读英语报纸和杂志的好处

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2024年6月29日发(作者：)

Abstract: Language is a walking thing .The words are created

constantly, the newspapers and magazines are the mirror of the

development of society. They provide the latest words as well as the

latest news in all walks of life. In practice, they enable the readers to

know the change of the world. Reading English newspapers and

magazines plays a key role in English learning. First of all, it can enlarge

your vocabulary, consolidate and utilize the words; Second, it can help

you understand the knowledge of the background, then, it can promote

your abilities in reading, translating, writing and listening, especially it is

helpful to make you reading faster, form good reading habits and master

its techniques. Generally speaking, reading English newspapers and

magazines can enhance the English learners ’integrated abilities.

Key words: walking; the latest words and news; integrated English

abilities.

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The Benefits from Reading English

Newspapers and Magazines

读英语报纸和杂志的好处

Introduction

English and Chinese are commonly regarded as the most widely used languages

in the world. With the society developing continuously, China has more chance to

communicate with the outside world. The people also attach even more importance to

learn English, because they believe English is the tool to contact with the outside

world. Many valuable articles are written in English, as a matter of fact; reading

English newspapers and magazines is a process of cross-cultural communication. In

the process of reading English newspapers and magazines can not only improve the

students’ integrated abilities (especially comprehensive reading abilities), but also

provide the readers the opportunity to further understand the politics, economy, law,

culture, science, and technology in the world .The newspapers and magazines truly

and really contain every thing that’s fine and fascinating. They develop the reader’s

intelligence and widen the reader’s thought, especially for the students whose major is

English. Yes, reading English newspapers and magazines will consume much time,

but did you know that reading can keep your mind being engaged well into old age?

I. The importance of reading English newspapers and magazines

1.1 A comparison between reading textbooks and reading English

newspapers and magazines

Frankly speaking, people’s standpoints vary from each other, some people say

blindly, reading English newspapers and magazines will take up the students’ study

time; they should focus on their textbooks. However, textbooks only provide the

source material on which later work is based. It should be said that grasping the words,

sentence structure and grammar proficiently and firmly, the learners must have wide

scoped English. Textbooks are important, but English newspapers and magazines are

equally important too. Just as the daily food, the rice and bread is the main food,

while vegetables and fruits are also essential. Reading English newspapers and

magazines to learners is what vegetables and fruits to body. If the readers have special

preference to read, that will kill two birds with one stone .It is natural that the readers

who especially indulged in the sports, music, travel, business, science or technology

can read this kind of newspapers and magazines with the highest efficiency. It is not

only satisfying their hobbies, but also improving their integrated English abilities .If

you do not have any special interest, you might as well read story, as Marchette chute

says: “A story is a special thing .The ones that I have read; they don't stay inside the

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passages. They stay inside my head.”

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Bennett Cerf says: “Reading is a pleasure of

the mind, which means that it is a little like a sport, your eagerness and knowledge

and quickness make you a good reader. Reading is a fun, not because the writer is

telling you something, but because it makes your mind work. Your own imagination

works along with the author's or even goes beyond his. Your experience, compared

with his, brings you to the same or different conclusions, and your ideas develop as

you understand his.”

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1.2 The necessity of reading English newspapers and magazines.

Think about your experience of learning English. What kind of texts did you read

in your textbooks? Biographies? Poems? Diaries? Plays? And tales? But what do

people read in reality? It cannot be denied that it is newspapers and magazines. The

passages in the newspapers and magazines are various, and their themes are extensive.

It will be seen from this that they suit both refined and popular tastes. In fact, the

textbooks, newspapers and magazines are complement to each other; they can not

replace each other. At present, people can buy or subscribe the English newspapers

and magazines in the post office or bookstore, such as China Daily, Shanghai Daily,

English Weekly, razy English reader, 21st Century, The Times etc .As a reader, you

usually read from easy to hard and you should find out the hobbies of yourself.

Remember! Before you read the English newspapers and magazines, in detail, your

understanding of the column and content is pretty important, and you had better read

it according to your preference with high efficiency.

II. The benefits from reading English newspapers and magazines

It is well known that every Chinese used to have Chinese lessons, but as they

entered the society, their Chinese level is heightened unconsciously. It must be

acknowledged, one of the reason is they read materials that they like or need, namely,

the newspapers and magazines. If the English learners are willing to promote their

language level, to read various English newspapers and magazines is very important;

most of the Chinese students are relatively weak in this aspect. Learning language is a

long process of knowledge accumulation; it must depend on reading widely and

massively.

It is understood that reading English newspapers and magazines helps the readers

not only to know the great events of the world, but also to acquire many language

knowledge, to enable the readers to touch a great quantity of fresh English language.

English is the most changeable and developing language. Moreover, newspapers and

magazines are vanguard for the developing English language, it is the media that have

the sharpest reaction to its changing and developing .The contents always follow the

footsteps of the time, creating the latest words on time. English newspapers and

magazines have become a key means to inform us the change of English and provide

us the contexts of the changed language. With the repaid developing of our nation, the

communications with foreign countries are increasing day by day, China opens the

door to the outside world, and furthermore, the people are eager to taste the fresh

language, to enjoy much information. How can people read English newspapers and

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magazines to improve their knowledge and integrated abilities? As Pu Yong -qian

says: “only by doing a great amount of reading practices, can you enlarge your

vocabulary, consolidate the words, understand different cultures, widen the field of

your vision and quicken your reading speed.”

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Zhang Ding -quan pointed out that:

“learning language is a long process of knowledge accumulation, the efficient reading

techniques are not easy things, they require the readers make a great amount of

practices, and the English newspapers and magazines are the best reading material.”

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The English newspapers and magazines are public media: their language level is

simple, practical, modern and colourful. You can find such fresh words everywhere in

newspapers and magazines, as: “the terrorist, Environmental Protective Industry,

sleep eater etc.”

2.1 Enriching the learners’ English knowledge

Have you ever heard Father's Day? And do you know the history of Father's Day?

let this Father's Day ,the third Sunday of June ,Sonora Dodd of Washington ,first had

the idea of a “Father's Day’’, she thought of the idea for Father's Day while listening

to a Mother's day sermon in 1909,then in 1966 president Lyndon Johnson signed a

presidential Proclamation declaring the 3rd Sunday of June as Father's day. You can

obtain such knowledge from newspapers and magazines. Father's Day is noted in the

razy English reader.

2.2 Improving the learners ’integrated abilities

2.2.1 Promoting writing abilities

There is a column named “Just ask’’ in 21st Century (28.12.2005), the reader is a

postgraduate student asks the editor for the helpful advice with many problems in life,

he says he has done excellently on his written exams and never met failure, however,

he is fearful of being defeated, worse, he is at a loss for good ways to deal with this

worry. Another problem: When it’s his turn to make a public speech, he feels nervous

all of a sudden. You can on behalf the editor to write back, give him some suggestions,

and then compared it with the real editor’s reply as carefully as possible, that will

simulate the readers’ writing potentiality.

2.2.2 Strengthening Translation abilities

Choose your favorite passage, translate it into Chinese, then, translate it back

again, compared it with the original one. If you like poems, you can find a beautiful

poem to translate, for example, a poem named “1000 oceans’’ in English salon

(December 2001), here is a part of it, “These tears I have cried, I have cried 1000

oceans .And if it seems I ’m floating in the darkness’’ you can try to translate it, then

compared it with the authors’ translation, in a word, you must benefit a lot from this

practice.

2.2.3 Improving Listening abilities

Listening tests referred to the science, technology, culture, and some background

knowledge. Here is a question in BBC English news, “what will global warming bring

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about?” The answer is that the ocean will expand; causing the sea level rise that

threatens low-lying coastlines. Such kind of information you can obtain from English

newspapers and magazines. It may be confirmed that you will benefit a lot from

reading English newspapers and magazines.

2.2.4 Developing comprehensive reading abilities (habits, techniques and

speed)

Reading abilities are the core in the course of learning English, but most of

people are completely in the dark. How can you promote the reading abilities? What

is ability? It is generally accepted that nurtured by postnatal, the methods reader used

unconsciously in the process of reading from massive reading .You can find “The key

point in English learning is reading more, only depending on several volumes is too

limited.”

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“Obtaining from reading, not only language abilities promoted, knowledge

increased, but also the pleasure, disposition and taste created.”

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The common failing

of the reader is lack of practice, just confined to textbook with limited outlook. Have

you ever experienced this, when you read the article about the modern technology or

life, neither understands the content nor the style, the cause of the phenomenon is not

jumping away from the circle of textbooks, do not forget, English newspapers and

magazines are the best choice for you.

(1) To get rid of bad reading habits and to develop good reading habits

Good habits originated from massive reading, because practice makes perfect.

Habits come from nature; habits grow on a person nature. “Reading, like most

other skills, is a whole complex of automatic habits, when the habits are good,

reading is efficient and rapid. When the habits are bad, reading is slow, awkward

and unsatisfying, vocalization and inner speech are just two examples of bad habits

in reading activity.”

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Have you ever influenced by the habit-vocalization? That is

when one just begins to read, an inexperienced reader will point to each word with

the index finger, read the word in a low voice unconsciously, or depend on inner

speech, and they may never actually pronounce any words, just images the

pronunciation or whispers word in the mind. Do not forget your speech organs are

at rest, but your inner voice is still actively repeating the words alone the line of

print. The reason is that they do not practice enough. How to solve this problem

and develop good reading habits? The answer is that reading more, the English

newspapers and magazines are the most authoritative reading materials and also the

best choice. During the process of reading practice, you must check your reading

habits every so often to see if there is a change for the better. Please remember the

following three points in the bottom of your heart. “1. Reading is a visual process;

with your eyes only, not with any part of your mouth or vocal apparatus;

can be, and should be, understand without saying them in your mind.”

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You can nurture the good habits throughout the period of readjustment.

Reading in silence is faster than voice. “In order to arrive at your maximum

reading rate, you need to understand the physical factors involved in the reading

process and how these factors affect the rate at which you read.’’

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First, the fewer and

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shorter the fixations, the faster. Second, the longer the recognition spans, the better.

Third, avoid habitual regression, if not, both decrease your speed and lower your level

of comprehension. Ideally experienced reading practice (enormous reading) will

develop good habits of concentration, improve your comprehension of vocabulary and

phrase and adjust your reading rate. A poor reader is apt to move his eyes from word

to word. While, as an efficient reader will move his eyes from words to words, from

thought group to thought group. Keep on practicing this skill until you can apply it

automatically, you will be able to acquire sufficient speed to read fluently with good

comprehension. Please do remember the development of your reading abilities are

based on massive reading.

(2) To cultivate reading skills

First, scanning, it is searching for information which is of some special interest,

scanning is looking for an exact answer to a specific question, the aim of the reader is

finding out accurate message or data in the least amount of time. You have used this

skills in daily activities, such as looking for the time and channel in newspapers lists.

Scanning is a reading skill used when one wishes to find a single fact or specific bit of

information without reading completely.

Second, skimming, it is a kind of fast reading, when you skim, you read to get

the main idea and a few, but not all of the details, and the following practical steps for

skimming are suggested helping you. 1. Read the title; the author’s name and

the source of the test; the first paragraph completely; g for main idea,

clue words direction words; 5. If the final paragraph appears to be a summary, read it

completely.

Then, prediction, the course of reading is the process of inference. “Predicting is

very important, the readers predictions, no matter right or wrong, will get his mind

closer to the conclusion of the passage to be read, the reading results will be better.’’

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The readers’ predictions can be based on the processing words: however, therefore,

but etc, to guess the following content; and what is more, when you meet the

unfamiliar words, baffling sentence, please don’t stop, you can guess the meaning

according to the context and understand the article from the whole. For example:

anthropology is the scientific study of man, from the definition, you know, it means

the scientific study of man.

(3) To quicken reading speed

How to read effectively and fast? A great amount of reading practices is

designed to help you to have a higher reading rate with no loss of comprehension.

Naturally you cannot read every material at the same speed; you are expected to read

newspapers or magazines much more rapidly than textbooks.

Why should you quicken the reading speed? If you read slowly, you only catch

some separated words, not a sentence, the main idea of the passage, or a paragraph.

This kind of reading makes you exhausted and boring .To the opposite, read fast,

what’s the readers thinking over is not simple words, but the gist of the whole

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passage ,then your understanding will be even more comprehensive and profound.

You will have the best memory.

The poor readers have the similar faults. They are unwilling to read till find out

every new word distinctly, the results is their reading speed is astonishingly slow,

besides, when they read the end of the passage, they forget the beginning of it. The

experienced readers will concentrate on the understanding of content; do not spend

too much time keep nagging at these words, because new words are inevitable. Please

make use of the hints to analyze the prefix or suffix of the words to judge, such as

post-war, Afro-American, disagreement. The experienced readers come from massive

practices. The experienced readers can absorb a great amount of knowledge in limited

time .In a word, reading abilities come from practice. It maybe safely said that

newspapers and magazines are the best materials to improve your reading abilities.

To make a long story short, English abilities cannot be promoted in one day, they are

not the work of a single day, there is not short-cut, Just reading more.

III Conclusion

Reading English newspapers and magazines is one of the best effective

approaches to learn English well; they open the window to the learners. They are very

important for a person who longs to study, especially for the students. Textbook gives

us limited kinds of information, we can only learn the old experience and basic

principles from it, either uninteresting or beyond comprehension. Being confined to

such an Ivory Tower, they cannot timely inject into our mind the new and advanced

things. Therefore the greatest source of useful and practical knowledge comes from

the newspapers and magazine, the most important thing is that they can develop your

integrated English abilities. The benefits from reading English newspapers and

magazines are the followings: firstly, arousing the learners interests to learn English;

secondly, developing good reading abilities (accumulating the effectively reading

skills, forming good reading habits and quickening reading speed) as well as

improving your writing, translating, listening abilities; thirdly, enlarging your

vocabulary, enriching your the background knowledge, helping you understand the

cultural differences and the other countries’ history, politics, geography, science,

natural conditions and social customs; finally, tasting the fresh language, knowing the

change of the world. Newspapers and magazines help the reader become an

experienced reader. With the developing of society, people attach more and more

importance to learn English. English newspapers and magazines are irreplaceable,

they have the advantages of being timely, interesting, readable, and they are the

insight to know the world, the mirror of the development of society. English

newspapers and magazines are the right partner for you to learn English and you will

achieve twice results for half the effort.

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Acknowledgements

I try my best to accomplish my B.A thesis. I’m writing to appreciate the people

who give me support and help in process of writing the paper. First of all , I’d like to

give my dear teacher Guo Yu-fang many thanks. She generously gives me her kindly

help and instructions during the whole process of paper writing, then, I should give

my many thanks to my classmates who help me a lot with my information collecting

and paper writing. Most of all, I want to give my sincerely thanks to my university

and all teachers in English College who educated and cultivated me to be a qualified

student.

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Notes

1. Marchette chute. Many messages. ( collier Macmillan publishers 1998. ), P.34

2. Bennett Cerf. College English. ( Foreign language Teaching and Research Press 1997.7)

P202

3. Pu Yong- qian. The knowledge of English

，

2006.3

4. 张定铨. 英语速读指南 [M].上海译文出版社， 1986. P.1

5. English language learning. 北京外国语大学英语教学与究出版社，1999.12

6. English language learning.北京外国语大学英语教学与研究出版社,2001.12

Chang-song. English skills and Practice.(National Defense Industry Press 2005)， P.12

8. Ibid . P.13

9. Ibid. P.1

Qiang. A course in English language Teaching.(高等教育出版社2000.6 ), P.118

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