Teaching advanced reading skills

Teaching advanced students to read effectively

Guy Brook-Hart

XIII NATIONAL FENAPIUPE CONGRESS

25th September 2009

This talk will cover

• why we should be teaching reading skills to

students in class

• what reading skills we should expect advanced

students to acquire

• different classroom reading activities to deal with

different types of reading task.

• examples are taken from Complete First

Certificate (Cambridge University Press 2008)

and Complete CAE (Cambridge University Press

2009).

Why do reading activities in class?

• To ensure that all students have read the text(s)

• To teach and practise different reading

techniques and strategies

• To explore texts on different levels

• To limit time.

Some features of advanced reading texts

• ‘Advanced’ / lower-frequency vocabulary

• Complex grammar and syntax

• Complex / unfamiliar ideas and subjects

• Opinion, not just fact

• Ideas which are implied, not stated explicitly

• Longer texts

• Stylistic features such as irony, humour etc.

Some advanced reading skills

• Self-sufficiency strategies for dealing with

vocabulary

• Ability to understand complex / unfamiliar ideas and

subjects

• Ability to distinguish opinion from fact

• Ability to understand implications

• Ability to recognise and react to features such as

irony, humour etc.

• Ability to make connections between ideas /

information expressed in different parts of the text

General considerations

• What are ‘natural’ reading activities?

• What outcomes do we want from reading activities?

‘Natural’ reading activities

• Skimming

• Scanning

• Reading in detail

• Note-taking

• Oral summarising, re-expression and reacting

to the text

Outcomes (Common European Framework of Reference C1)• I can understand fairly long demanding texts and summarise

them orally.

• I can read complex reports, analyses and commentaries where opinions, viewpoints and connections are discussed.

• I can extract information, ideas and opinions from highly specialised texts in my own field, for example research reports.

• I can go beyond the concrete plot of a narrative and grasp implicit meanings, ideas and connections.

• I can give clear, detailed descriptions of complex subjects.

Some frequent course book / exam reading tasks:

• Multiple choice

• Multiple matching

Multiple choice tests ability to read:

• in detail

• and infer opinions and ideas rather than

distinguish fact

• deduce meanings from context

Questions

• are likely to deal with more than one part of

the text

• should focus on the main ideas of the text

Suggested approach:• read the title (if there is one)

• skim the text for a general overview

• read stem of first question and underline the key idea

• scan to find where the question is dealt with in the text.

• read this section of the text carefully to find the answer to the

question.

• read each of the 4 alternatives with the stem.

• match the correct one with the text.

• underline the evidence in the text supporting your choice

• repeat procedure for question 2 etc. (answers appear in the same

order)

Classroom activity 1:

• Give students the text with a skimming task and a strict time

limit.

• Give students the stems of the questions, but not the

alternatives. Ask students to locate where the answers occur.

Objective: scanning

Classroom activity 1:

• Give students the text with a skimming task and a strict time

limit.

• Give students the stems of the questions, but not the

alternatives. Ask students to locate where the answers occur.

Objective: scanning.

• Ask students to note answers in their own words.

• Give them the alternatives. They choose.

Objective: to encourage students to go from the text to the

alternatives, rather than vice versa, note-taking

Classroom activity 2:

• Ask students to work in pairs. Give one pair questions 1, 3

and 5. Give the other pair questions 2, 4 and 6.

• Ask them to read the text and answer their questions with

their partner.

• Students then change partners, show their new partners

their questions and explain the answers, justifying their

choice with evidence from the text.

Objective: to find and justify evidence in the text /

communicative activity

Classroom activity 3:• Ask students to work in pairs. Give them either the first half of

the text or the second half.

• Ask them to read and orally summarise together.

• Students then change partners and work with someone who

had the other half. Give each student the questions

corresponding to the other half.

• Students must explain what they have read. Their partner must

answer the questions depending on what they have been told.

• Students then check with complete text + all the questions.

Main objective: advanced communicative activity; mini-

presentations; asking questions

Multiple matching tasks test ability to

• scan for details

• read at speed

• locate information/opinions

There will always be concrete evidence in the text

which produces the answer.

What problems do students have with Multiple Matching tasks?

• understanding the task and how to approach it

• dealing with a lot of information in a short time

• distinguishing between texts

Suggested approach:

• First read the questions carefully underlining

key ideas.

• While reading the questions, think how the

ideas may be expressed in the texts.

• Read texts carefully one by one to locate where

the ideas are expressed.

• Underline evidence in texts for your choice.

• Make sure each text provides at least one

answer.

Classroom activity 1:

Ask students to focus on the questions without looking at the texts:

They should

• underline main ideas in each question

• spend 2 minutes studying and ‘memorising’ the questions

• with questions hidden, brainstorm in pairs how many of the

questions they remember

They then read the texts once only and with a strict time limit

(perhaps 8 – 10 minutes) to locate the answers.

Main objective: to teach scanning for pre-determined information.

Classroom activity 2:

Give students the questions and 1 text each.

Ask them to

• find the questions which correspond to their text

• work with 3 or 4 other students and explain why

the questions they chose correspond to their text.

Main objective: class-based communicative

activity, oral summarising, uncertainty about how

many questions they should answer.

Classroom activity 3:

Give students the texts without the questions.

Ask them to

• work alone and write 1 question for each text which is

only true for that text. Students should be careful not to

repeat the exact words of the texts.

• work in pairs and combine their questions

• give their combined questions to another pair to answer.

Objective: students read varied texts in detail to find how

they vary.

General considerations

• Use all the clues on the page

• Work on the example

• Raise interest

• Negotiate a time limit

• Avoid vocabulary explanations

• Make students do the work (not you!)

• Discuss strategies

• www.cambridge.org/elt/

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