We all know that “reading plays an important
role in life. So what stands behind this phrase for adult EAL learners? Reading
skills give EAL learners access to endless information encoded in written
English texts and documents. And the master of the information is the master of
the situation. So for adult EAL learners reading is not just one of four
language modalities to be improved, it is the way to survive and to integrate successfully
into Canadian society.
In order to make a reading lesson effective and
meaningful the teacher should answer the following questions: what to read? why
to read this? and how to read this?
What… The process of selecting reading
texts should be focused on learners needs. The teacher should think about types
of texts learners might need to read outside the classroom; learners’ language
level and prior knowledge; learners’ interests, etc.
Why… There are dozens of reasons for
reading in our life: from getting information to interacting with others, from
reading for knowledge to reading for pleasure. In the EAL classroom the teacher
should always know the answer to the question “Why do learners need to read
this text?”, because it is a key to arousing learners’ motivation. In other
words, adult learner will do only those things they find meaningful and applicable.
For example, a class of newcomers will prefer reading job postings, while EAP
learners will choose scientific articles.
How… Reading skills should not be limited
by bottom-up reading. The teacher’s task is to show learners various ways of
getting main ideas of texts. Learners should be taught not just to read, but to
read fluently and to comprehend. For this purpose the EAL instructor should
integrate pre-reading, while-reading and post-reading activities into reading
lessons.
Pre-reading activities activate learners’ prior knowledge
and allow to pre-teach vocabulary and concepts. Among pre-reading activities I’d
like to point out brain-storming and mind-mapping. I think this stage must be
active and noisy and somehow engage all learners. A lot of EAL games can be used
to pre-teach vocabulary or to revise grammatical structures. Students in small
groups can make presentations of “movie trailers”. The teacher can even organize
“suggestions auction” and learners can “bid” this or that hypothesis related to
the text.
While-reading
activities allow
learners to practice top-down reading strategies and improve their
comprehending skills. By the way, the majority of tasks in the Reading section
of IELTS test are based on while-reading strategies. Examples of while-reading
activities may include: choosing a title for each passage, completing various
charts and diagrams while reading, deciding whether the statement is true or
false, filling in various forms and questionnaires, etc.
During post-reading
activities learners can apply their critical thinking skills and analyze
the information they have just received. The teacher can organize debates, can
invite a guest speaker related to topics discussed in the text, learners may recollect
main facts as a group, learners may reproduce the text from somebody’s point of
view (for example, if the text was a medication specification, learners my act
a role play between a pharmacist and a customer), etc.
Hi Margarita,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your entry and agree with your comment that reading is one of the skills necessary for newcomers “to survive and to integrate successfully into Canadian society.” I feel this comment points to the importance of the types of materials instructors bring into their classrooms. While focusing on “prose” text can be valuable for learners in some contexts (EAP, for example), it is building “document” literacy that will enable them to complete day-to-day tasks and integrate more smoothly into society.
Thanks for sharing!
Terena
Hi Margarita,
ReplyDeleteI loved how you said the pre-reading phase should be noisy. That's exactly how I pictured these types of activities in my classroom. I feel like it is a good way of letting learners get their mental "hands" dirty right off the hop with some brainstorming, mindmapping and discussion groups.
Hi Margarita!
ReplyDeleteThanks for including these activity ideas for pre, while, and post-reading. Do you know the website
http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/.. lessons are broken up neatly into various stages of reading. An interesting textbook is Discovering Fiction by Judith Kay and Rosemary Gelshenen by Cambridge which gives EAL students some experience with literature.
I agree with Terena also though that document literacy is essential in Canada. I remember learning Japanese in Japan and my teacher would bring in large red, yellow and green envelopes filled with authentic materials telephone bills, school notices, tax information etc.. We would work through the red envelope (easy) to the green... this one always terrified me +)... at first the reading materials all seemed impossible for me to ever grasp.. But, through the year I got to green.. wahoo!! I'm sure students here feel the same when they start reading progressively more difficult things.. Green is go!!