Demythologising skimming :the operationalisation teaching and practice of skimming in a second language with special reference to the IELTS test

摘要

Despite its prominence, especially in academic reading, skimming is much underudresearched with very few research papers devoted to it, of which only two are L2-udrelated. Such research as there is suggests that skimming is most likely to be effectiveudwhen the text is predictable, familiar and simple (in terms of content, structure,udlanguage or any combination of these). This study considers skimming within an L2udcontext (specifically, skimming for the IELTS test). In particular, it investigates theudspecific characteristics of skimming. In addition, it considers the relationship betweenudskim reading texts with familiar and unfamiliar content. The pedagogy-focused enquiryudconsists of an analysis of the way 14 textbooks cover skimming and a further analysis ofud92 questionnaire responses from IELTS teachers. The learner-focused enquiry analysesud16 verbal protocols, collected from participants who had read texts with familiar andudunfamiliar content.udThe textbooks examined implied that skimming is extremely useful for IELTSudcandidates, though there was no unanimity about the speed of skimming or itsudoperationalisation. Similarly, the teachers surveyed almost unanimously endorsed theudvalue of skimming for test-takers but varied greatly in their methods of teaching andudeven in their understanding of the extent to which it can be taught. Analysis of theudverbal protocols revealed a number of strategies that were used by skim readers, audcomparison with Anderson's (1991) list of strategies for normal reading indicating theudparticular emphasis of skim readers on time-saving and gist-yielding strategies.udComparison of quantitative data showed no major differences in scores betweenudskimming texts of familiar and unfamiliar content, although the participants' perceptionudof difference, with the text with unfamiliar content being perceived as far more difficult,udwas acute. It was concluded that there is a continuum from normal reading toudskimming: thus skimming is a variant of normal reading and not a separate process fromudit.