Selecting Texts for ESL Reading Classes

Selecting Texts for ESL Reading Classes

• Criteria for Choosing Texts
  • Suitability of content
  • Exploitability
  • Readability
  • Variety
  • Authenticity
  • Presentation

Suitability of Content

• Choose texts that interest students, making reading rewarding and classwork more engaging.
• Understand students' interests to select suitable content.
• Conduct surveys to determine students' preferred L1 reading materials.
• Observe borrowed library books to gauge student preferences.
• Be prepared to change texts if students are not engaging with them.
• Select texts you find personally interesting.
• Choose materials that students will need to read after leaving school.

Exploitability

• Exploiting a text involves facilitating learning by making use of the text to develop reading competence.

• Consider the purpose of exploiting the text.

  • Purpose of the reading lesson: is the aim teaching language or content?
  • Content learning is a bonus in a reading lesson that prioritizes language development.

• Focus on both language and content.

• Aim for fostering independent readers capable of applying reading strategies.

• Incorporate various reading skills during selection.

• Strategies in Using Flexible Techniques

  • Variations in reading rate
  • Skimming
  • Scanning
  • Study reading

• Strategies of using information that is not part of a linear text

  • Reference
  • Graphic conventions (e.g., figures, diagrams)

• Word attack skills

  • Morphology
  • Contextual inference
  • Dictionaries

• Text attack skills

  • Interpreting the text as a whole
  • Utilizing top-down and bottom-up strategies, including cohesion and rhetorical structure

• Focus on how language is used to convey content rather than solely on content in a reading lesson, and using authentic texts for motivation

• Consider real-life uses for the text

  • Examples: travel brochures, magazines, directions

• Use authentic texts to showcase real life application

• Longer texts allow practice of strategies like prediction, reference, scanning, and skimming.

  • Provide context and explore author intent

• Use authentic texts that will make the functions clear and show how the text is used in real-world situations.

Readability

• Readability refers to a text's combined structural and lexical difficulty.

• Assess student reading levels before selecting texts

• Utilize vocabulary and structures that students already know.

• Pre-assess knowledge using graded cloze tests.

• Provide extensive reading materials to handle various abilities

• Introduce new vocabulary once the vocabulary range is known.

• Factor in sentence length and complexity.

• Experienced teachers can effectively gauge reading level.

• Readability formulas can help assess difficulty.

• But, readability indices are only rough guides.

• Students should score around 45% accuracy on cloze tests.

• Independent reading texts should be easier, such as 60%, to help with comprehension.

  • Additional notes about Readability

Variety

• Use a variety of texts throughout the year.

• Familiar or topical texts can offer advantages.

• Allow vocabulary recycling and repeated learning

Authenticity

• Authentic texts are real texts for native speakers, not simplified versions for learners.

• Real-life application and purpose provide context and motivation.

  • Demonstrate language use in real situations.

• Simpler texts may lack the characteristics of authentic examples.

• Avoid overly explicit texts, allowing students to infer meaning.

Presentation

• Choose texts that look attractive and authentic to the readers.
• Provide context to portray the text effectively.
• Make the text's function clear to improve understanding.

Guidelines for Choosing Classroom Texts

• Texts should introduce new information students do not already know.

• The text should introduce new ideas and encourage critical thinking about previously unfamiliar subjects.

• The text should also highlight other people's perspectives and viewpoints.

• Texts should make students want to read.

• Texts should offer intellectual challenges without demanding excessive language usage.

• Texts' language should be natural, not made artificial by teaching elements.

• Language usage in the text should imitate spoken or written language.

• Introduced vocabulary should have appropriate meaning, and not be excessive for the current learning stage.

• Texts should not be too explicit in presentation.

• Texts should be appropriate for deep, intensive study.