The Process of Teaching English (4th Draft)

The process of teaching English in Venezuela has been evolving during the last thirty years, and the students have been adapting themselves and their needs as students to this reality. This process of changing is understood as a teaching method that the students must pass through to achieve an effective English apprenticeship as a foreign language. Between reading, writing, listening and speaking skills, one of the most used techinc in this process of teaching English is “The Reading Comprehension”, and it is for that reason that during the time of teaching English it is very important to develop mainly this skill. Regarding to the teaching process orientation about Reading Comprehension as a skill, there are three approaching groups which are established depending on the way that the students process the information during the reading, such as: The Ascending Approach, The Descending Approach and finally The Interactive Approach.

Firstly, The Ascending Approach consist on explaining the process as the execution of a series of operations which are initiated with the perception of the visual stimulus that appear on the reading and it is concluded when the students reconstruct in their minds what the author wants to transmit. At this pointthe visual stimulus becomes equally important because it allow to the students to develop the process of making the general ideas of what they have read in a visual. According to (Santiago, 2004): "a visual stimulus is a reaction thet an object in passiveway produces over a subject that is in front of this". The Ascending approachit is characterize for giving more importance to the visual perception process during the reading. It is for that reason that this approach is taken as important for the process of learning English, besides it helps to the students to improve their knowledge and vocabulary; giving them the tools to create new ideas that will assist them to interpretate the reading.

In contrast with The Ascending Approach, The Descending Approach is defined as a series of operations or steps to follow that are initiated with the hypothesis formulation that the student readers make about the meaning of the text and then confirm or reject as a final result the analysis made to the information given on text. In other words the process will start in the students readers minds and will conclude when they finish the reading. This approach assist to the readers to comprehen the text but taking into account a mental process where they with previous ideas of what they infer from the reading that is going to be about.

Besides these two previous approaches it is found The Interactive Approach which explains that the reconstruction on the text meaning during the reading is the result of the interaction of the two previous type of information. At this point The Reading Comprehension Process takes place when the students finally construct in their minds the ideas taken from the text. It is remarkable to say that from these three Approaches of Reading Comprehension, The Interactive Approach is the most important since it involves the whole process and bring to the students a great variety of skills that will allow them to comprehend the text and also English language in an easier way. Therefore the students after processing the information could acquire the ability or aptitude to invent and react in front to the text using the English language.