阅读课的三大教学重点

俄罗丝

　　在新东方的阅读教学中，准确地说就是泛读教学，即教授学生如何在有限的词汇和语法基础下，更有效地从文章中得到最多的信息。要做到这些，就必须注意阅读课要培养的三大能力：猜测能力（或推理能力）、把握作者观点能力和段落或文章概括能力。
　　1. 首先，猜测能力主要指联系上下文，结合词根、词缀，对于生词的推理能力。要具备这个能力，首先要明白英文的表达习惯 ---vocabulary and syntax variety. 所以，遇到生词首先要考虑上下文中一定有其同意但不同形的表达。
　　例如：Children always appreciate small gifts of money. Mum or dad, of course, provide a regular supply of pocket money, but uncles and aunts are always a source of extra income. With some children, small sums go a long way. If fifty pence pieces are not exchanged for sweets, they rattle for months inside money boxes. Only very thrifty children manage to fill up a money box. For most of them, fifty pence is a small price to pay for a nice big bar of chocolate.
　　这段话反复出现了"零花钱"，即pocket money，可是表达方式迥异。零花钱的固定说法是'pocket money', 但对于家长而言，属于'small gifts of money'；对于孩子而言, 父母给了，叔叔阿姨再给就属于 'extra income'. 这些小数目的钱（small sums）可能在当时那个年代基本都是'五毛钱'，所以文章接着使用了象征词 'fifty pence pieces'和 'fifty pence'.
　　但作为教师，应当在纷繁复杂的现象背后给学生概括出切实可用的规律。通过上面的分析，不难看出，丰富词汇表达的途径主要有：同义词（或近义词）替换，词性变换和解释说明三个方法。这个结论不但有助于阅读理解，同样可以帮助学生在写作中丰富表达，因为阅读和写作就是个逆过程，前者要把复杂的问题简单化，后者是要把简单的问题复杂化。
　　目前的高考和四、六级考试中专门有生词猜测题，例如：
　　I looked at it closely. She had made a crooked line. At the center of the quilt, she had stitched a piece of cloth with these words: 'My mother made many quilts. She didn't get all lines straight. But I think this is beautiful. I want to see it finished. Her last quilt.'(2008 全国高考)
　　A. unfinished  B. broken
　　C. bent          D. unusual
　　跟下划线的单词最有关系的信息就是not straight，所以正确答案是A. 该题目中利用的就是反义词替换原则。
　　Music was not the only gulf. From clothing and hairstyles to activities and expectations, earlier generations of parents and children often appeared to move in separate orbits. (08 广东高考)
　　A. interest     B. distance
　　C. difference   D. separation
　　与Gulf有直接关系的词就是separate，所以答案即是C.本题利用的是词性变换的原则。
　　2. 其次，把握作者大意是一切文章阅读的关键。中国学生最容易钻到文章中摘取字词句的"奇花异草"而忽略掉文章作为整体所要传达的central idea.大体来讲，作者的大意主要出现在三个地方，即首尾句、例证前、转折后。我们分别看下面的三个例子：
　　Most of us have formed an unrealistic picture of life on a desert island. We sometimes imagine a desert island to be a sort of paradise where the sun always shines.  Life there is simple and good. Ripe fruit falls from the trees and you never have to work. The other side of the picture is quite the opposite. Life on a desert island is wretched. You either starve to death or live like Robinson Crusoe, Waiting for a boat which never comes. Perhaps there is an element of truth in both these pictures, but few of us have had the opportunity to find out.（首尾句）
　　These days, people who do manual work often receive far more money than people who work in offices. People who work in offices are frequently referred to as 'white-collar workers' for the simple reason that they usually wear a collar and tie to go to work. Such is human nature, that a great many people are often willing to sacrifice higher pay for the privilege of becoming white-collar workers. This can give rise to curious situations, as it did in the case of Alfred Bloggs who worked as a dustman for the Ellesmere Corporation.（例证前）
　　We are less credulous than we used to be. In the nineteenth century, a novelist would bring his story to a conclusion by presenting his readers with a series of coincidences -- most of them wildly improbable. Readers happily accepted the fact that an obscure maidservant was really the hero's mother. A long-lost brother, who was presumed dead, was really alive all the time and wickedly plotting to bring about the hero's downfall. And so on. Modern readers would find such naive solutions totally unacceptable. Yet, in real life, circumstances do sometimes conspire to bring about coincidences which anyone but a nineteenth century novelist would find incredible.（转折后）
　　把握了这几点，找出文章的中心思想就很容易了。例如：
　　Protected by third-party payers from the cost of our care, we demand everything that can possibly be done for us, even if it's useless. The most obvious example is late-stage cancer care. Physicians --- frustrated by their inability to cure the disease and fearing loss of hope in the patient---- too often offer aggressive treatment far beyond what is scientifically justified. （03考研）
　　The author uses the example of cancer patients to show that ____
　　A. medical resources are often wasted.
　　B. doctors are helpless against fatal disease.
　　C. some treatments are too aggressive.
　　D. medical costs are becoming unaffordable.
　　分析：该题是典型的例证题，例证题答案就是作者观点，也可以认为该题目是主旨题。根据上文"例子前找观点"的方法（因为作者无论给出多少例子始终是想证明自己的观点），结合关键信息 "even if it's useless", 不难看出正确答案应当是A.
　　3. 最后，段落或文章大意的概括能力是写作的前提。它要求学生在找到主旨句，即作者观点的前提下，使用推理、例证、分类、对比或因果法，点面结合地概括出文章大意。教师可以尝试让学生经常做summary writing. 起初可先给出若干问题让学生回答，待回答完毕后再将所回答答案串联成一个段落，然后逐渐过渡到取消回答问题，直接让学生提炼段落或文章中心和细节， 进行归纳。
　　例如：不超过80字，给出该段话的summary writing.
　　The hunt for the puma began in a small village where a woman picking blackberries saw 'a large cat' only five yards away from her. It immediately ran away when she saw it, and experts confirmed that a puma will not attack a human being unless it is cornered. The search proved difficult, for the puma was often observed at one place in the morning and at another place twenty miles away in the evening. Wherever it went, it left behind it a trail of dead deer and small animals like rabbits. Paw prints were seen in a number of places and puma fur was found clinging to bushes. Several people complained of 'cat-like noises' at night and a businessman on a fishing trip saw the puma up a tree. The experts were now fully convinced that the animal was a puma, but where had it come from? As no pumas had been reported missing from any zoo in the country, this one must have been in the possession of a private collector and somehow managed to escape. The hunt went on for several weeks, but the puma was not caught. It is disturbing to think that a dangerous wild animal is still at large in the quiet countryside.
　　不难看出，本段话作者观点应是最后两句。但要写出summary writing，只有主题句是不够的，也需要必要的细节，其实这个就是作写作中的例证法。老师可以先给出与必要细节有关的问题让学生回答，诱出关键信息，然后再让学生组成句子和段落。其实写作就是在这个过程中锻炼出来的，因为任何写作都是有两部分组成：central idea 和supporting evidence；充分的summary writing练习还可以锻炼学生的close connection, coherence and cohesion的能力。比如：
　　Where did the search begin and what did the experts confirm?
　　Why was the search difficult?
　　What had 'the puma' probably done wherever it went?
　　What did the hunt turn out to be in the end? （主旨句）
　　大概的结果如下所示：
　　At first, a woman in a village saw a 'large cat' in her vicinity and experts confirmed the impossibility of pumas' attacking human beings except being cornered. The search proved difficult, for the animal was always moving around, leaving behind it paw prints, puma fur and dead small animals etc. Although experts were fully convinced of its identity, the puma was still at large in the quiet countryside, disturbing the local people just at the thought of it. (78 words)