Nowadays, learning foreign languages is of great importance in connection with the processes of globalization and, accordingly, the changing role and functions of foreign languages in modern society. Foreign languages have become a necessary tool in the field of professional activity; moreover, skills and abilities to communicate in foreign languages in both written and oral forms are included in the professional competence of a specialist.
One of the main functions of any foreign language in the activity of a specialist is reading foreign-language professional texts. That function results in rather complicated issue for each specialist: what and how to read in a foreign language. Then comes the questions concerning the strategies to be applied while reading authentic foreign literature and the ways to improve the reading technique.
The foreign language technique should be taught purposefully and consistently, especially in terms of reduced number of hours for foreign language teaching at higher educational institutions.
There are 3 types of text reading depending on the goals:
1. Skimming – determining the topic of a given text after a quick review, without specifying the details.
2. Scanning – search for information relying on the questions formulated for the text.
3. Intensive reading – complete understanding of factual information.
Skimming means a reading type, which task is to obtain only a general idea of the text. Skimming of scientific text can be used when getting acquainted with the content of a textbook, study guide, monograph or article. In addition, this type of reading is necessary to understand what is being discussed in a particular scientific text. The minimum speed of text skimming is 400 - 500 words per minute [1].
Formation of anticipation skills while skimming plays a special role. Student must master special techniques for effective implementation of skimming skills in terms of authentic texts: anticipatory prediction of the text content on the basis of its title, subtitle, illustration, and keywords.
The text stage corresponds to such tasks of project work as collection, accumulation, and comprehension of information. In the context of teaching skimming skills, this stage is aimed at the formation of skills to find quickly and comprehend effectively the main points of the text, identify its subject, find and select certain information. It should be emphasized that this stage is not limited only to reading, which is explained by the specifics of the project method as a technology, in which all types of speech activity are involved comprehensively: students also discuss and evaluate data, exchange information [2].
What types of test items are used to test skimming skills?
Task type “true/false statements”. The task features are as follows:
• These tasks must correspond in their order to the content of the proposed text.
• These tasks should only be used to test reading skills at levels A1 and A2.
• To test reading skills at higher levels (beginning with level B1), the task type “true/false statements/text does not give any information about it” should be used.
Task type “finding matches” or “selection”. The object of control of this task variety is the selection of headings for texts or text paragraphs, the text-statement correspondence etc. It is important when compiling such tasks for testing skimming skills that the tasks should be placed after the texts, since the test-takers must read the texts first, and then complete the tasks. A feature of these tasks is that they can be arranged in any sequence, with no correspondence to the information delivery in the texts.
Task type “multiple choice”. The main features here are as follows:
• Tasks should not be interdependent, i.e. the answer to one question should not affect the answer to the next question.
• There are always three or four choices (options), of which only one must be unambiguously correct.
• All options must be of the same complexity, length, and structure.
Thus, there is a wide variety of tasks to monitor skimming skills; each of them is characterized by their own principles and specifics. The author of test items should define clearly the test purpose and select the appropriate type of item in accordance with the specified purpose.
References:
1. https://stud.com.ua/166398/literatura/vidi_chitannya.
2. Teaching skimming skills involving project methodology in terms of English-language news media in the 10th form of the school with in-depth study of English / H. І. Podosynnikova, О. V. Ruban // Foreign languages. – 2016. – No. 3. – Pp. 3 – 10.
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