Section 1. Guidelines for intensive reading of ESP texts
ESP students already bring their knowledge of the subject matter into the reading task, and their backgrounds in their fields will help make the reading materials more comprehensible to them. Students' higher level cognitive skills can be tapped by giving them advance information about the texts they are asked to read, and by teaching them to preview texts before beginning to read.
Previewing is a quick reading for general familiarity, in which students: a) read the introductory paragraph; b) read the first sentence of each of the body paragraphs; and c) read the entire concluding paragraph. This should take students only a few minutes, and will enhance their reading comprehension.
The skills of skimming and scanning.
Skimmingis quick reading to get the general drift of a passage. Students can be asked to skim a text to discover the author's purpose. Scanning is a focused search for specific information.