Skimming and previewing

Skimming

Skimming is rapid reading for facts. Whenever you have to find spesific facts in paragraph, look for sentences that offer the needed information. When you skim a paragraph or a apge, you are searching quickly among sentences for the answer to some question you have.

Here is to skim :

·        Make sure that you know what information you are looking for. Ask yourself a question. Look for a key word.

·        Move your eyes quickly from line to line and from sentence to sentence.

·        When you thinkyou have found what you are looking for, stop.

·        Read slowly the part of the line or sentence that tells you what you want to know.

·        Think about the question you were trying to answer.

·        Does the information you found answer the question? If not, quickly read the passage again to look for the information you need.

·        Jot down the answer to the question you have asked.

Previewing

Other helpful steps to take in order to read information come before you actually begin reading. You can preview – that is, look ahead to the content of a a passage – in a number of ways.

Here is to preview a reading selection :

·        Look at the title

·        Look for subtitles

·        Look at the  pictures, charts or drawings

·        Look at the first paragraph carefully

·        Look at the first sentence of each paragraph

·        Look at the questions that come after the reading

·        Look for key words in different print

·        Look for a summary

Here is how preview a book :

·        Look at the table of contents (a list of the names of the chapters and the pages on which they begin)

·        Look at the preface (a brief essay in which an author gives reasons for writing the book)

·        Look briefly at the index (an alphabetical listing of the topics, subjects,ideas and names mentioned in the book)

·        Look at one of these speial features that sometimes appear in books :

1.   After the chapters in a book a writer sometimes provides a glossary, which is a list of difficult words or terms commonly used in the book deals with.

2.   An appendix (plural appendixes or appendices) at the end of the book presents additional information that is interesting and useful.

·        Read the introduction (gives the overview of the book and states the basic problem the author will deal with).

·        Look at the bibliography or references ( a list in alphabetical order of some or all of the books that help the author to write thie book) at the back of the book.

·        Think about what parts the book has and what parts it doesn’t have.

Exercise Skimming

The Island of Wingo is by the island of Singa. In the water around Wingo Island, there are hundreds of sharks. They are so many that the water bubbles like a whirlpool. People can only get to Wingo Island by boat. The boat has a rocket on it. The rocket takes people over the sharks and onto the island.

Wingo Island has no sand but it has green moss. At night the moss sparkles like stars. Tall stars called Fruji grow everywhere The Fruji tress have purple leaves at the top and yellow fruit all over them. When a fruit falls off, another tree grows in a minute.

The Weather on Wingo Island is very hot but at twelve o’clock, everyday, it rains. Sometimes, there are windstorms. They happen when too many animals fly around at the same time.

People who stay on Wingo Island sleep in a big-gloo. It is like an igloo but it is on long poles. It has a ladder to get up and a slide to come down. The big-gloo has a moss bed, chairs, and tables that are made of Fruji tress.

There is no television on Wingo Island. So is the telephone and computer. It is place to listen to the leaves whispering. It is a place to lie on soft green moss and look at the clouds. It is really a place to dream.

                                        (sumber: detik-detik UN bahasa Inggris; 2005/2006 Intan Pariwara)

Vocabularies: island: pulau, shark: ikan hiu, whirpool: pusaran air, boat: perahu, moss: lumut, sparkle: kilau, star: bintang, tall: tingi, fall: jatuh, hot: panas.

Exercise Previewing

PREFACE

The book was initially written in 2001 aimed at helping students of the english program of the faculty of teaching and education, the university of lampung. For almost seven years, the book was exclusively used for this purpose. In it development, it was found that students majoring in applied linguistics or language teachers especially in indonesia still lack of handy references that can help then sharpen their theoretical views in writing academic report or theses. Therefore, after a prolonged consideration, the writer finally published this book.

Second language acquisition as a branch of study has developed rapidly since the last four or five decades and produced thousands of books, articles and studies all over the world, many scientific journal are published based on this branch of science, such as studies in second language acquisition, applied linguistics, TESOL quarterly, RELC journals, TEFLIN, and many others.

Despite this rapid development of second language acquisition as branch of knowledge, students in indonesia still need books that are available and reachable by the students’ capacity and capability.

The book entitled ‘an introduction to second language acquisition’ is divided into seven chapters. Each chapter comprises the aims and objectives of the chapter, the content, the references and follow-up activities. Chapter one contains basic concept of second language acquisition and related disciplines that influenced the development of second language acquisition. Chapter two contains the development language acquisition in l1 and l2 development. Chapter three analyzes theory and approaches in language acquisition. Chapter four describes the roles of interaction in second language acquisition. Chapter five discusses factors that influence second language acquisition. Chapter six elaborates research method and design of tasks in second language acquisition, and finally chapter seven summarizes language learning and teaching methodology.

Bandar Lampung, 1 Oktober 2007

The Writer