Introduction

Today's lecture is very important because it helps you interact effectively with your teacher who teaches you the practical part of reading. So, please read this lecture attentively and carefully.

   To begin with, communication is the process of sharing ideas, information, and messages with others in a particular time and place. Communication includes writing and talking, as well as nonverbal communication (such as facial expressions, body language, or gestures), visual communication (the use of images or pictures, such as painting, photography, video, or film), and electronic communication (telephone calls, electronic mail, cable television, or satellite broadcasts). Communication is a vital part of personal life and is also important in business, education, and any other situation where people encounter each other.

    In the communicative approach to reading, the reader is presented with a purpose often solving a problem).  In trying to solve a problem, the student is dealing with language.  You may be asked by the demonstrator to transfer information derived from the text to other forms of communication such as speaking and writing activities.

    For example, you could be instructed to scan the passage to get specific information.  You could be instructed to transfer some pieces of information to a table summary indicating the general categories and specific details.  The table could be provided by the teacher as an exercise or devised by you yourselves.  This table is then used as a basis for class discussion or written exercises.  Thus, the information obtained from the passage is transferred to speaking and writing activities.

    The interactive nature of reading can be illustrated through presentation of dialogues.  You are sometimes asked to formulate questions to which the writer's statements are responses. This can be successfully done when the dialogue is a discussion or an argument. In this way, you contribute actively to the creation of discourse, which is a kind of verbal communication or a discussion in speech, often formal and at some length.

    This view of reading as a conversation between and the reader and the writer leads us to...