READING SKILLS:

SCAN, SKIM

Activity 1: Scanning
Scanning is reading rapidly in order to find specific facts.

Look quickly through the list of names and find your friend’s name, Ghani, on it.

Gan Leng Yee Geetha Ghulam

1.1 Did you go through every name to find Ghani’s name on the list?

1.2 How scanning is done?

1.3 Exercise

Read the following text quickly and fill in the table. What do the numbers given in the table
refer to?

1%  
2%  
6%  
13%  
16%  
30%  
3/4  
86%  

Spoon-fed feel lost at the cutting edge

Before arriving at university students will have been powerfully influenced by their
school's approach to learning particular subjects. Yet this is only rarely taken into account by
teachers in higher education, according to new research carried out at Nottingham University,
which could explain why so many students experience problems making the transition.
Historian Alan Booth says there is a growing feeling on both sides of the Atlantic that
the shift from school to university-style learning could be vastly improved. But little
consensus exists about who or what is at fault when the students cannot cope. "School
teachers commonly blame the poor quality of university teaching, citing factors such as large
first-year lectures, the widespread use of inexperienced postgraduate tutors and the general
lack of concern for students in an environment where research is dominant in career
progression," Dr Booth said.
 Many university tutors on the other hand claim that the school system is failing to
prepare students for what will be expected of them at university. A-level history in particular
is seen to be teacher-dominated, creating a passive dependency culture.
But while both sides are bent on attacking each other, little is heard during such exchanges
from the students themselves, according to Dr Booth, who has devised a questionnaire to test
the views of more than 200 first-year history students at Nottingham over a three-year period.
The students were asked about their experience of how history is taught at the outset of their
degree programme. It quickly became clear that teaching methods in school were pretty staid.
About 30 per cent of respondents claimed to have made significant use of primary
sources (few felt very confident in handling them) and this had mostly been in connection
with project work. Only 16 per cent had used video/audio; 2 per cent had experienced field
trips and less than 1 per cent had engaged in role-play.
Dr Booth found students and teachers were frequently restricted by the assessment
style which remains dominated by exams. These put obstacles in the way of more
adventurous teaching and active learning, he said. Of the students in the survey just 13 per
cent felt their A-level course had prepared them very well for work at university. Three-
quarters felt it had prepared them fairly well.
One typical comment sums up the contrasting approach: "At A-level we tended to be
spoon-fed with dictated notes and if we were told to do any background reading (which was
rare) we were told exactly which pages to read out of the book".
To test this further the students were asked how well they were prepared in specific skills
central to degree level history study. The answers reveal that the students felt most confident
at taking notes from lectures and organising their notes. They were least able to give an oral
presentation and there was no great confidence in contributing to seminars, knowing how
much to read, using primary sources and searching for texts. Even reading and taking notes
from a book were often problematic. Just 6 per cent of the sample said they felt competent at
writing essays, the staple A level assessment activity.
The personal influence of the teacher was paramount. In fact individual teachers were
the centre of students' learning at A level with some 86 per cent of respondents reporting that
their teachers had been more influential in their development as historians than the students'
own reading and thinking.
The ideal teacher turned out to be someone who was enthusiastic about the subject; a
good clear communicator who encouraged discussion. The ideal teacher was able to develop
students involvement and independence. He or she was approachable and willing to help. The
bad teacher, according to the survey, dictates notes and allows no room for discussion. He or
she makes students learn strings of facts; appears uninterested in the subject and fails to listen
to other points of view.
No matter how poor the students judged their preparedness for degree-level study,
however, there was a fairly widespread optimism that the experience would change them
significantly, particularly in terms of their open mindedness and ability to cope with people.
But it was clear, Dr Booth said, that the importance attached by many departments to
third-year teaching could be misplaced. "Very often tutors regard the third year as the crucial
time, allowing postgraduates to do a lot of the earlier teaching. But I am coming to the
conclusion that the first year at university is the critical point of intervention".
Alison Utley, Times Higher Education Supplement. February 6th, 1998.
Activity 2: Skimming
Skimming is reading rapidly in order to get a general overview of the material.
Example: Read the first sentence of each paragraph in the following text.

THE PERSONAL QUALITIES OF A TEACHER

Here I want to try to give you an answer to the question: What personal qualities are
desirable in a teacher? Probably no two people would draw up exactly similar lists, but I
think the following would be generally accepted.
First, the teacher's personality should be pleasantly live and attractive. This does not
rule out people who are physically plain, or even ugly, because many such have great
personal charm. But it does rule out such types as the over-excitable, melancholy, frigid,
sarcastic, cynical, frustrated, and over-bearing : I would say too, that it excludes all of dull or
purely negative personality. I still stick to what I said in my earlier book: that school children
probably 'suffer more from bores than from brutes'.
Secondly, it is not merely desirable but essential for a teacher to have a genuine
capacity for sympathy - in the literal meaning of that word; a capacity to tune in to the minds
and feelings of other people, especially, since most teachers are school teachers, to the minds
and feelings of children. Closely related with this is the capacity to be tolerant - not, indeed,
of what is wrong, but of the frailty and immaturity of human nature which induce people, and
again especially children, to make mistakes.
Thirdly, I hold it essential for a teacher to be both intellectually and morally honest.
This does not mean being a plaster saint. It means that he will be aware of his intellectual
strengths, and limitations, and will have thought about and decided upon the moral principles
by which his life shall be guided. There is no contradiction in my going on to say that a
teacher should be a bit of an actor. That is part of the technique of teaching, which demands
that every now and then a teacher should be able to put on an act - to enliven a lesson, correct
a fault, or award praise. Children, especially young children, live in a world that is rather
larger than life.
A teacher must remain mentally alert. He will not get into the profession if of low
intelligence, but it is all too easy, even for people of above-average intelligence, to stagnate
intellectually - and that means to deteriorate intellectually. A teacher must be quick to adapt
himself to any situation, however improbable and able to improvise, if necessary at less than
a moment's notice. (Here I should stress that I use 'he' and 'his' throughout the book simply as
a matter of convention and convenience.)
On the other hand, a teacher must be capable of infinite patience. This, I may say, is
largely a matter of self-discipline and self-training; we are none of us born like that. He must
be pretty resilient; teaching makes great demands on nervous energy. And he should be able
to take in his stride the innumerable petty irritations any adult dealing with children has to
endure.
Finally, I think a teacher should have the kind of mind which always wants to go on
learning. Teaching is a job at which one will never be perfect; there is always something
more to learn about it. There are three principal objects of study: the subject, or subjects,
which the teacher is teaching; the methods by which they can best be taught to the particular
pupils in the classes he is teaching; and - by far the most important - the children, young
people, or adults to whom they are to be taught. The two cardinal principles of British
education today are that education is education of the whole person, and that it is best
acquired through full and active co-operation between two persons, the teacher and the
learner.
(From Teaching as a Career, by H. C. Dent)
2.1 Write down the main ideas of the above text?

2.2 How skimming is done?