GENERAL INTRODUCTION

This is a fifteen-hour literature course, consisting of four reading passages, a short story, and a novel. The students will also need the novel itself, but otherwise the course is complete. If the course is taught intensively - say at the rate of one hour per day it would be sensible to start with the novel, and spread the five units on the novel throughout the time available, as this provides more time for students to read in their own time, and to keep up with the class units. Otherwise the course should be taught straight through as it is. An attempt has been made to provide reading passages which introduce themes taken up in the short story and the novel, and this is why the reading passages have been placed at the beginning of the course.

The methodology employed can be simply described:-

1) the activities provided are intended to illuminate the central theme of the passages or works chosen. They are selective, in that they deliberately avoid attempting to cover all the items of vocabulary or structure which may cause difficulty; rather, they are designed to reveal the significant details, and bypass less important content.

2) this is because the overall aim is to teach intelligent reading habits. No attempt is made to ensure that every "new" word is learnt, or that new or unfamiliar structures are isolated, analysed and practiced. Both activities are fatal to the development of fluent reading skills. The comprehension exercise directs attention to the way in which the theme is developed, and the same emphasis is retained in subsequent exercises. In this way, the pro- cess of comprehension itself provides an "analysis" of the passage.

3) the core of each class unit is a "reading passage", i.e., a passage short enough to be dealt with in detail in one class. This becomes particularly important in teaching the novel, as it resolves the problem of how to com- bine extensive reading with controlled class work.

4) the "student book" is provided in loose-leaf format, so that the teacher can control the way in which material is delivered to the students. This means that the material is always "new", and that it can be handed out unit by unit - this is particularly important in the case of the short story, where the sus- pense created from unit to unit is crucial.