This book addresses basic issues in language education and explores how reading, with a focus on meaning, contributes to the development of all aspects of language including vocabulary, spelling, grammar, and syntax. It departs from traditional methods and practices in language learning to investigate the potency of reading in improving language acquisition. The traditional practice in language classes to teach language skills explicitly through acquiring forms and structures of language is often less than successful, and teachers are gradually incorporating reading materials and practices into the curriculum. This book provides important inputs to language teachers and educators on the need to include reading as an idea and as a practice into the curriculum. Among other things, it explores the benefits of incidental learning of language properties such as vocabulary, syntax and grammar and gives adequate exposure to different types of reading strategies to promote readingamong learners. It also exploits the possible transfer of L1 reading strategies and capabilities to L2 reading for language acquisition. In so doing, this book hopes to promote autonomous learning among L2 learners and guide readers in alternative strategies to solve comprehension problems.
R. Joseph Ponniah is an Associate Professor of English in the Department of Humanities at National Institute of Technology, Trichirappalli, India. He received his PhD in English from Madurai Kamaraj University, Madurai. He is currently working on English Language Teaching, and Second Language Acquisition. His papers have been widely published in peer-reviewed international journals, such as The International Journal of Foreign Language Teaching, The Atlantic Literary Review and The Modern Journal of Applied linguistics. He is a member of the editorial advisory board of the Iranian Journal of Language Studies.
Sathyaraj Venkatesan is an Assistant Professor of English in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli. He received his PhD from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur. He was a Fellow at the School of Criticism and Theory at Cornell University, New York and is currently an International Field Bibliographer with the Publications of Modern Language Association of America (PMLA). He is the author of Edgar Allan Poe: Tales and Other Writings (2016, Orient BlackSwan), AIDS in Cultural Bodies: Scripting the Absent Subject (1980-2010) (2016, Cambridge Scholars Publishing) (with Gokulnath Ammanathil) and Mapping the Margins: A Study of Ethnic Feminist Consciousness in Toni Morrison’s Novels (2011). His articles have appeared in journals such as The Explicator (Routledge/Taylor and Francis Group), International Fiction Review, MELUS (Oxford Journals), Journal of Language, Literature and Culture, AMULA, American Notes and Queries and also in a number of other renowned publications.
