ZALEG Tools and Exercises for developing your ENGLISH READING
muscles:
If you wish to develop your English reading muscles, you have to READ, READ and
READ all the time in English. You should READ in English not only
for the duration you are in an English class you are attending or READING for
doing some exercises your teacher has set you to do, but READ at each and every
opportunity you get.
We give below some portable tools, which cost you very
little or nothing. We have grouped the tools into five different levels. At
level 1 you start exercising with very easy to use tools. As you move to
higher levels, the exercises become more difficult and more enjoyable.
If you use these tools regularly, you will be clocking up a good amount of time
in the portable gymnasium to develop your READING
muscles. The result will be like physical muscles, they will try to come
out of your body. You will notice them. Others will also notice
them.
You can add your own READING
tools to the gymnasium and exercise with them also.
TOOLS AND EXERCISES FOR DEVELOPING ENGLISH READING MUSCLES:
Level 1 Tools and Exercises:
1. Stop or reduce reading in your local language.
2. When you are travelling, read all signs and billboards which are in English.
3. Read everything written in English in an item you have purchased. Read what is written on the item itself. Read what is on its packaging. Read what is on the packet that you got for carrying the item in.
4. Daily, read a local or national English newspaper, either
on the Internet or in paper form.
5. Spend at least 30 minutes to 1 hour each day exercising your READING muscles by
reading the following very thoroughly:
(a) all the
main news in the front page,
(b) all the editorial articles,
(c) special articles by outside experts - both local
and international
(d) the letters to the Editor.
(e) your favourite section(s) like Sports, Culture,
Business, magazine etc.
Initially, you may not like doing these exercises. Everything you read
may seem quite foreign to you (they are foreign). You will not read them
with the same ease and may not enjoy as much as you did when reading in your language.
You will find many unfamiliar words, phrases, sentence structures that may seem
strange to you at first. You may struggle to continue and may want to give
up. BUT PLEASE DO NOT DO THAT.
Soon you will notice that you
are beginning to feel comfortable reading English news and stories. They will
no longer seem strange or foreign to you. You will begin to enjoy reading
in English. When you reach this stage that means your English reading
muscles have started developing. You will notice them and others around
you will notice your English READING muscles as they will see you reading more English
newspapers and other English materials. Don’t stop at this stage. There
is no end to developing your READING
muscles. Try to develop them further by trying out the next level
tools and exercises. Also, remember, like physical muscles, if you do not
exercise your English READING muscles regularly, these muscles will go down also.
Once you have become familiar with the Level 1 tools and exercises, you may
move on to the next level of tools and exercises.
Level 2 Tools and Exercises:
1. Dont assume that everything you read is correct English. While reading from shoppiing items, packaging, signboards and billborads, apply your knowledge of correct English usage you learned from Raymond Murphy's book (see Writing) and try to identify mistakes, if any.
2. Get hold of international magazines like The Reader Digest, The
Times, Newsweek, The Economist etc. Spend at least 3 hours each week going through
interesting articles, stories, anecdotes etc. in these magazines.
3. Read different types of stories, simple journalistic stories
about recent events, international affairs, sports, culture, humour, drama,
book and film reviews etc
4. See foreign films with English subtitles. Read the subtiitles. This exercise will improve your speed in READING in English.
Once you see that you are enjoying doing the level 2 exercises with help of the
above mentioned tools you are ready to move on to the next level of tools and
exercises.
Level 3 Tools and Exercises:
1. Get hold of old classics, light crime and detective stories, humorous ,
historical and current books and novels.
2. Read at least 1 book each month.
3. Read each book thoroughly. Try to study and enjoy the
descriptions, conversations, characters, places, events, suspense, hidden
messages and morals of the stories.
You may start with the following. First read the type that interests you.
Then move on to other types.
- David Copperfield (story of poverty and crime in Old
England by Charles Dickens
- A tale of two cities ( a classic tale of war and
sacrifice) by Charles Dickens
- Wuthering Heights
(passionate love story) by Emily Brontë
- Jane Eyre by Charlotte
Brontë (love, emotions and haunting),
- The Count of Monte Cristo
by Alexander Dumas ( an adventure thriller set in France)
- The Hunchback of Notre Dame
by Victor Hugo (story of a gypsy girl)
- Robinsoe Crusoe by Daniel
Defoe ( adventure of a ship wrecked person - building life from scratch on
an island with a native)
- Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan
Swift ( a fictional adventure to the lands of littl people (the
Lilllputs) and Giants)
- The Good Earth by Pearl S
Buck ( a sory of a Chinese peasant family's struggling family moving to
the city and the social changes)
- Three Men in a Boat by
Jerome K. Jerome (Hilariously funny)
- The Adventures of Tom
Sawyer and The adventures of Huckleberry Finn (child adventure classic)
- Alice in Wonderland and
Alice through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll (written for children but
enjoyed by people of all ages)
- The Jungle Book (jungle
adventure) by Rudyard Kipling
- The Animal Farm by George
Orwell (a satire )
- Short Stories by O’Henry
(full of wit, wordplay, warm characterization and clever twist ending)
- Short Stories by Guy de
Maupassant (stories written in a simple style about society )
- Around the World in 80 days
by H G Wells (adventure)
- The Hound of the
Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (detective)
- Moby Dick by Melville (sea
adventure)
- The Old Man and the Sea by
Ernest Hemingway (pride of an old man who was a legend in a South American
village by the coast)
- The Sign of Four by Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle (detective)
- The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
by Agatha Christie (detective)
- Ten Little Niggers by
Agatha Christie (detective)
- Novels and short stories by
PG Wodehouse (wonderful comedies with a special English character, Jeeves,
the butler, a gentleman's gentleman)
- Cry, The Beloved Country by
Alan Paton (set in South
Africa, addresses race relations)
- The Kite Runner by gmalion by Bernard Shaw
- The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde
After you have started enjoying English books like those mentioned above, you
may move on to the next stage and start on Shakespeare!
Level 4 Tools and Exercises:
You may try reading the following well known plays and then if you like read
others from the Complete Works of Shakespeare.
Tragedy
1. Hamlet
2. Macbeth
3. Julius Caesar
Comedy
1. A mid summer night's dream
2. Much ado about nothing
3. The taming of the shrew
4. The Merchant of Venice
Level 5 Exercises:
Reading
poetry
© Amin Rahman MARN 0322761