二 新知导入

二 新知导入

英语阅读习惯:

每个学习者都有自己特定的阅读习惯,也可以称为阅读风格。一般而言,采用自下而上模式(Bottom-up)的学习者倾向于将注意力集中在字词的细节或者句子的语法结构上;采用自上而下模式(Top-down)的学习者则相反,倾向于关注文章的整体结构和篇章大意;而最后一种使用相互作用模式(Interactive)的学习者则是前两种的结合,同时运用以上两种方式进行阅读(程晓堂,郑敏,2002)。

英语阅读过程:

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通过总结过往学者在阅读学习策略方面给出的建议(文秋芳,1996;程晓堂,郑敏,2002;鲁子问,康淑敏,2008;何少庆,2010;顾永琦,2011),可知常见的阅读过程策略包括读前、读中和读后的元认知和认知策略。读前活动主要包括激活图式和预测内容;读中活动主要围绕阅读文本进行,通过略读、寻读、推断等对文本进行理解和赏析;读后活动主要是引发读者结合自己知识和经历,对文本主题和内容进行深度思考、评价以及批判等。具体如下:

1.激活图式

图式理论认为,文本理解是读者背景知识和文本内容之间互动的过程。有效的阅读需要读者具备将文本材料与自身知识相关联的能力。(Carrell,1984)那么,在阅读之前调取图式,有助于在阅读文章时更好地理解文章内容。

读前环节可以激活的图式主要有两种:内容图式和修辞图式。

内容图式是关于文章内容的知识,比如通过标题可以较快地判断是否熟悉这篇文章所讨论的主题。而修辞图式是关于这篇文章的体裁,包括常见文体对应的结构和形式,比如阅读记叙文时需要关注故事的主人公、情节发展,而如果是议论文就要留心辨别文章中的不同观点。

2.预测内容

预测内容和激活图式息息相关,很多时候这两个环节是同时进行的。有标题时可以通过标题,没有标题时可以通过标题或段落首句来预测文本的主要内容。如果文章配有图片或图表,也能在预测时起到作用。与此同时,还可以通过标题、首句等中的关键词,来预测文本结构和可能存在的作者态度

案例:

There are three reasons why some students cannot finish their college studies.Some students fail in college because their academic background is weak.For example,one student might not have had an adequate mathematics course in high school,so he fails his university math class.Another student may not attend classes regularly; as a result,he may not be able to pass the tests in class since he does not know the answers.Next,because of financial problems,other students may fail university classes.For example,students who have to take jobs don’t have as much time to study; consequently,they may fail their classes.Others may give up their college study because they cannot stand the strain of working and studying at the same time.Finally,there are students who fail because their energies are not directed toward their classes.Some of these students are not interested in college,so they spend their days doing other things.Some other students,though enjoying college life,are distracted by other activities,parties,movies,sports,etc.So they do not study enough,therefore,they fail.Because of all these problems,numerous students fail in college every year.

阅读上面这段文章节选,首先,迅速浏览首句“There are three reasons why some students cannot finish their college studies.”来激活图式。抓住关键词college studies,很容易结合个人经历产生联想:完成大学学业需要修满足够的学分,或者这些学分是由必修课、选修课等不同类型的课程组成;获得任何一门课的学分主要包含上课、参加课程活动、通过课程考试等环节。

接着,关注句子里的“...reasons why...”,既然是讨论原因,那么这段话的文体应该不会是叙事或描写,而应该是议论或者说明,最有可能的是一篇说明文里按照因果关系展开的段落。

在回想所知的有关college studies的内容时,对文章的内容进行了同步预测:比如这段话可能也会讲完成学习需要修满学分、大学的课程类型等;这段话要分析部分大学生不能完成学业的原因,那原因可能是哪些?相对客观的原因可能是所学专业难度大、门槛高、严进严出;主观的原因可能是专业和个人兴趣不匹配、课程太难,或者是个人把重心放到了学业之外的社团活动上等。

在激活图式时,还可以通过“...reasons why...”句型,回想所读文章如何按照因果关系展开段落,并进一步预测这个段落的结构。既然有三个原因,那在展开段落时应该就会分点叙述原因,并可能用到first,second,next,finally等连接词。

3.略读(Skimming)

略读关注的是文章的大意或中心思想,而不是细节。略读时,首先浏览文章的大标题、小标题,关注以加粗、划线等方式强调的部分,从而迅速判断文章的主要内容。

除此之外,略读时还应注重文章的第一段和最后一段,以及各段的第一句和最后一句。因为首段通常是引出话题或对全篇的概括,尾段往往是总结。在段落中同理,首句通常是主题句,末句通常是结论句。略读时抓住上述部分,可以在短时间内掌握文章的主要内容或论点,对整体的线索和脉络建立初步印象。

4.寻读(Scanning)

寻读和略读相伴出现,但目的和略读相反,不是关注文章大意和整体脉络,而是为了寻找特定细节。在寻读的过程中,根据题目信息到原文中准确定位非常关键。寻读可以建立在扫读的基础上,在对文章大意和结构有了初步了解后,根据题目要求回到文中搜寻对应的时间、地点、人物、方式、因果等具体信息。

5.推断(Making an Inference)

推断在阅读的过程中也非常重要。推断既可以是结合上下文推测生词的意思(Guess meanings of new words from the context),也可以是结合上下文和篇章逻辑,推测句子的内容(Read between the lines)。

在推测生词意思时,可以采用以下方法:(1)根据定义线索猜测词义,比如文章中出现的which means,in other words,be known as,namely等标志性短语;(2)利用同/近义词和反义词猜测词义,比如在陌生的单词附近可能会有类似的表达和重述,而在表示转折的连接词或短语如although,but,however,instead,on the contrary,on the other hand,in contrast等后面,就可能出现和前面表述相反的词汇。

在推测句意时,则需要比推测词义更进一步的分析和思考。推测句意要求的是read between the lines,“to find meanings that are intended but that are not directly expressed in something said or written”(Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary)。 在阅读中根据上下文推测出作者未直接言明的意图。

6.过程监控

在整个阅读过程中,还需要运用元认知策略中的过程监控策略,一边阅读一边思考。比如,在读前进行了预测,那么在读中可以根据所读修订之前的预测;过程中根据阅读目的和阅读重点调整注意力和专注度;根据阅读时间和阅读量调整自己的阅读速度;及时检查所用的阅读方法是否恰当,比如是否采用了寻读的方法来回答事实细节题;以及在回答推理判断题时,是否从文中找到了有用的线索作为依据,并通过分析、综合等进行逻辑推理得出结论,避免主观臆断。

案例:

请看下面这篇文章选段(选自2018年六级考试真题):

Peer Pressure Has a Positive Side

A) Parents of teenagers often view their children’s friends with something like suspicion.They worry that the adolescent peer group has the power to push its members into behavior that is foolish and even dangerous.Such wariness is well founded: statistics show,for example,that a teenage driver with a same-age passenger in the car is at higher risk of a fatal crash than an adolescent driving alone or with an adult.

B) In a 2005 study,psychologist Laurence Steinberg of Temple University and his coauthor,psychologist Margo Gardner,then at Temple,divided 306 people into three age groups: young adolescents,with a mean age of 14; older adolescents,with a mean age of 19;and adults,aged 24 and older.Subjects played a computerized driving game in which the player must avoid crashing into a wall that materializes,without warning,on the roadway.Steinberg and Gardner randomly assigned some participants to play lone or with two sameage peers looking on.

C) Older adolescents scored about 50 percent higher on an index of risky driving when their peers were in the room—and the driving of early adolescents was fully twice as reckless when other young teens were around.In contrast,adults behaved in similar ways regardless of whether they were on their own or observed by others.“The presence of peers makes adolescents and youth,but not adults,more likely to take risks,” Steinberg and Gardner concluded.

D) Yet in the years following the publication of this study,Steinberg began to believe that this interpretation did not capture the whole picture.As he and other researchers examined the question of why teens were more apt to take risks in the company of other teenagers,they came to suspect that a crowd’s influence need not always be negative.Now some experts are proposing that we should take advantage of the teen brain’s keen sensitivity to the presence of friends and leverage it to improve education.

E) In a 2011 study,Steinberg and his colleagues turned to functional MRI (磁共振) to investigate how the presence of peers affects the activity in the adolescent brain.They scanned the brains of 40 teens and adults who were playing a virtual driving game designed to test whether players would brake at a yellow light or speed on through the crossroad.

拿到材料后,首先略读这篇选段,通过标题“Peer Pressure Has a Positive Side”不难判断,这篇文章的主要内容是同辈压力,强调同辈压力的积极面,也会提及同辈压力的消极面。同时,A段主题句“Parents of teenagers often view their children’s friends with something like suspicion”为peer pressure的negative side定调,而D段主题句“Yet in the years following the publication of this study,Steinberg began to believe that this interpretation did not capture the whole picture.”笔锋一转,指出也许关于negative side的印象不够全面,D段结论句“Now some experts are proposing that we should take advantage of the teen brain’s keen sensitivity to the presence of friends and leverage it to improve education.”点明了本篇的重点是探讨是否可以利用peer pressure产生积极影响。

接下来,通过寻读定位重点信息,进行细节阅读时,可能会遇到生词。遇到生词时不要着急,要留心和关联上下文的线索,大胆进行词义猜测。比如A段中的这句话“Such wariness is well founded: statistics show,for example,that a teenage driver with a same-age passenger in the car is at higher risk of a fatal crash than an adolescent driving alone or with an adult.”其中的wariness也许不熟悉,但是放在语境中,后面有冒号解释,给出具体的wariness情景;而wariness前面的单词such,说明前文中也有和wariness相对应的表述,这样结合来看,不难得出前一句话“They worry that the adolescent peer group has the power to push its members into behavior that is foolish and even dangerous.”其实就是wariness的内容,它的意思和worry作名词时相近。

7.评价与反思

要提升阅读质量,评价与反思必不可少,主要可以从两个方面进行评估:自己设定的阅读目标是否已经实现;文章在内容和难度上是否满足自己的阅读目标或要求。

将内容和所设定的目标相结合进行评价是因为在之前的学习中,了解到了图式的重要性,那么在平时的练习中,可以有意识地拓展阅读话题的多样性,扩充自己的图式储备。而从难度上进行评价,参考Krashen(1989)的输入假说(Input Hypothesis),所选择的材料应该在难度上略高于现有水平,保持足够的可理解的语言输入,才能有效提高语言能力。如果你发现所选择的阅读材料非常简单,或者过于困难,都是不合适的材料。需要寻找同话题的阅读材料,丰富对该话题的背景知识的同时,强化对相关内容和语言表达的印象。

8.总结与改进

读完文章后,还可以就评价与反思的内容进行归纳,并思考如何在下一次阅读练习中加以改进。比如可以总结本次阅读收获、自己的表现、为解决问题采用了哪些恰当的阅读策略等,并思考如何将用过的阅读策略迁移到新的阅读任务中,或者在阅读后找出自己的弱点并考虑改进措施,制订后续阅读练习的目标。