如何将阅读文章运用到写作中

笔者主要从事雅思阅读和写作的授课，通过课堂上与学生的接触以及课后对学生作文的批改，笔者发现绝大多数学生写作分数提不上去的主要原因是词汇匮乏、句式单一以及观点空白这些问题。因此笔者从词汇书、写作书等资料中选取了一些材料作为课外的补充材料，但仍然觉得不够充足。后来笔者通过对剑桥系列真题的分析，发现剑桥阅读文章是学生准备写作很好的素材。在本文中，专家将具体分析如何将阅读文章中的用词、句式和思路等套用到雅思写作中去。

1. 用词
 
在写雅思辩论文时，考生在文章中可能要多次表明观点，比如引言段可能要引用别人的观点，正文段或者结尾段要表明自己的观点。在引用观点时，学生动辄"some people think…"，表达相对单调，缺乏生动多样。而剑桥四中的两篇阅读文章就给了很多关于引用别人观点的词汇。比如 Lost for Words 中用到了" ...says Mark Pagel, according to Michael Krauss..., Salikoko Mufwene argues that...,"。又如Play is A Serious Business一文中用到了" Byers point out that..., Sergio Pellis reported that..., Robert Barton believes that..., I concluded that...,"等。这些句子中的 says, according to, argue, report, believe和conclude等动词都是可以用在雅思写作中引出各方观点的很好的表达。
 
再比如剑四Test 1 第三篇阅读文章Visual Symbols and the Blind中的一个段落，在表达同一个意思时，作者用到了不同的词汇，学生也可以适当积累这些词汇，将它们运用到自己的文章中，满足词汇多样性这个要求。
 
"...Most guessed that the curved spokes indicated that the wheel was spinning steadily; the wavy spokes, they thought, suggested that the wheel was wobbling; and the bent spokes were taken as a sign that the wheel was jerking. Subjects assumed that spokes extending beyond the wheel's perimeter signified that the wheel had its brakes on and that..."
 
在这一段话中，有好几个单词都是表示说明，暗示’的意思，比如indicate, suggest, taken as a sign that 和 signify，这些动词可以替换着在写作中出现，因此只要注意阅读文章中的用词，对雅思写作词汇多样性的提高也是有很大帮助的。
 
2. 句式
 
剑桥雅思中的一些文章还可以为学生提供一些句式变化的模板。比如许多学生不太熟悉流程图，对于如何描述其过程极为担心。这样的句式在剑桥雅思说明性的阅读文章中屡见不鲜，这类阅读文章常常涉及某个事物的发展过程或者制作方式，其遣词造句都是可以进行学习和利用的。剑五Test 2 Reading passage 1是一篇关于现代塑料的说明文章，其中有一段就是对塑料制作过程的描述，里面有很多的句式都可以用在流程图的描写中。
 
"The original patent outlined a three-stage process, in which phenol and formaldehyde were initially combined under vacuum inside a large egg-shaped kettle...The resin was allowed to cool in shallow trays until it hardened, and then broken up and ground into powder. Other substances were then introduced, including...In the last stage, the heated Bakelite was poured into a hollow mould of the required shape..."
 
段落的第一句介绍了酚醛树脂生产工艺的总体步骤，学生完全可以根据这个句式来描写雅思真题中一道关于玻璃瓶回收过程的题目，如"The diagram outline a three-stage process of glass recycling, in which the used bottles are collected and re-produced in the plant."紧接着，作者将制作过程中的细节按照先后顺序铺开，描写过程时结合了被动语态和准确的词汇表达。
 
其中的"cool, break, grind, pour"等动词都是在工作流程中的高频词汇。"then, in the last stage"也可以作为极好的连接过渡词。学生可以将这些词汇用到玻璃瓶回收等这一类过程图描写的正文段中。
 
3. 思路
 
阅读文章和雅思写作题目在话题上也存在很多重合，比如经常重合的话题有：环境、社会、教育、文化这四大方面，因此阅读文章的内容能帮助考生更好的积累观点素材。在备考过程中，考生完全可以将阅读文章中的观点或者例子用到自己的写作中去。比如剑四Test 2的Reading passage 1 "Lost for Words" 这篇文章就极好的回答了一道较难的雅思文化类考题：What are the reasons for the loss of many cultures and languages? How to solve this problem?
 
这篇阅读文章的结构是遵循“背景—原因—解决方式”的架构来安排的，在文章的前面部分分析了语言消失的原因：
 
1. "What makes a language endangered is not just the number of speakers, but how old they are. If it is spoken by children, it is relatively safe. The critically endangered languages are those that are only spoken by the elderly,.."
 
2. "Why do people reject the language of their parents? It begins with a crisis of confidence, when a small community finds itself alongside a larger, wealthier society...people lose faith in their culture."
 
3. "Quite often, governments try to kill off a minority language by banning its use in public or discouraging its use in schools, all to promote national unity."
 
4. "Salikoko Mufwene...argues that the deadliest weapon is not government policy but economic globalization."
 
这些都十分准确而又全面的回答了许多语言丧失的原因，而这篇文章在后文也对如何解决这一问题做出了回答：
 
"…a growing interest in cultural identity may prevent the direst prediction from coming true…. The key to fostering diversity is for people to learn their ancestral tongue, as well as the dominant language, ’apprentice’ programs have provided life support several indigenous languages. But a written form is essential for this, so the mere possibility of revival has led many speakers of endangered languages to develop systems of writing where none existed before."
 
掌握了这些背景，学生在应对文化类这种比较难的话题时就可以迎刃而解了。