On Using Current Popular Magazine Articles For Teaching Extensive Reading

Material selection has long been one of the controversial problems in teaching of reading, including extensive reading. Although an agreement on this problem is hard to reach, one point has so far been commonly accepted that reading materials should provide learner readers with sufficient new and useful information relevant to their reading goals.Currently available extensive reading textbooks are undoubtedly well designed to present all kinds of authentic materials, yet they still share some disadvantages. In an era characterized by booming information and fierce competition, the materials included in the extensive reading textbooks appear to be outdated when the books are published and ready for use. Therefore, they have little appeal to the learner readers. Moreover, once the books are made, it is hard to add new materials to them.In addition to these disadvantages, one more factor that is responsible for the text's lack of appeal is that the material selection is mainly bookmaker-centered rather than learner-centered with little regard to learner readers' reading goals. In practice, it is very difficult for such materials to become learner authentic. As a result, the textually authentic materials appear to be unauthentic to the learner readers during the reading process.It is hard to decide how to select extensive reading passages.This paper is devoted to the focused study on material selection problem based on the analysis of the first hand data collected through close observation of learner readers' performance in the extensive reading activities, their various attitudes towards texts included in the currently available extensive reading textbooks, and data collected from an open survey as well as a controlled survey of learner readers' reading preference.The paper is divided into five chapters. Chapters one, two, and three expound, analyze and justify the hypotheses I put forward in this paper:1. Any materials providing learner readers with updated, useful information fit in with their reading goals are readable to them despite certain degree of linguistic difficulty which just makes the material challenging enough for learner readers. Readability involves not only linguistic complexity but also factors such as interests, curiosity, newness, relevance and usefulness. Thus, during the course of material selection we should emphasize suitability of contents instead of overemphasizing difficulty level.2. The lack of learner authenticity resulted from the outdatedness of the materials and the lack of sufficient materials for focused reading demotivate learner readers and hamper their development of ability to comprehend various materials. Both factors are responsible for the low efficiency of extensive reading process.3. Current popular magazine articles as extensive reading materials are acceptable to learner readers. Journalistic language used in popular magazines is generally simple, precise and poised. Magazines can provide the learnerreaders with sufficient materials rich in various, new, interesting and useful information relevant to their needs and motivate them to engage themselves in focused reading on a variety of topics so as to improve their reading comprehension effectively. In addition to linguistic competence and prior knowledge already acquired by the learners, teachers' guidance and necessary simplification of materials make it highly feasible to use current popular magazine articles for the teaching / learning of extensive reading.Chapter four is an account of a controlled survey of learner readers' preference, which is conducted to test the feasibility of using current popular magazine articles for teaching extensive reading. Chapter five expounds that potential problems in using current popular magazine articles for teaching/learning extensive reading such as the necessity of constant searching for new materials, assessing the suitability of the materials and learner readers' achievement can well be resolved through the cooperation among the teach...