others, is just a target one which is intentionally motivated by a task-based instruction and subjected to pedagogic control, evaluation and (self)assessment. The didactic potential of the exercises is evident: training a target skill is inevitably accompanied by the necessity to perform all or several other skills mentioned above.

The nominal differentiation of skills comprising the communicative competence of reading does not prevent from determining the succession of exercises, which allows step-by-step training. Quite the contrary, a careful psychological analysis of the skills allows determining such a succession.

To do this, suffice it to remember that psychologists single out three levels of thinking: active, independent, and creative; each level which comes after being specific relative to the previous, generic, one. Creative thinking is always independent and active, but active thinking is not always independent, and, similarly, independent thinking is not always active [2, 178]. That is why, from the methodological point of view, the following conclusion appears to be quite reasonable: a succession of tasks within the complex of exercises in communicative reading should facilitate motivation of learners’ thinking activity at different levels of complexity which, in their turn, are based on different skills starting with less complicated skills (see 1), 2), 3) in the list given above) and finishing with more complicated, creative skills in drawing conclusions (4), evaluating facts (5); and interpreting information (6).

To correlate these skills with the corresponding levels of thinking activity is not a difficult task if one divides the skills into two groups: 1) the group of reproductive skills and 2) the group of productive, or creative ones. Accordingly, mental activity associated with communicative reading, as well as exercises in reading, will be performed at reproductive (sorting out, generalizing, comparing) and productive (drawing conclusions, evaluating facts, interpreting information) levels.

At the reproductive level learners practise their reproductive skills (to sort out, generalize, compare) which require active thinking.

At the productive level the skills in drawing conclusions, evaluating, and interpreting are trained. These productive skills are based on reproductive skills which along with active thinking also call for independent (drawing conclusions, evaluating facts) and creative (interpreting) thinking. In the process of independent and creative thinking, learners carry out a heuristic search of a communicative task decision and independently conclude a new knowledge which is not expressed explicitly in the text.

Careful analysis of the skills recognized as indispensable and sufficient for successful development of communicative reading competence made possible to design the following structure and content of the system of exercises used in teaching communicative reading to linguistic university students.

1. Reproductive exercises to teach/learn

the skill in sorting out specific information.

Example:

You are writing an essay on XXX in the reading hall of foreign language periodicals. You have a list of literary sources you’ve copied out of the subject directory and the journal file.

Choose the literary sources from the list, which, to your mind, may contain specific information on the theme. Out of the sources chosen, pick those concerned with the specific problem of YYY. Read the summaries of the articles to determine the one which contains the information you need. Find the part/parts of the text where the problem of YYY is discussed.

2. Reproductive exercises to teach/learn

the skill in generalizing.

Example:

The main criticism of your scientific advisor about your coursework is that numerous theoretical premises of different scientists cited in the text of the coursework need to be generalized in the context of the problem you study.

Which of the following sentences could be added to the text to eliminate the shortcoming? Point out the appropriate places in the text.

In this exercise textual material is followed by a list of 5-7 sentences. Some of them generalize the most informative parts of the text. Learners are to choose the sentences which answer the task.

3. Reproductive exercises to teach/learn

the skill in comparing separate parts of the text.

Example:

Your scientific advisor argues that the table of contents of your coursework is too detailed and does not reflect the logic of the text.

Correct the table of contents to represent the key information and the order of its presentation.

The table of contents offered in this exercise includes both key information and insignificant details of the text that follows; the order of true items does not answer the logic of the text.

4. Productive exercises to teach/learn the skill in drawing conclusions.

Example:

Two reviews of your article contain different opinions as for the practical value of the data discussed.

Be ready to discuss your readers’ opinion.

Textual material of this exercise includes an informative article which relates to learners’ educational or vocational domain and does not contain any conclusions or generalizations, and two reviews which contain different conclusions / generalizations.

This exercise can be designed in two versions: a simplified, when one of two reviews contains a true conclusion, and more difficult one, when both conclusions are invalid, and learners have to draw their own conclusions.

5. Productive exercises to teach/learn the skill in evaluating facts.

Example:

Your scientific advisor recommended that you should be ready to answer the questions which seem highly likely after your report at the Students’ International Conference.

Read for the Conference.

A printed copy of a learner’s report and “possible” questions comprise textual material of this exercise. It is extremely important that questions motivate learners’ evaluating production.

6. Productive exercises to teach/learn the skill in interpreting information.

Example:

You work as a translator for a Ukrainian Company. The content of the 3-d and 5-th paragraphs of this document is not clear to the user of your translation.

Make the meaning of the passages simple and direct.

The discussed system of exercises acquires specific assign in training student translators in an academic setting as it aims to develop the skills which comprise the linguistic competence in written interlingua mediation, i.e. fosters learners’ ability to comprehend written texts “in the translator’s way” (“по-переводчески” [1, 24]): extremely thorough and complete, moving from formal denotative structures to specific contextually approved meanings and vice-versa.

Литература:

1. Комиссаров В.Н. Современное переводоведение. Учебное пособие.

– М.: ЭТС, 2001. – 424 с.

2. Крутецкий В.А. Основы педагогической психологии. – М.: Просвещение, 1972. – С.178.

3. Фоломкина С.К. Обучение чтению на иностранном языке в неязыковом вузе – М.: Высшая школа, 1987. – 208 с.

4. Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching and Assessment. URL: http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/ CADRE_EN