8th February 2010
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Do you use long reading texts in class? Some teachers don't as they feel that valuable time is taken away from more enjoyable & useful activities, much the same that is generally felt about long-ish periods of student writing. Students do need to tackle longer texts now & again such as short stories & longer articles as they will come across them outside of the classroom & reading is one of the main ways they can develop their English. We want to encourage them to read as much as possible.
We can simply ask students to read the texts, giving them an extensive task, so that they read for gist, & giving them a time limit to speed up their reading to help them read quicker in chunks, drawing them away from trying to understand every word. As with anything, don't forget to discuss this approach with them - letting them know why they are doing it like this, which they can then transfer outside the class.
The length of the text might well intimidate them so here are a couple of other things you can do:
- You could split the text up into several sections, & in between sections pre-teach any crucial vocabulary & get the students to anticipate what might happen in the next part. They then read quickly to see if their predictions were correct.
- Integrate it with listening skills by having some sections for the students to listen to instead of reading. Don't forget to give a clear manageable task here or they may switch off if it is challenging.
- To integrate with the writing skill, the students could be asked to summarise each section into a given number of words before proceeding to the next part.
- Similarily, after each section, get the students to write some comprehension questions about that section. Through their choice of questions you will be able to tell if they have understood the main points, & you have some questions ready for when you use the same text with different students.
- The time given to each section could vary, some simply for extensive reading & then others for extensive & intensive reading followed by noticing tasks that pick up on useful language.
- The reading could be spaced out over several lessons, a section covered each lesson, followed by some interesting task that connects with the topic of the text or language that crops up in the text.
- If your students need reading aloud skills, then the odd section could be read aloud. Careful as it could take a while.
- Designate reading buddies - each could take it in turns to read the next section & then orally report it to their buddy, who then goes on to read the next part. They slowly build up the whole text, integrating reading & speaking, & very probably teaching each other quite a lot along the way.
- For more speaking, you could get students to roleplay certain sections through the text, or discuss topics that come up before continuing.
- For a strategy to pass on when your students have to deal with a book in both English & their mother tongue, see the past tip 'SQ3R':
http://www.developingteachers.com/tips/pasttips56.htm
And then similar tasks to the above can apply when dealing with
longer listening texts.
However you tackle the text, the first consideration must be your choice of text, that it must be interesting for the students, that they want to read it. Don't make it a chore as you'll put them off & it will all backfire on you.
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Valentine's Day on the 14th:
Lots of classroom ideas & links at the past tip 'Valentine's Day' at:
http://www.developingteachers.com/tips/pasttips139.htm
And then there's a lesson plan for the Day at:
http://www.developingteachers.com/newsletterplans/News_lplan
_feb2001.htm
Chinese New Year - takes place on the 14th February this year. 2010 is Year 4707 in the Chinese Calendar & is the year of the Tiger. There's a lesson plan at:
http://www.developingteachers.com/newsletterplans/feb3_2002.htm
Any more ideas? Please post for all in
the Forums at:
http://forum.developingteachers.com/index.php?topic=1930.0
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The Weekly Teaching Tip is written by Alistair Dickinson at Developing Teachers.com.
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