This course aims to help first year English majors reach the upper-intermediate level of their reading ability (B2). Through exposure to reading texts of different academic topics and text types and engagement in a variety of reading tasks, students are given chance to practice not only basic reading skills but also advanced ones such as making inferences, identifying tone and mood, recognizing the writer’s attitude and bias, identifying source of information, recognizing cause and effect, and reading statistical data. In addition, this course aims to enrich students’ vocabulary resource and develop their critical thinking. Last but not least, through the engagement in classroom activities and homework assignments, students are able to build up their skills of communication, presentation, individual work and teamwork.