Creative Reading for College English, Book 2, Student Book

Author: (English) Ke Taiji
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2003-01-01
Features: The clock of the new century urges the pace of reform and improvement in college English teaching. Every teacher is seeking a teaching material that is unconventional yet meets students' reading needs, while students from various universities are also looking for books that can improve their applied skills through reading. The "College English Teaching Syllabus" (Revised Edition) explicitly states: "Reading is an important channel for mastering language knowledge, building a solid language foundation, and acquiring information. Reading ability is the main language skill required for most college students' future careers." Especially after China's entry into the World Trade Organization, comprehensively improving college students' reading ability, as well as the complementary skills of listening, speaking, writing, and translation, has become increasingly important. The Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press (FLTRP) deeply recognizes the importance of reading in college English teaching and has been continuously exploring good topics in this direction for many years. We know that the current teachers and students' demand for reading materials no longer just involves traditional methods of extensive reading followed by a few comprehension questions about the text; they need more to use the materials to cultivate reading skills and the ability to acquire and apply information through reading. It can be said that foreign countries are ahead of us in the writing of reading materials. After a long period of preparation, FLTRP partnered with the world-renowned Macmillan Publishing Group to develop the "College English Reading Materials." This multinational group, primarily focused on publishing teaching materials, conducted a comprehensive survey in 2002 involving 15,000 non-English major college students in China to understand the reading topics most interesting to today's Chinese college students. Through this survey, which may be the largest of its kind in China to date, 120 topics were selected as references for the collaboration. With the meticulous planning of FLTRP and the strong cooperation of Macmillan, the six-volume "Creative College English Reading" series tailored for the Chinese market was finally launched. This reading series features the following characteristics:
· Each unit selects articles on topics that are the most interesting to students, as determined by market research. At the same time, considering that many college students have relatively limited knowledge of humanities, the writing pays special attention to the comparison of different cultures around the world to awaken students' awareness of their own culture, global culture, and cross-cultural communication.
· Drawing on the diversity of exercise design in excellent foreign teaching materials, it strives to make the exercises lively, interesting, and challenging, helping students learn how to use English more effectively.
· In terms of vocabulary design, it breaks away from the traditional method of listing words in a glossary after the text, instead designing exercises that help students master vocabulary usage, thereby improving their ability to remember words.
· It aims to cultivate students' initiative in learning, encouraging them to shift from passive reading to actively acquiring various types of information beyond language materials.
· It seeks to enable students to use English creatively, thereby fostering their creativity.