Viv's EFLT course 06
by Viv Quarry (www.vivquarry.com)
Reading
Why?
Whatever level of English your students have, your students will probably have had some contact with the English language before entering your classroom. This previous contact may be English classes they had when they were at school, a trip to a country where English is spoken, hearing English spoken in films at the cinema or on TV, and seeing English words in shops, adverts and subtitles. These words and sentences will often be stored in the student's passive vocabulary (words and structures they understand when heard or read), and one important role of the foreign language teacher is to try to reactivate this language and bring it into their active vocabulary (words and structures students can write and speak). An important ally in this task is the graded reader. The course material you are using in class will include reading texts appropriate to your students' level of English, but these texts will mostly have been designed to revise and reforce the structures and vocab. included in the course; their aim isn't to tap into the hundreds of words potentially in a student's passive vocabulary.
Graded readers are simplified books designed to enable learners of English at all levels to read books without being overwhelmed by new vocabulary. Readers have the number of words included in the texts limited to a set number depending on the level of English for which the book is aimed. For more information on graded readers, go to Viv's Teacher Training Workshop Worksheet on the reading skill.
Selecting readers
Graded readers should be culturally appropriate, professionally written, interesting (both in cover and content) and relevant to your particular students interests. It's also important that the reader be designed for your student's level of English; it's usually counter-productive to give a student a reader at the wrong level - it will either be too easy or too difficult, thus restricting both enjoyment of the book and its pedagogical value. One problem involved in matching readers to your students' level of English is that different publishers use differing criteria for the number of headwords (the word base from which the words in the book have been chosen) per level of English, which can sometimes only be found by going to the publisher's web site, for example:
Cambridge
English Readers Oxford Bookworms
Level 1 (400 headwords) Level 1 (400 wds)
Level 2 (800 headwords) Level 2 (700 wds)
Level 3 (1300 headwords) Level 3 (1000 wds)
Level 4 (1900 headwords) Level 4 (1400 wds)
Level 5 (2800 headwords) Level 5 (1800 wds)
Level 6 (3800 headwords) Level 6 (2500 wds)
In order to overcome this
problem, I use the following classification:
Elementary (399 words or less)
Pre-Intermediate (400-1000 words)
Intermediate (1001-1700 words)
Upper Intermediate (1,701- 2,300 words)
Advanced (2,301+ words)
Using this classification may mean that the level indicated on the book doesn't match the student's level of English, but at least the matching of book to level is more objective.
Readers for beginners
Providing they have a good bi-lingual learner's dictionary, even beginners can read the simplest level one readers, if they are in the style of comics, with lots of pictures and limited text. I use 'Longman Originals' stage 1 readers (starting with 'Lisa in London'). When they have finished reading, I ask my students to write a summary of the book in their own language, and then tell me about the story in class (this is also done in their native language). I ask them to keep the summary safe, because later on in their course, when they know more English, they will translate their written notes into English, and then tell me the same story using English.
Encouraging reading
If you have a selection of different readers per level, your students can choose the books they would like to read themselves. However, it's essential that the teacher keep track of who has which book, and the date that it was borrowed. Without this, you'll soon find that your library of graded readers has disappeared!!! To start with, ask your students how they are progressing with the book once a week, to make sure that the book hasn't been put aside somewhere at home. Reading may not be a culturally attractive activity, and student's may never have been encouraged to read at home, so it could even be necessary to apply some pressure to students who don't seem to be making any progress with the book (I call this "being cruel to be kind" :-)). If, after one month, the students don't seem inclined to talk about their progress, it's time to give them a time limit to finish the book. If the book has been well-written, and the level is appropriate, the vast majority of students will enjoy the readers after having been given a little push to find the time to sit down and start reading.
Feedback
Show your students that their reading is an important part of their language course. Where possible, include activities based on the books they've read as part of their class work, and if a book is criticised as being boring or frustrating by more than one of your students, remove it from the library and throw it away!
Reading activities
As a useful change of pace and activity, and a way to give variety (and a break from the course book), periodically include a reading activity in your lesson plan. This can take the form of an information leaflet (authentic) with words blanked out from a photocopy using correcting fluid for lower levels, to a newspaper article, either from part of a real newspaper, or taken from a newspaper web site, with an activity you have designed based on it. If you can, choose texts which relate to your student's lives, countries or cities, or an item of news which is current and they will read in their own newspapers or see in a TV news programme. This task is made easier if you use the search option present on many newspaper web sites. Whenever friends or family come to visit me from England, I ask them to buy a selection of newspapers at the airport (if possible both tabloids and dailies) and then I give these newspapers to my students at intermediate level or above with my English Newspaper Activity to complete as homework.
Materials bank
When you have tested that a reading activity you have designed works, always keep a copy of the original in a materials bank. Then the same activity can be used in future with different classes or by other teachers.
Don't forget that every word that your student's read, both inside the classroom and especially outside it, will contribute to helping them dominate the language, and revise/introduce both what you may have taught already, or what you are going to teach in future.