Improvement of Reading Comprehension by Using English Newspaper

Abstract

The learners were excited to explore newspapers with their different sections. They were required to apply their reading comprehension skills while attempting to read a newspaper article: skimming, scanning and summarizing. The learners’ ability to cut through the challenging task was measured by a written assessment as they were required to present a summary of the main ideas of a chosen article in addition to expressing their own personal opinion. The learners were judged according to four points: the linguistic structure, dependence on the original text, the number of ideas presented, and expressing their personal opinion. Finally, the learners' feedback on the current experience was collected via a questionnaire.

Learning a language is a complicated phenomenon. As a result of globalization, the world has become global village with increased connectivity which has consequently increased the need of a common language to make communities across the globe understandable to each other. Hence, English language has gained the status of that global or international language as it is spoken and understood in approximately all corners of the world. The whole world is divided in three categories on the base of the status of English in each country. The first category where English is used as native language includes countries where English is the native language. English as second language countries are those where English is not the native language but is widely used in education or other sectors. The third category where English is not used actively, this includes countries where the status of English is that of the foreign language.