A required reading course for first-year English majors at Hokusei Junior College (Japan) is described. The course is intended to teach students to survey a text, read through it, form an opinion about its content, and skim portions that are less important. At the same time, students are encouraged to guess at the meaning of unknown vocabulary,…

This paper describes a reading course for the first year of college for Japanese high school graduates. The course has been taught in large classes and utilizes extensive individualization of homework assignments at a level of difficulty that all students can cope with. The course provides students with strategies that will free them from…