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Reading to Understand Texts - Teachers' and Students' Beliefs and Practices

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Page 1: Reading to Understand Texts - Teachers' and Students' Beliefs and Practices

Reading to understand texts – teachers’ and students’ beliefs and practices Aims:

• Think about the reasons why you work with texts the way you do • Try using a different way of working with texts • Find out what your students think about the two different ways of working with texts

Materials required:

• Two texts appropriate for your students’ learning context, learning goals and language level

• Two copies of the table (see 1. Observation records) (optional) • Two copies of the questionnaire (see 2. Questionnaire) per student

Appropriate for:

• Experienced teachers • Learners at all levels, but particularly relevant to learners at lower levels (A1 – B1)

Sometimes there is a big difference between what teachers believe are useful techniques to help students become better readers in English, and what students think helps them understand texts better when they read in English. This is not just a difference of opinion, but it can also create problems in the classroom. An example of this is when students are given a text to read that includes a number of new words and expressions. Often teachers tell the students not to worry about the words they don’t know and to try and understand the main idea of the text, and then later to guess the meaning of the words they don’t know from context. Many students, however, (particularly at lower levels) want to know the meaning of the new words as they read, because they feel they need to know what these words mean to be able to understand the text. The students then ask the teacher the meaning of the unknown words or look them up in the dictionary or in their mobile phones, while the teacher tries to stop them and to get them to continue to read without the need to know every single word in the text. In some cases, teachers do not allow the use of dictionaries and mobile phones and do not answer any questions about vocabulary until after the students have finished reading the text and completed a task to show that they have understood the text. The students do as the teacher says, but at times they are anxious about the words they still don’t know, and may feel that this way of working with texts is not very helpful for them.

Page 2: Reading to Understand Texts - Teachers' and Students' Beliefs and Practices

Task

1. Think about how you usually work with texts in the classroom: a. Do you normally follow a ‘method’? (e.g., do you often give the students ‘pre-

reading’ ‘while-reading’ and ‘post-reading’ activities to do?) b. If you follow a method regularly, list the parts or stages that you normally

include in your reading lessons and the activities that you use for each stage. (e.g., Pre-reading stage – show a picture or the title and ask students what they think the text will be about, etc.)

c. Read your list and ask yourself: why do you use the techniques you do? (e.g., it may be because you were taught to work in this way when you learnt to teach, or because you usually follow the activities in the students’ course book in the order in which they appear, etc.)

2. Select two texts that are appropriate for your students’ learning context, learning goals and language level – they should not be too long or difficult, but they should include a small number of unknown words or expressions.

3. Plan a reading lesson using the first text.

a. Prepare to work on the text as you normally do. For example, if the text is taken from the students’ course book, and you normally follow the procedure in the book, then do the same with the first text.

b. During the lesson, notice how the students behave. In particular, notice any difficulties or questions that the students may have, and what you do about them. For example, if a student asks you about the meaning of an unknown word in the text, do you tell him/her not to worry, or do you explain the meaning? Take notes of these difficulties/questions and your responses during the lesson if you can, or immediately after the lesson. You could use Observation records: Table 1 for this.

c. Before the end of the lesson, ask the students to complete the questionnaire. Collect the completed questionnaires.

4. Plan a second reading lesson using the second text.

a. This time, make sure you use techniques that are very different to the ones you normally use. In fact, be brave and do the opposite! For example, if you don’t allow your students to use dictionaries or their mobile phones to look up the meaning of unknown words in the text, this time ask them to use them. Or if you usually give the students a task to complete before they start reading the text, this time just let them read the text, and after they have read it, ask them to tell a partner/the class how they feel about it.

b. During the lesson, notice how the students behave. In particular, notice any difficulties or questions that the students may have. Try to do the opposite of what you normally do. For example, if a student asks you about the meaning of an unknown word in the text, and you often tell him/her not to worry about it, this time either explain its meaning or ask him/her to look it up. Take notes of these difficulties/questions and your responses during the lesson if you can, or immediately after the lesson. You could use the Observation record: Table 2.

c. Before the end of the lesson, ask the students to complete the questionnaire. Collect the completed questionnaires.

Page 3: Reading to Understand Texts - Teachers' and Students' Beliefs and Practices

5. Read the students’ responses to the questionnaires given at the end of reading lessons 1 and 2, and your notes about the students’ difficulties/questions and your responses in both lessons. Think about the following:

a. Which of the two lessons did most of the students prefer? Why? b. Which of the two lessons did you prefer? Why? c. If there is a difference between your own and your students’ preferred lesson,

can you think of why there is a difference of opinion? d. What have you learnt during and after the second lesson about working with

texts in a different way? e. Would you use any of the techniques that you tried in the second lesson

again? If yes, which, and why?

Suggested answers As this task is about helping you understand why you work with texts the way you do, trying out different ways of working with texts to help students read better in English, and thinking about your experiment, there are no right and wrong answers to it. However, you might want to know that during the last few years different research studies on what helps and doesn’t help students of English as a foreign language read better in English have been published and some of their conclusions are very important for teachers. For example, did you know that…?

• For students to read and understand a text well they need to know between 95 and 98 % of the words in the text. In other words, in a text that has 100 words only 5 and if possible 2 of the words in the text should be new to the students.

• Students below B2 level cannot usually guess the meaning of words from context successfully. This is because at lower levels, students are busy trying to recognise and understand the meaning of individual words, phrases and sentences.

• For students to become better readers in English knowing vocabulary and how

sentences are formed in English is more useful than practising reading skills (for example, scanning, guessing the meaning of words from context, etc.) As students learn more words and phrases, reading in English becomes easier.

Think about these conclusions and what they mean for you, your students and the way you work with texts in the classroom. Is there anything you might need to change to help your students become better readers in English?

Page 4: Reading to Understand Texts - Teachers' and Students' Beliefs and Practices

Materials 1. Observation records Table 1: Reading Lesson 1 Use this table either during your first planned reading lesson or immediately afterwards. Write about any difficulties or questions that your students had during the lesson and your own responses, as in the example below. Stage in the

lesson What happened? What did I do?

While-reading:

Ss read the different parts of the story and put

them in order

While he was reading, Giovanni asked me the meaning of ‘had a crush on …’

I told him to go on reading and not to worry about new words.

Stage in the

lesson What happened? What did I do?

Table 2: Reading Lesson 2

Page 5: Reading to Understand Texts - Teachers' and Students' Beliefs and Practices

Use this table either during your second planned reading lesson or immediately afterwards. Write about any difficulties or questions that your students had during the lesson and your own responses.

Stage in the lesson

What happened? What did I do?

Page 6: Reading to Understand Texts - Teachers' and Students' Beliefs and Practices

2. Questionnaire

Notes for the teacher: This is a sample questionnaire. You may want to change some of the questions so that it includes the different parts of your planned lessons. Also, consider translating it into your students’ first language if their English level is very low. You will need to use the questionnaire during your first and second reading lessons, so make sure you have two copies per student.

1. Circle the alternative that best shows your opinion. Then write a comment to explain why you have chosen your answer.

(i) The activities in this lesson helped me understand the text better.

Yes,

definitely Yes, quite Not sure Not really

Comment:

(ii) I like to read the way we did in this lesson.

Yes,

definitely Yes, quite Not sure Not really

Comment:

Page 7: Reading to Understand Texts - Teachers' and Students' Beliefs and Practices

2. Complete the following table Please write about the activities and the way that you were asked to read and work with the text during the lesson. Don’t comment on the topic of the lesson or the difficulty of the text.

Things I liked about this lesson Things I didn’t like about this lesson

Further reading

Hu, M., & Nation, I.S.P. (2000) ‘Vocabulary Density and Reading Comprehension’, Reading in a Foreign Language, 13(1), 403–430.

Walter, C. and Swan, M. (2009) ‘Teaching Reading Skills: Mostly a Waste of Time?’ IATEFL 2008: Exeter Conference Selections, IATEFL.