Individual Teaching Theory And Practice In The Teaching Of English Reading

Reading is regarded as the most important part of college English teaching. The syllabus of college English teaching sets the development of students' reading ability as one of its primary objectives. However, as far as I have studied, there are still some problems in this aspect.The first part of this paper introduces some English reading theories, including "what is reading", "how do we read", "why do we read", "what do we read" and the principles in reading instruction. Then it summarizes the problems still existing in English reading instruction in Chinese colleges.The second part focuses on the individualized instruction. The individualized instruction refers to learner-centered instruction in which content, pacing, instructional sequence, instructional media and approaches are determined by the learning needs, abilities and attitudes of individual students. As a main research and practice domain in educational technology, individualized instruction combines teaching and learning effectively so as to improve the quality of instruction. Instructional media, especially multimedia computer and the Internet, plays an important role in this area.The third part of the paper studies how to apply individualized instruction theory and instructional design theory to college English reading instruction. The design of the courseware, based on these theories, is consistent with the teaching principles of individualized instruction. The courseware is designed to help the students improve their reading abilities and learning efficiency and to make reading instruction more effective, efficient and appealing.The courseware has nine functions, namely, saving the personal information of the learners, classifying learners' reading level by testing, diversifying presentation of the content, feedback and self-assessment system, powerful interactivity, etc.These functions not only represent the features and principles of individualized instruction, but also improve the individual learning ability of college English learners.In conclusion, the theory of individualized instruction can improve the effect of college English Instruction. And the individualized courseware can help college English learners to improve their reading ability.