EFFECTIVE METHODS FOR TEACHING READING IN ENGLISH CLASSES

K. Normurodov JSPU, Jizzakh, Uzbekistan It is for us, in this communication1, to put in critical perspective a central exercise in the teaching of French in high school: methodical reading. This school exercise has the particularity of being an “intermediate” and deeply paradoxical didactic object. Indeed, it is not taught nor, therefore, practiced by students who pass the CAPES, subject, again, to the exercises that the Lansonian tradition has bequeathed to us: the dissertation and the explanation of linear text. Absent from the initial training of teachers, discovered in somewhat “rapid” continuing education courses, methodical reading has experienced, ten years after its birth, multiple technical drifts that many rightly regret. The causes of this «perversion» are multiple: teacher training that is truncated most of the time, a «technological» conception of reading, a naive belief in the omnipotence of a purely inductive approach, a «logico-grammatical problem»2 which never ceases to affirm, in the mode of incantation, the objectivity of a meaning immanent to the text. We would like to show – by making it, shall we say, with a bit of humour, a close methodical reading – that the Official Instructions which defined methodical reading have a certain responsibility in this process of reification and desiccation that we have just mentioned, and this despite declared intentions, which are very laudable and at first sight innovative. Indeed, reading the Official Instructions3 produces curious impressions in any reader. Initially, we find all our concerns there, and we can only welcome such an initiative. However, it seems difficult not to wonder about the reasons why these official texts did not succeed in preventing a use of the interpretation of texts that was to say the least reprehensible. And this all the more so since a reading, attentive to the very letter of the prescriptive statements, is not far from convincing us that, in a certain way, the I.O., have, indirectly, encouraged these drifts, because they involve relatively large number of ambiguities, things left unsaid and contradictions. Instructions and program: general presentation The general objectives of teaching English are, at university, the reasoned practice of the language, the formation of a culture, the acquisition of methods of thought and work4. Note, in passing, that the continuity of learning will be constantly recalled, and that from the beginning of the official text appears the word /method/. The three stated objectives are taken up, with some nuances, by the sub-chapters of each part. Objectif I. Instructions II. Program Reasoned language practice A) Reasoned language practice communication and expression A) Reasoned language practice communication and expression Formation of a culture B) The study of texts B) Textes Acquisition of thinking and working methods C) Methods and general training D) Progress and goals Our table5 shows that for I.O. there is an equivalence between the “formation of a culture”, “the study of texts”, and “texts”. We will have to come back to it. Methodical reading is the fundamental exercise in English at university, but it is evolving and cannot be academically fixed once and for all; this is undoubtedly why it gives rise to debates and polemics and it is precisely because of this flexibility and this diversity that computer science can constitute an important aid to its learning. The work presented here was carried out in a class of Second in the second trimester, that is to say once the students were introduced to the different «tools» allowing the study of the literary text. At this stage, it is a question of helping them to choose judiciously the one or those that seem to them best suited to a particular text. It can also, if desired, be used partially to help acquire these different “tools”. The screen called by Writing process is the one that the students can get directly from this entry if they chose it at the beginning of the exercise. Utilisation After this research and writing work, each group of two students presents their work orally to the class, which must then think about an organization of the whole with the help of the teacher. The file is available to students who can consult it whenever they want (as part of the modules or a resource centre) or even copy it. The process is repeated several times during the year of Second, the first screen always remaining presented in the same way whatever the text in order to make the pupils understand that the first stage of the methodical reading as of the composed commentary is to choose well which aspects of the text to study and not to apply indiscriminately what one knows to all the texts. The file can be used as preparation for an assignment on a Bac type table in first class in the case where modules are available or, failing that, thanks to overhead projection. Specific contributions of the approach It combines a real rigor in the approach of the literary text with the freedom and intuition of the student who chooses as he wants one or more entries but must then justify and exploit his choices; it allows trial and error, conditions for learning when they are well managed. The possible approaches are diverse and the students are truly active, which is not always the case in the case of a single approach to the text under the guidance of the teacher. The rhythm of the work is that of the discovery of the text by the pupils, each at their own speed. The teacher is available to help the different groups of students in the most delicate task: constructing an interpretation of a literary text from precise observations. The approach can be scalable, the list of proposed entries varying, if desired, according to the knowledge of the class and the knowledge of the pupils; once the method has been acquired, it is important, in fact, that this type of work does not become a conditioning but that new avenues are constantly opened up: versification, literary genre, tonalities, literary history… Combining rigor and flexibility, allowing repetitions and variations of rhythm, the help of computers takes on its full meaning here: making students autonomous in the face of the literary text.