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Teaching Reading at An Advanced Level
Teaching Reading at An Advanced Level
CONTENTS
Introduction
1. The importance of teaching reading
2. Developing reading skills and strategies
3. Stages of conducting reading and reading activities
3.1 Pre-reading
3.2 While-reading
3.3 After-reading
4. Testing reading
Conclusion
Summary
References
Intoduction
Reading is about understanding written texts. It is a complex activity that
involves both perception and thought. Reading consists of two related
processes: word recognition and comprehension. Word recognition refers to the
process of perceiving how written symbols correspond to one's spoken
language. Comprehension is the process of making sense of words, sentences
and connected text. Readers typically make use of background knowledge,
vocabulary, grammatical knowledge, experience with text and other strategies
to help them understand written text.
Reading texts can be used for advanced learners for several different purposes:
- developing reading skills and strategies;
- presenting or recycling grammar items;
- extending vocabulary;
- providing modals for writing;
- giving some interesting and useful information for students;
- stimulating oral work.
Also reading can be linked to other skill work, for example writing, speaking or
listening. In the process of reading, students will be concerned with the subjectcontent of what they read and the language in which it is expressed. Both
aspects involve comprehension, though of different kinds. Depending on the
reading purpose, different strategies and skills will be involved.
As students move on up the developmental ladder, getting closer and closer to
their goals, developing fluency along with a greater degree of accuracy, able to
handle virtually any situation in which target language is demanded, they
become `advanced' students. As competence in language continues to build,
students can realise the full spectrum of processing, assigning larger and larger
chunks to automatic modes and gaining the confidence to put the formal
structures of language on the periphery so that focal attention may be given to
the interpretation and negotiation of meaning and to the conveying of thoughts
and feelings in interactive communication. Some aspects of language, of
course, need focal attention for minor corrections, refinement. So the task of
the teacher at this level is to assist in that attempt to automatized language
and in that delicate interplay between focal and peripheral attention to selected
aspects of language. Reading and writing skills similarly progress closer and
closer to native speaker competence as students learn more about such things
as critical reading, the role of schemata in interpreting written texts, writing a
documents. Everything from academic prose to literature and idiomatic
conversation becomes a legitimate resource for the classroom. Virtually no
authentic language material ought to be summarily disqualified at this stage.
Certain restrictions may come to bear, depending on how advanced the class is.
At this level most if not all of students are `fluent' in that they have passed
beyond that `breakthrough' stage where they are not more long thinking about
every word or structure they are producing or comprehending.
The topicality of this course paper is that reading is one of the most important
and effective means of receiving information. It is closely connected with the
other skills - listening, writing and speaking. We should stimulate the developing
of these skills.
The object of the course paper is the process of teaching reading to advanced
learners, the discussion of some strategies, examples, and resources aimed at
promoting students to take a deep approach to reading.
The subject of the course paper is teaching reading considering the proper
stages of reading and the activities which must be done in order to make the
learners comprehend the information in the most productive way. Much
attention should be paid to the testing reading that will help us to measure their
progress in reading.
The aim of the course paper involves the elaborating of the methods of
teaching reading to advaned learners and presenting different techniques and
activities in order to help them to comprehend the reading better.
The tasks of the course paper are the following:
- to elaborate different strategies of reading according to the purpose of reading
a text;
- to enlighten the stages of reading and show the exercises which can be used
at each stage;
- to work out the tests which will measure reading skill of the learners;
- to encourage learners desire to read more.
There are various things we can do before reading a text which will make it
easier for students to understand the text and help them focus attention to it as
they read.
They include:
- presenting some of the new words which will appear in the text;
- giving a brief intoduction to the text;
- giving one or two `guiding' question (orally or on the board) for students to
think about as they read;
- suggest them to read the title of the text and try to guess what it is about.
We do not need to present all the new words in the text before the students
read it; they may guess the meaning of the words from the context. An
important part of reading is being able to guess the meaning of unknown words,
and we can help students to develop their reading by giving them practice in
this. It is important to introduce the theme of the text before we ask them to
read it. This serves two purposes:
- to help students in their reading, by giving them some idea what to expect;
- to increase their interest and so make them want to read the text [2, p. 69].
One way to introduce the text is just to give the simple sentence. For example:
We are going to read about fossils. The text tells us how animals and plants
become fossils. Another more interesting way of discussion, to start students
thinking aout the topic: Do you know how the fossils are formed? Where do
they come from? Have you ever seen the fossils? What was it like?. It is
important to mention that the teacher should not say too much when
introducing the text, because it may kill the students' interest instead of
arousing it [6, p.60-61].
Before reading the text the teacher may give the students some guiding
questions. Guiding questions should be concerned with the general meaning or
with the most important points of a text, and not focus on minor details; they
should be fairly easy to answer and not too long (Doff 1988:61). For example:
- Very few animals become fossils. Why?
- What kind of fossils are found in caves?
- How do animals become fossils?[6, p.61]
Different types of activities can be applied to prepare the student to reading the
suggested text:
I. 1) Read the text and try to understand the general meaning of the story. (All
the words which are highlighted are nonsense words).
A country girl was walking along the snerd with a roggle of milk on her head.
She began saying to herself, The money for which I will sell this milk will make
quickly scan the text only to extract the information which the questions
demand.
- reading for communicative taks. This type of reading is very important,
because it helps to develop not only student's reading skills, but also their
communicative skills. For this purpose you may cut the short text into pieces.
Then divide the students in two groups. Then give the part of the text to each
students. They should put them together in the right order and read the whole
story. Then the teacher may ask the questions concerning the story, or ask the
students their opinion about the events in the story. The reading here is
purposal and communicative. Those who read know that they they will have to
answer some questions in order to communicate [10,p.204].
This type of reading is usually supplied with different activities:
I. For each paragraph or part of the story, students find the words or the
sentences, that are the most important. This encourages them to not read the
whole text in details.
II. Read the text and note down the most important information about the main
hero in the form of the table or the chart. Then compare this information with
the information that your partner put down. Discuss the criteria which you use
while choosing the information.
III. Before the students start reading the text they are supplied with questions,
true or false statements, multiple-choice items or matching items. They should
read the text and find the right answer for the tasks.
At two minutes to noon on 1 September 1923, the great clock on Tokyo stopped.
Tokyo Bay shook as if a huge rug had been pulled from under it. Towering above
the bay the 4,000 Mount Fuji stood above the deep trench in the sea. It was
from this trench that the earthquake came, at a magnitude of 8.3 on Richter
scale.
The sea drew back for a few moments. Then, a huge wave swept over the city.
Boats were carried inland, and buildings and people were dragged out to
sea.The tremors dislodged part of the hillside, which gave way, brushing trains,
stations and bodies in the water below. Large sections of sea-bed sank 400
metres; the land rose by 250 metres in some places and sank in others. The
causalities were enormous, but there were also some lucky survivors. The most
remarkable was a woman who was having bath in her roon at the Tokyo Grand
Hotel. [6, p.174]
Tasks to the text:
1. What time did the earthquake start?
What time did it finish?
2. Did it start: a) in the mountains?
b) in the sea?
c) in the city?
d) in the desert?
3. Beside each statements write T(true), F(false) or DK (do not know)
a) Parts of the sea became deeper.
b) A hillside slid down onto the city.
c) Most people died by drowning.
d) The Ground Hotel survived the earthquake. [6, p.175]
IV. Match the sentences and the pictures which are given below with the right
paragraphs from the text. Put the sentences in the right order.
V. Remove all the verbs, or pronouns, or adjectives from the short part of the
text and ask them to fill in the gaps. They should guess the missing word from
the story context. The missing words may be given in box, or may not.
It is estimated that in the last two thousand years the world has lost more than
a hundred species of animals. The similar number of species of birds has also
become extinct. The real significance of.............figures, however, lies
in .............fact that almost tree quarters ..............all the losses
occured..............the past hundred years...............as a direct result
.............man's activities on this............It is essential for..........whole process of
evolution.............the extinction of certain...........should occur over a .............of
time [12].
VI. Read the text below. Copy and complete the chart about either Terry Fox or
Steve Fonyo.
Name:
Disease:
Date of start of run:
Age at start of run:
Distance covered:
Amount of money raised:
Answer the following questions.
1 Where did Steve Fonyo begin and end his run?
2 How many differences can you find between Steve Fonyo and Terry Fox?
Terry Fox was a college athlete who lost a leg due to bone cancer. At the age of
21, on a cold February day, he set out to run across Canada. He wanted to raise
money for the Canadian CancerSociety, but on September 1st, he was forced to
give up. He had raised more than 23 million dollars ana had become a national
hero. He died the following June. Steve Fonyo lost a leg during his childhood due
to cancer. He never completed high school. But at 19, Steve Fonyo still
managed to complete a run all the way across Canada, passing through all the
major cities [10, p.197].
3.3 After- reading
Comprehension questions are just one form of activity appropriate for postreading. Consider vocabulary study, identifying the author's purpose, discussing
the author's line of reasoning, examining grammatical structure, or steering
students toward a follow-up writting activity. The activities which are given to
students after reading the text are generated by the text and extend its
potential for meaningful language work. The tasks can not be performed
without the text, that is, they cannot replace the text. Frequently, they involve
the students in detailed revision of the text, which will help them to understand
the text better [8, p.99].
After reading the text students may do the following activities:
I. Do the multiple-choice exercise, and choose the answers which better confirm
the statements, explain them or support the ideas.
II. Summarize the text and make a conclusion. Discuss in pairs the main idea of
the text.
III. Guess the meaning of new words from the context in the sentence. Match
the words with the meanings. Then make your own sentences with this new
words.
IV. Write your own ending of the story, or write your own composition on the
same topic.
4. Testing reading
There are numerous ways of testing reading comprehension, ranging from
multiple-choice items to opend-ended questions. Although the multiple-choice
items are sometimes the most suitable instrument for testing reading
comprehension, they should not be overused. Frequently other item are more
interesting and useful. The text itself should always determine the types of
questions which are constructed. Certain texts may lead themselves to multiplechoice items, others to true or false items, others to matching items, others to
rearranged items, other to open-ended questions. Indeed, sometimes the same
text will demand at least two or three different types of items [12, p.107]. As
mentioned Burgess S. Each of the parts in typical reading test is design to
measure a different combination of reading skills (Burgess 2005:29).
Multiple-choice tests
This task is likely to be the most familiar to the students. It consists of a text,
which can be of almost any type and gener, accompined by one or more
multiple-choice items. These may be in the form of a series of statements, a
question plus answer, or an incomplete statement with a choice of phrases or
words with which to complete in.
There must be four options, only one of which is correct. It is common to have
items corresponding to specific section of the text, but there also may be items
to test comprehension of the text as the whole. Supporting tasks:
1. This type of multiple-choice is used for understanding the main idea. For this
purpose we can also use matching tasks.
What is the writer complaining about in the letter:
A Buses are becoming more crowded.
B Bus stops are poorly maintained.
C Adults can be thoughtless on buses.
D Children should be more polite on buses. [4, p.29]
The skill here is reading for gist or skimming. Students need to read the text
through from beginning to end.
2. The task to recognize the writer's attitude and opinion. The answer will not
usually be stated explicity at any one point in the text. An appreciation of the
writer's attitude or opinion depends on picking up the meaning of adverbs and
modal expressions that may be scattered throughout the text.
The writer thinks that the companies who advertise on the Internet
A should be more carefully monitored;
B never sell quality products;
C are more common;
D try to exploit their customers. [4, p.30]
3. The task is to recognise the tone. In order to be familiar with the tone,
students should read the text carefully and pay attention to the details.
She comments on this story:
A admiring;
B critical;
C slightly dismissive;
D excited. [4, p.30]
Multiple-choice test as usual include different types of multiple-choice tasks.
True or false statements
That is another task type which is familiar to most of the students. They are
given a text and a list of questions to it. Candidates determine whether the
statements are correct or incorrect, according to the text. Sometimes the third
option is included (`not given' or `not known'), for case where the text does not
give the reader enough information to determine whether a statementas true or
false. The true or false test, however, has two main disadvantages: firstly it can
encourage guessing, since testees have 50 per cent chance of giving correct
answer for each item. Secondly, as the base score is 50 per cent and thus the
average text difficulty general in the region of 75 per cent, the test may fell to
discriminate widely enough among the testees unless there are a lot of items
[12, p.222].
For example:
Read the text and decide whether the statements below are true or false.
There were tales of people who scrape salt from dirty plates back into the saltcellar, retrieve cloves from eaten apple pies, save lemon slices from dirty
glasses and preserve them in water to be reused later, or put used paper
tissues to dry on the radiator. Life with a Scrooge is not a lot of fun.
1. Life with a Scrooge is boring T/F
2. People save lemon slices from dirty glasses and preserve them in water to be
reused later T/F
3. A Scrooge does not eat apple pie T/F [7, P.88].
Matching tasks
These tasks are used by several of the exam boards, some of which include
more than one matching task in the reading tests. In matching tasks the
students choose from the list of prompts. The prompts may be headings,
statements, or question completion. For example, candidates may be asked to
match the descraption to the appropriate paragraph of a text, or to match
words or phrases with their meaning.
Task 1- match the words with definitions.
Sphere wind or twist into a continuous circular sphere;
Ellipse structure with a triangular or square base and slopping
sides meeting at a point;
Coil a form of a globe;
Pyramid regular oval [14, p. 122].
Completion items
There are two different types of completion the items: type 1 consisting of the
gaps for completion in the items following the text and type 2 consisting of the
gaps directly in the text. These tasks of type 2 involve texts from which single
c. I realised; and maybe I could have eventually forgiven him. But would he ever
forgiven me?
d. women had occured between his day and minr. But at the time all I could feel
was bitter resentment, because he was not proud of me but deeply jealous that
I had
1.... 2..... 3.... 4... [12 ]
Open-ended questions
Student are required to answer the questions or continue the statements
concerning the text. The answers may include one word or several sentences.
There are many ways in which teachers may support students in developing the
skills measured in reading tests, but it is important to highlight the difference
between particular reading activities and the demands of the text.
For example - give the answers for the questions based on the text above.
1 Where did Steve Fonyo begin and end his run?
2 Where did Terry Fox begin and end his run?
3 Why did Steve Fonyo stop running at Thunder Bay on November 29?
4 How many differences can you find between Steve Fonyo and Terry Fox?
[10, p.203]
The students can ask and answer the questions in pairs. The answers to these
questions are not essential for an overview of the text; they are the details
which we expect students to be able to access on the second reading, not on
the first.
Conclusion
Reading is a skill that will empower everyone who learns it. They will be able to
benefit from the store of knowledge in printed materials and, ultimately, to
contribute to that knowledge. Good teaching enables students to learn to read
and read to learn. The role of the teacher in the teaching-reading process
should be of a companion rather than the boss. Teaching can be made
interesting and innovative if the efforts are put in to make learning an enjoyable
experience. Successful teaching is where effective learning takes place with the
use of appropriate knowledge, the right emotion and accurate application of
scientific devices. With consistent progress in science and technology and other
areas of study, it is the duty of the teacher to adopt the best methods and
employ the best devices to ensure rapid growth in the teaching process.
Teachers must be aware of the progress that students are making and adjust
instruction to the changing abilities of students. Both research and classroom
practices support the use of a balanced approach in instruction. Because
reading depends on efficient word recognition and comprehension, instruction
should develop reading skills and strategies, as well as build on learners'
knowledge through the use of authentic texts. Similarly, the most effective way
of dealing with the problem of cultural meaning in texts is to encourage
students to read by themselves, choosing subjects related initially to their own