david petrie the reading teacher
TRANSCRIPT
The Reading Teacher
David Petrie
Saturday, 19th October 2013
The Reading Teacher
David Petrie
19/10/2013
You’re about to start planning your lesson, you open the course book and there’s a reading text in the bit you want to teach.Do you:(a) Skip it.(b) Set it for homework(c) Sigh with a heavy heart and decide to do it in class.
Having decided to do it in class – what, generally, is your approach to using a reading text?(d) TAVI(e) TALO(f) TASP(g) Whatever it says in the teachers’ book.(h) None of the above – I do something different.
The Reading Teacher
Does your “standard” reading lesson look something like this:
(1) Pre-teach any vocabulary from the text you think they need.(2) Gist reading task – make the students read the text in a ridiculously short amount of time
and then answer a question.(3) Detailed reading – let the students take the next 30 minutes to read the text one word at
a time and then ask them to answer 6 comprehension questions which demonstrate (a) they read the text (b) limited understanding of six aspects of the text as given in the questions.
(4) A reactive focus on any words the students had problems with or didn’t understand.(5) Move on to the inevitable grammar point that’s lurking on the next page with dodgy
examples of the form lifted straight out of the text.
If not – how does your lesson differ from this ?
Why has this general structure been arrived at for “reading lessons”? How effective do you think it is?
David Petrie
19/10/2013
The Reading Teacher
What do we read?
Using the picture on the right for inspiration, how many different
text types can you come up with?
David Petrie
19/10/2013
The Reading Teacher
David Petrie
19/10/2013
The Reading Teacher
Different texts obviously require different reading skills.
PLEASURE
INFORMATION
DE
TAIL
ED
UN
DE
RS
TAN
DIN
GG
EN
ER
AL
UN
DE
RS
TAN
DIN
G
Where on this diagram would you place some of the texts from the previous slide?
David Petrie
19/10/2013
The Reading Teacher
The Ant The Eagle
The ant sees the pebbles, soil, roots, stems, leaves and petals.The eagle sees all of the flowers, the field and the landscape around it.
Both of them are looking at the same thing – just from different perspectives.
David Petrie
19/10/2013
The Reading Teacher
David Petrie
02/12/2011
Read the following text. The procedure is actually quite simple. First you arrange things in different groups. Of course, one pile may be sufficient depending on how much there is to do. If you have to go somewhere else due to lack of facilities that is the next step, otherwise you are pretty well set. It is important not to overdo things. That is, it is better to do too few things at once than too many. In the short run this may not seem important but complications can easily arise. A mistake can be expensive as well. At first the whole procedure will seem complicated. Soon, however, it will become just another facet of life. It is difficult to foresee any end to the necessity for this task in the immediate future, but then one never can tell. After the procedure is completed one arranges the materials into different groups again. Then they can be put into their appropriate places. Eventually they will be used once more and the whole cycle will then have to be repeated. However, that is part of life.
Problems with vocabulary items?Sentence structure? Linking expressions?
Chances are you understood every word, followed the argument of theWriter – but have absolutely no clue what the text is about!
Your bottom up processing skills were working fine – but your top downprocessing skills had absolutely nothing to go on.
The Reading Teacher
David Petrie 19/10/2013
The Reading Teacher
topdown
bottomup
using background knowledge and expectations about what is being said or written to understand a message
processing using phonological and verbal
cues from the input to attend to micro-features of a
text
David Petrie
19/10/2013
The Reading Teacher
Reading Sub Skills & Strategies Definitions
1 Prediction A Reading to get detailed information from the text
2 Skim reading BReading a text to locate a specific piece of information such as a word or a number or a time. It is not necessary to understand the whole text in order to do this.
3 Gist reading CEither guessing the meaning of new vocabulary in a text or understanding meaning or a message in the text that is not immediately obvious.
4 Scan reading D Reading to get a general but not detailed understanding of the text
5 Intensive reading E Also reading to get an overall but not detailed understanding of the text.
6 Inferring meaning F Reading longer texts frequently over a period of time. This is usually done independently and not in the classroom
7 Extensive reading G Looking at headlines, pictures, typeface and layout to guess what you think a text will be about
David Petrie
19/10/2013
The Reading Teacher
TE
XT
S
David Petrie
19/10/2013
The Reading Teacher
TAS
KS
David Petrie
19/10/2013
The Reading Teacher
Prediction SkimmingGist
ReadingScanning
IntensiveReading
Inferring Meaning
ExtensiveReading
• Wordle Text Creation
• Flashcard / picture
sequencing
• Wholesome scattering
• Realia predictions
• Abstract Matching
• Personal Reactions
• Who, who for & why?
• Words beginning
with X
• Find me a job
• Find all the ___ that are mentioned
• Question Makers
• What happens
next?
• What does karink mean?
• Decontextualised vocab.
• Steve’s Starters
• Reader diaries / reviews
• Random quick
readings (fast
finishers)
David Petrie
19/10/2013
The Reading Teacher
Sources & Further Reading
Scott Thornbury: “G is for Gist” - https://scottthornbury.wordpress.com/2011/11/27/g-is-for-gist/
Languages International: “ESOL Teaching Skills Taskbook (Reading 1)” - http://akoaotearoa.ac.nz/download/ng/file/group-4/n2449-esol-teaching-skills-taskbook-unit-3-c---reading-1---knowing-about-strategies-and-sub-skills.pdf
Grellet, F. (1981) Developing reading skills Cambridge: CUP
Nuttall, C. (1996) Teaching reading skills in a foregin language Heinemann
David Petrie
19/10/2013
The Reading Teacher
David Petrie
19/10/2013
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The Reading Teacher
David Petrie
19/10/2013
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