Questions to make you think about reading in English

Please think about these questions. Then look at my comments, or go straight to my advice about how to read effectively.

A. You can choose more than one answer. Think about the reasons for your choices.

1. When reading English, how often do you use dictionaries?

a) Whenever there is a word I do not understand.

b) Never.

c) Sometimes. (When?)

2. When do you translate what you are reading into Japanese?

a) Always.

b) When I want to understand it properly.

c) When it is difficult to understand.

d) When I need to write or talk about it in Japanese.

3. What is the first thing that you should do when you have a non-fiction passage or book to read?

a) Start reading.

b) Read the title and make a cup of coffee.

c) See if there are any pictures.

d) See how long it is.

e) Read something in Japanese on the same topic.

f) Something else. (What?)

4. What is reading non-fiction most like?

a) Listening to the writer.

b) Having a conversation with the writer.

c) Trying to answer the writer’s questions correctly.

d) Torture,

5. What is academic reading?

a) The reading that university students do in order to answer a teacher’s questions.

b) Reading books that use academic language.

c) Reading in order to write reports at university.

d) Something else. (What?)

6. If you find a passage difficult to understand, what should you do?

a) Give up and look for something easier on a similar subject.

b) Identify the part(s) that did not make sense and check that you have not misunderstood any key words.

c) Read it again.

d) Read about the subject in Japanese and then read it again.

e) Go out for a walk and then read it again.

f) Translate it into Japanese.

g) Something else. (What?)

7. What are good ways of improving one’s English reading skills?

              a) Read more in Japanese.

              b) Read a few difficult things very carefully.

              c) Read a lot of easy things very quickly.

              d) Practice translating English into Japanese.

              d) Read things that you have already read.

              e) Learn lots of vocabulary.

              f) Something else. (What?)

B. Do you agree with these statements or not? Why?

1. If there are questions at the end of a passage, this helps me to understand the passage correctly.

2. When reading, it is not always necessary to start at the beginning and go on until the end.

3. If people do not understand a word in the passage they are reading, they should look it up in a dictionary.

4. The best way to understand a passage written in English is to translate it into Japanese.

5. In order to understand a passage, I must read every sentence carefully.