What motivates students to read actively?

　Many high school teachers of English seem to think that their aim is to teach English to prepare students for entrance examinations. They are usually concerned with how to enhance students' reading comprehension. I suppose most of them have found it very difficult to employ any method other than Yakudoku (Grammar & Translation method). In fact, I was one of them. However, I have found it possible to teach reading in a different way with the help of an ALT.
　The staff of the English Department of our school implemented a new method under the Monbusho (Ministry of Education) project. We tried to enhance reading comprehension by using a top down approach combined with a bottom up approach. The difficulty of employing a top down approach lies in the students' fear that they cannot understand what is written, without checking the meaning of each sentence. In order to assure the students, teachers should try to make them feel confident that they can understand the text without knowing every word and line.
　We succeeded in improving students' reading comprehension to some extent by getting them engaged in several activities. Here I refer to two, which seemed to be most effective.
　The first was summary making. I know some teachers try to have their students summarize a passage in Japanese. This helps students succeed in the entrance examination, since some universities require students to make a summary in Japanese. However, making an English summary encourages students to think more about the topic in English and learn a lot of expressions. The ALT contributed enormously to students' summarizing the text. We ( a JTE & the ALT ) prepared a series of questions which helped students summarize each section of a lesson in English.
　At first most students found it too difficult to make an English summary. However, as a result of a one-year implementation of the project, students' reading comprehension improved with the exception of students whose basic knowledge of grammar was not enough or whose vocabulary was poor. Some students didn't seem to feel that they had made much progress. However, I think this is because we used text which became gradually more difficult. Many students who tried making a summary said they became more and more careful in reading, in an attempt to understand what the writer wanted to say.
　The second was getting students to write their opinions after reading the text.In the beginning, expressing their opinions was also too much for the students, since they were not trained to do so even in Japanese. However, most of the students who tackled the task said it was a good exercise because they needed to understand the text fully in order to express their opinions. The writing activity generated active reading. They were able to improve both in reading and writing skills.
　What was happening in students' minds in the process of writing was very different from what takes place in the usual translation from Japanese to English. Students seemed to get more interested and involved in active writing. They would try to maximize their thinking if they were given the chance. The translation of discrete sentences might be a good way to provide students with some grammatical items, but they don't seem to be interested in the translating.
　Both summary-making and self-expressing activities provide students with the thinking process and motivation to really understand the text. In order to make these activities as advantageous as possible, interesting materials are a necessity.
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