Teaching of Reading and Writing skills-ENG515 PDF

Teaching of Reading and Writing skills-ENG515 VU Teaching of Reading and Writing Skills (ENG515) VIRTUAL UNIVERSITY OF PAKISTAN Page 1 Teaching of Reading and Writing skills-ENG515...

Teaching of Reading and Writing skills-ENG515 VU Teaching of Reading and Writing Skills (ENG515) VIRTUAL UNIVERSITY OF PAKISTAN Page 1 Teaching of Reading and Writing skills-ENG515 VU Table of Contents Lesson No. Title Topics Introduction to the Course Lesson 1 001-004 Teaching Reading in another Language Lesson 2 005-010 Teaching How to Recognize and Spell Words I Lesson 3 011-015 Teaching How to Recognize and Spell Words II Lesson 4 016-022 Teaching Intensive EFL/ESL Reading I Lesson 5 023-027 Teaching Intensive EFL/ESL Reading II Lesson 6 028-033 Teaching Intensive EFL/ESL Reading III Lesson 7 034-039 Teaching Extensive Reading I Lesson 8 040-044 Teaching Extensive Reading II Lesson 9 045-049 Issues in Extensive Reading Lesson 10 050-054 Teaching How to Read Faster Lesson 11 055-062 Enhancing Communicative Competence through Reading I Lesson 12 063-067 Enhancing Communicative Competence through Reading II Lesson 13 068-071 Developing Strategic L2 Readers I Lesson 14 072-076 Developing Strategic L2 Readers II Lesson 15 077-082 Developing Fluent Reading Skills Lesson 16 083-090 Developing Fluent Reading Skills II Lesson 17 091-097 Teaching Reading: Individual and Social Perspective I Lesson 18 098-104 Teaching Reading: Individual and Social Perspective II Lesson 19 105-110 Research Informing L2 Reading I Lesson 20 111-116 Research Informing L2 Reading II Lesson 21 117-121 Assessing Reading I Lesson 22 122-126 Assessing Reading II Lesson 23 127-131 Page 2 Teaching of Reading and Writing skills-ENG515 VU Teaching Writing I Lesson 24 132-136 Teaching Writing II Lesson 25 137-140 Teaching Writing in an L2 Classroom I Lesson 26 141-145 Teaching Writing in an L2 Classroom II Lesson 27 146-150 The Writing Process I Lesson 28 151-155 The Writing Process II Lesson 29 156-159 Issues of Cohesion and Coherence Lesson 30 160-164 Teaching the Nuts and Bolts of Writing I Lesson 31 165-169 Teaching the Nuts and Bolts of Writing II Lesson 32 170-175 Building the Writing Habit Lesson 33 176-183 Syllabus Design and Lesson Planning for L2 Writing Lesson 34 184-189 Planning a Writing Course I Lesson 35 190-198 Planning a Writing Course II Lesson 36 199-206 Teaching Students to Self-Edit Lesson 37 207-211 Theoretical and Practical Issues in ESL Writing Lesson 38 212-218 Responding to Written Work I Lesson 39 219-226 Responding to Written Work II Lesson 40 227-234 Responding to Written Work III Lesson 41 235-240 Teaching Academic L2 Writing I Lesson 42 241-247 Teaching Academic L2 Writing II Lesson 43 248-253 Teaching Reading and Writing in the Pakistani ELT Context Lesson 44 254-258 Integrating Receptive and Productive Skills Lesson 45 259-266 Page 3 Teaching of Reading and Writing skills-ENG515 VU Lesson-01 INTRODUCTION TO THE COURSE Topic: 001: Overview of the course and background In the companion volume to this one, Teaching ESL/EFL Listening and Speaking (Nation and Newton, 2009), the four strands of a language course are described. The basic idea behind the four strands is that, in a well-balanced language course, equal time is given to each of the four strands of meaning- focused input, meaning-focused output, language-focused learning, and fluency development. Meaning- focused input involves getting input through listening and reading where the learners‘ focus is on understanding the message and where only a small proportion of language features are outside the learners‘ present level of proficiency. In a reading and writing program, extensive reading is likely to be the major source of meaning-focused input. Meaning-focused output involves the learners producing language through speaking and writing where the learners‘ focus is on others understanding the message. Meaning-focused output occurs when learners write essays and assignments, when they write letters, when they write a diary, when they send email and text messages to each other, and when they write about their experience. Language-focused learning involves deliberate attention to language features both in the context of meaning-focused input and meaning focused output, and in decontextualized learning and teaching. In the reading and writing program, language-focused learning occurs in intensive reading, when learners consult dictionaries in reading and writing, when they get language-focused feedback on their writing, when they deliberately learn new vocabulary for receptive or productive use, when they practise spelling, when they concentrate on learning to write or form written letters of the alphabet, and when they study grammar and discourse features. There are lots of ways of making language-focused learning a part of the course, but a teacher needs to be careful that this does not take up more than 25 percent of the total course time. Fluency development is often neglected in courses, partly because teachers and learners feel that they should always be learning something new. Fluency development involves making the best use of what is already known. The best-known kind of fluency development is speed reading where learners focus on increasing their reading speed while still maintaining good comprehension. For speed reading courses to work well with learners of English as a second or foreign language, the reading material needs to be well within the learners‘ level of proficiency. There should be little or no unknown vocabulary or grammatical features in the speed reading texts. Writing fluency also needs to get attention in a well-balanced course, especially where learners need to sit a written test as part of academic study and where they have to write under time pressure. These four strands of meaning-focused input, meaning-focused output, language-focused learning, and fluency development need to take up roughly equal time in a language course. As we shall see, there are many ways of getting this balance, and the way this is done depends on local conditions, teacher preferences, the way the classes are divided up and scheduled, and timetabling constraints. What is important is that over a period of time probably no greater than a month or two, there is a roughly equal amount of time given to each of these four strands, and that the necessary conditions exist for the strands to occur. In this book, this idea of the four strands will be applied to goals as diverse as learning to spell, learning to write, and becoming fluent in reading. The first six chapters of this book focus largely on Page 4 Teaching of Reading and Writing skills-ENG515 VU reading, and the next four on writing, although links will be made between these skills and also with the skills of listening and speaking. This is a lot to cover in such a small number of chapters, so this book should be seen as a practical overview of what can be done in the reading and writing program. There are long traditions of research into reading and writing and this research is drawn on particularly to justify certain teaching and learning procedures. Let us now look at a beginner learning to read. Topic: 002: Receptive & Productive Skills People learn to read their first language in a wide variety of circumstances. The following description is of a fortunate child in a fortunate country where reading is well prepared for and well taught. An excellent account of the teaching of reading to native speakers in New Zealand can be found in Smith and Elley (1997). Children are prepared for reading at an early age by listening to stories, being read to, and interacting with adults and others about the stories they hear. This is done not with the main purpose of preparing a child for reading but as a way that parents and others interact with, show aff ection for, and entertain and educate children. The interaction involves asking questions about what is going to happen in the story, getting the child to complete sentences in a known story, talking about the interesting and scary parts of the story, and generally having fun. When native-speaking children start to learn to read, they already have a large vocabulary of several thousand words which includes most of the words they will meet in early reading. They also have good control of the grammar of the language, have a lot of knowledge about books and reading conventions, and have had many many stories read to them. They are very keen to learn how to read. They begin formal schooling at the age of about five or six. The teacher and learners work with books that are interesting, are well illustrated, use language that is close to spoken language, and are not too long. The texts contain a lot of repetition, and are often very predictable but in an interesting way. The techniques used to teach reading are largely meaning-focused. That is, they give primary attention to understanding and enjoying the story. They include shared reading, guided reading and independent reading. A small amount of attention may be given to phonological awareness and phonics but this is in the context of enjoying the story and only takes a very small amount of time. Let us now look at the typical techniques used to teach reading to young native speakers. Topic: 003: Four Strands of Language Teaching The learners gather around the teacher and the teacher reads a story to the learners from a very large blown-up book while showing them the pictures and the written words. The teacher involves the learners in the reading by asking them what they think will happen next and getting them to comment on the story. Where they can, the learners read the words aloud together. The procedure is an attempt to make the shared book activity like a parent reading a child a bedtime story. The learners are asked to choose what blown-up book they want read to them and the same book may be used in the shared book activity on several occasions. In the later readings, the learners are expected to join in the reading much more. At other times, learners can take the small version of the blown-up book and read it individually or in pairs. After a reading, the learners draw, write, act out the story or study some of the language in the story. The shared book activity is a very popular reading activity in New Zealand pre-schools and primary schools. It was developed by a New Zealander, Don Holdaway, and is such a normal part of a primary teacher‘s repertoire that publishers now print blown-up book versions of popular children‘s books. The purpose of the shared book activity is to get the learners to see the fun element in reading. In the activity, Page 5 Teaching of Reading and Writing skills-ENG515 VU this fun comes from the interesting story, the interaction between the teacher and the learners in predicting and commenting on the story, and the rereading of favourite stories. Teachers can make blown- up books. Although a blown-up book takes some time to make, it will be used and re-used and well repays the eff ort of making it or the cost of buying it. The books also make attractive displays in the classroom. The shared book activity was used in one of the experimental groups in the Elley and Mangubhai (1981) Book Flood experiment. Blown-up books can be bought from the following publishers: Nelson Price Milburn (http://www.newhouse.co.nz/), Giltedge Publishing (http:// www.giltedgepublishing.co.nz/). Titles include Where Do Monsters Live?; Bears, Bears Everywhere; Mr Noisy; What Do You See?; Pirate Pete; William‘s Wet Week; The Sunflower Tree. Topic: 004:What Reading Is? It is a commonplace of teacher education that teachers tend to teach by the methods which were used by the teachers who taught them. In no area of language teaching is this more true than in that of reading. It is probably for this reason that the procedure of reading round the class has been perpetuated, though anyone who considers it seriously, even briefly, in terms of what it contributes to new learning, or of pupil participation, or of communicative function, realises very quickly that it is a singularly profitless exercise. It may be well, therefore, to begin by looking carefully at just what ‗reading‘ entails in the context of teaching English as a foreign language—see Appendix 1 for a summary. First it must be recognised that reading is a complex skill, that is to say that it involves a whole series of lesser skills. First of these is the ability to recognize stylized shapes which are figures on a ground, curves and lines and dots in patterned relationships. Moreover it is not only a matter of recognising the shapes as such but recognising them as same or different, and recognising that shapes which are quite different may for the purposes of reading be regarded as the same, as is the case with upper and lower case letters like ‗A‘ and ‗a‘. Good modern infant teaching recognises the need for training in this kind of recognition and a good deal of time is devoted to the matching of shapes and patterns and in general cultivating the perceptual apparatus necessary for it. This is, however, in the nature of a low level skill, which becomes increasingly mechanical; where learners are already literate in a language which uses the Roman alphabet, acquiring this skill presents few problems. It is only where learners are illiterate or literate in a language which uses a non-Roman script that difficulties may be encountered. The second of the skills involved in the complex is the ability to correlate the black marks on the paper—the patterned shapes—with language. It is impossible to learn to read without at least the capacity to acquire language. The correlation appears to be made between elements of the patterns on the paper and formal elements of language. According to the nature of these formal linguistic elements the nature of the skill involved alters. The elements may be complex groups of sounds which might be called ‗words‘ or ‗phrases‘ or ‗sentences‘ or even ‗paragraphs‘, ‗chapters‘, or ‗books‘; or they might be the most basic elements, the single ‗sounds‘ called phonemes. Readers who learn to correlate larger groups of sounds with the patterns on the paper might perhaps be learning by ‗look and say‘, those learning to correlate the patterns on the paper with phonemes by a ‗phonic‘ method; both kinds of skill are needed to develop efficient reading. Page 6 Teaching of Reading and Writing skills-ENG515 VU Reading speed, for example, probably depends to a considerable extent on the development of the first; reading aloud would seem to depend at least to some extent on the second. A third skill which is involved in the total skill of reading is essentially an intellectual skill; this is the ability to correlate the black marks on the paper by way of the formal elements of language, let us say the words as sound, with the meanings which those words symbolise. Page 7 Teaching of Reading and Writing skills-ENG515 VU Lesson-02 TEACHING READING IN ANOTHER LANGUAGE Topic: 005: Introduction to Learning to Read in another Language (I) The learners gather around the teacher and the teacher reads a story to the learners from a very large blown-up book while showing them the pictures and the written words. The teacher involves the learners in the reading by asking them what they think will happen next and getting them to comment on the story. Where they can, the learners read the words aloud together. The procedure is an attempt to make the shared book activity like a parent reading a child a bedtime story. The learners are asked to choose what blown-up book they want read to them and the same book may be used in the shared book activity on several occasions. In the later readings, the learners are expected to join in the reading much more. At other times, learners can take the small version of the blown-up book and read it individually or in pairs. After a reading, the learners draw, write, act out the story or study some of the language in the story. The shared book activity is a very popular reading activity in New Zealand pre-schools and primary schools. It was developed by a New Zealander, Don Holdaway, and is such a normal part of a primary teacher‘s repertoire that publishers now print blown-up book versions of popular children‘s books. The purpose of the shared book activity is to get the learners to see the fun element in reading. In the activity, this fun comes from the interesting story, the interaction between the teacher and the learners in predicting and commenting on the story, and the rereading of favourite stories. Teachers can make blown-up books. Although a blown-up book takes some time to make, it will be used and re-used and well repays the eff ort of making it or the cost of buying it. The books also make attractive displays in the classroom. The shared book activity was used in one of the experimental groups in the Elley and Mangubhai (1981) Book Flood experiment. Blown-up books can be bought from the following publishers: Nelson Price Milburn (http://www.newhouse.co.nz/), Giltedge Publishing (http:// www.giltedgepublishing.co.nz/). Titles include Where Do Monsters Live?; Bears, Bears Everywhere; Mr Noisy; What Do You See?; Pirate Pete; William‘s Wet Week; The Sunflower Tree. Topic: 006:Introduction to Learning to Read in another Language (Ii) Guided reading can be done silently or with a child reading aloud to a friend, parent or teacher. Before the reading the learner and teacher talk about the book. Research by Wong and McNaughton (1980) showed that for the learner they studied, pre-reading discussion resulted in a greater percentage of words initially correct, and a greater percentage of errors self-corrected. The teacher and the learner look at the title of the book and make sure that all the words in the title are known. Then they talk about the pictures in the story and make predictions about what might happen in the story and talk about any knowledge the learner already has about the topic. Important words in the story are talked about but need not be pointed to in their written form. So, before the learner actually starts to read the story, the ideas and important words in the story are talked about and clarified. Then the learner begins to read. If the learner is reading aloud to the teacher, then it is good to use the pause, prompt, praise procedure (Glynn et al., 1989; Smith and Elley, 1997: 134–136). This means that when the learner starts to struggle over a word the teacher does not rush in with the answer but pauses for the learner to have time to make a good attempt at it. If the learner continues to struggle the teacher gives a helpful prompt, either from the Page 8 Teaching of Reading and Writing skills-ENG515 VU meaning of the story or sentence or from the form of the word. When the learner finally reads the word correctly the teacher then praises the attempt. If the learner is reading silently, then a part of the text is read and there is a discussion of what has just been read and prediction of the next part of the text. Independent Reading In independent reading the learner chooses a book to read and quietly gets on with reading it. During this quiet period of class time, the teacher may also read or may use the time as an opportunity for individual learners to come up to read to the teacher. In beginners‘ classes there is a set time each day for independent reading and learners are expected to read out of class as well. Other names for extended independent reading are sustained silent reading (SSR) and drop everything and read (DEAR). Learning to read is also helped by learning to write and learning through listening. In writing as in reading, first language teachers emphasize the communication of messages and expect the learners gradually to approximate normal writing over a period of time. Research indicates that the best age to learn to read is about six to seven years old. Starting early at five has no long-term advantages and may make it more difficult for some learners to experience success in reading. At the age of about six or seven children are intellectually ready to begin reading. It should be clear from this description that native speakers learning to read have the advantage of bringing a lot of language knowledge and a lot of experience to learning to read. They might have the disadvantage of beginning to learn a complex skill when they may not be quite ready for it. Learning to Read in another Language There are numerous factors that aff ect the difficulty of learning to read in another language. Table 1.1 focuses on three factors but as the footnote to the table suggests, there are other factors that are important particularly when working with a group of learners. Let us look at the factors in Table 1.1 by focusing on a learner from a particular language background, Thai, who is in the very early stages of learning English. The learner is 12 years old and can already read fluently in Thai. A Thai learner beginning to read English will know very little English vocabulary. There are English loan words in Thai like free, but a Thai learner probably does not realise that they have an English origin. This means that the initial reading material will need to be much more controlled than the material aimed at young native speakers of English who already know close to five thousand words. A Thai learner may also need much more preparation or pre-teaching before they start on their reading. These are all disadvantages. There are, however, numerous advantages that the Thai learner has. First, the Thai learner can already read Thai and so knows a lot about reading. Thai is an alphabetic language so the Thai learner is already very familiar with the alphabetic principle; that is, that letters can represent sounds and these can go together to make up words. Thai script is not related to English script, so the Thai learner will have to spend time learning letter shapes. An Italian learner of English does not have this problem because Italian uses substantially the same script as English. Second, if the Thai learner is good at reading Thai, the learner will have many reading strategies like guessing from context, scanning, skimming, and careful decoding which could be carried over to the reading of English if the conditions for reading were suitable. There is evidence, for example, that training in increasing reading speed in the first language can transfer to another language if the materials in the other language are at a suitable level (Bismoko and Nation, 1974; Cramer, 1975). Third, reading is Page 9 Teaching of Reading and Writing skills-ENG515 VU largely a valued and enjoyed activity in Thai society so there may also be positive attitudes to reading carried over to English. Fourth, a 12 year old is much more able to learn to read than a five year old. A 12 year old has much more developed cognitive skills and is much more able to learn from direct instruction. Table 1.1 summarises these characteristics. Table 1.1 L1/L2 Differences for an Individual Beginning to Read Characteristics General effects Particular effect L1 beginning readers already Learning to read an L2 involves a L2 learners need very controlled know a lot of the language they great deal of language learning. texts. L2 learners need a greater are beginning to read (sounds, amount of pre-reading activities. vocabulary, grammar, discourse). L2 learners do not. L2 beginners can already read in L2 beginners have general L2 beginners do not need to learn their L1. cognitive skills. They have what they can transfer from the preconceptions and attitudes to L1. They may need to change reading. They have language their attitudes to reading. specific skills. There will be Learners may have to learn a interference and facilitation diff erent writing system. eff ects between the L1 and L2. L2 beginners are usually older L2 learners have greater It is easy to transfer L1 skills. L2 than L1 beginners. metalinguistic and metacognitive learners can use more explicit awareness. approaches and tools like dictionaries. This table has been kept simple by focusing on only one learner who is just beginning to read. It is more complicated if you have several learners with diff erent L1s, diff erent L2 proficiencies, diff erent L1 reading proficiencies, and diff erent motivations for reading. Topic: 007:Principles For Teaching Reading: Meaning Focused Input Principles for Teaching Reading the following principles can guide the design and practice of a reading programme. For another list of principles, see Williams (1986). Meaning-focused Input  Practice and training in reading should be done for a range of reading purposes. A reading course should cover these purposes—reading to search for information (including skimming and scanning), reading to learn, reading for fun, reading to integrate information, reading to critique texts, and reading to write. These are looked at throughout the following chapters.  Learners should be doing reading that is appropriate to their language proficiency level. The course should include reading simplified material at a range of levels, particularly extensive reading of graded readers.  Reading should be used as a way of developing language proficiency.  Learners should read with 98 percent coverage of the vocabulary in the text so that they can learn the remaining 2 percent through guessing from context. Page 10 Teaching of Reading and Writing skills-ENG515 VU Topic: 008:Principles For Teaching Reading: Meaning-Focused Output  Reading should be related to other language skills. The course should involve listening, speaking and writing activities related to the reading. See, for example, Simcock (1993) using the ask and answer technique and several others described later in this book. Topic: 009:Principles For Teaching Reading: Learning-Focused Learning Language-focused Learning  Learners should be helped to develop the skills and knowledge needed for eff ective reading. The course should work on the subskills of reading and the language features needed to read, including phonemic awareness activities, phonics, spelling practice, vocabulary learning using word cards, and grammar study. Some of this can be done through intensive reading.  Learners should be given training and practice in a range of reading strategies. These strategies could include—previewing, setting a purpose, predicting, posing questions, connecting to background knowledge, paying attention to text structure, guessing words from context, critiquing, and reflecting on the text. Janzen and Stoller (1998) describe a similar list of strategies.  Learners should be given training and practice in integrating a range of strategies. Learners should be familiar with a strategy package procedure like reciprocal teaching or concept-oriented reading (CORI).  Learners should become familiar with a range of text structures, such as those used in newspaper reports, stories, recounts and information reports. Topic: 010: Principles for Teaching Reading: Fluency Development Fluency Development  Learners should be helped and pushed to develop fluency in reading. They need to read material that is very familiar and contains no unknown language features. There should also be speed reading practice in word recognition and in reading for understanding. These can include activities like speed reading, repeated reading, paired reading, scanning, and skimming.  Learners should enjoy reading and feel motivated to read. Learners should have access to interesting texts and be involved in activities like listening to stories, independent reading, and shared reading (blown-up books). Native-speaking children like to read scary books, comics and cartoons, books about sports and magazines about popular culture (Worthy, Moorman and Turner, 1999). These are not usually found at school.  Learners should read a lot. This can be monitored and encouraged through the use of extensive reading and issue logs. Topic: 011: Introduction to Recognize and Spell Words An essential part of the reading skill is the skill of being able to recognise written forms and to connect them with their spoken forms and their meanings. This involves recognising known words and also deciphering unfamiliar words. There has been considerable debate in first language reading over the role and nature of direct systematic teaching of word recognition skills. See Moorman, Blanton and Page 11 Teaching of Reading and Writing skills-ENG515 VU McLaughlin (1994) for an example of this. There is also debate over the role of language-focused activities, such as reading aloud (see Griffin, 1992; Rounds, 1992). The position taken in this book is that there needs to be a balance of the four strands of meaningfocused input, meaning-focused output, language-focused learning and fluency development, and there is thus a role for appropriate amounts of formal word recognition instruction. The principles that should guide this teaching are that most attention can be given to rules and items that occur frequently, are simple, and are regular. Page 12 Teaching of Reading and Writing skills-ENG515 VU Lesson-03 TEACHING HOW TO RECOGNIZE AND SPELL WORDS I Topic: 012: Prerequisites for Formal Reading Instruction Prerequisites for Formal Reading Instruction to be able to benefit from instruction on spelling rules, learners need to: (1) know at least some of the letter shapes; (2) be aware that words are made up of separable sounds (phonemic awareness); (3) know basic English writing conventions (we read from left to right, beginning at the top and moving down the page); and (4) Know the spoken forms of most of the words that will be met in the initial stages of reading. Learning Letter Shapes If a second language learner is already able to read in their first language, and their first language uses the same alphabet as English, then little if any letter shape learning will be needed. A native speaker of Malay who can read Malay already knows the letter shapes needed for reading English. They may have to apply diff erent spelling-sound rules to these shapes but the written forms are not a problem. Learners who are not literate in their first language, or whose language uses a diff erent writing system, like Arabic or Japanese, may need to learn to recognise the letter shapes. Because of the detailed recognition skills that are needed, it may be most eff ective to teach learners how to write the letters rather than just rely on reception. Activities can include tracing over letters; repeated copying of letters of the alphabet; delayed copying (Hill, 1969) where the learners look, look away, and write from memory; letter matching of flash cards (find the pairs); and letter dictation. Letters of similar shapes p, d, b, g, should not be learned at the same time as they are likely to interfere with each other. There may be some value in practising letter patterns, for example,or, but this is probably more useful for cursive writing and developing writing fluency. Topic: 013: Prerequisites for Formal Reading Instruction Phonemic Awareness Phonemic awareness is the knowledge that spoken words are made up of sounds that can be separated, that is, that /kæt/ (cat) is made up of the sounds /k æ t/. If the learner can already read in their first language, and the writing system of the first language is alphabetic, the learner will already have phonemic awareness. To get a clearer idea of the nature of phonemic awareness, see Table 2.1 which describes two tests of phonemic awareness. In essence, phonemic awareness is not awareness of particular sounds. It is awareness of the general principle that words are made up of separable sounds. It is likely that learners who are not literate in their L1 but who are above the age of seven or eight will already have phonemic awareness in their L1 but this should be checked. Learners who are between four and six years old could be tested for phonemic awareness and, if necessary, could be given phonemic awareness activities (see Table 2.2). Phonemic awareness and letter knowledge are the two best predictors of how well first language children just Page 13 Teaching of Reading and Writing skills-ENG515 VU entering school will do at learning to read during the first two years of school. Phonemic awareness training can have positive long-term eff ects on spelling. In the vast majority of cases, learners of English as a second language will not need phonemic awareness activities because they will already have this knowledge. Table 2.1 Tests of Phonemic Awareness Phoneme deletion test (Bruce, 1964) What word would remain if this sound was taken away? (Practice words c-at, b-r-ight, crie-d). Takes about 10 minutes. 1. S-t-and (middle) 11. S-top (first) 21. thin-k (last) 2. J-am (first) 12. Far-m (last) 22. p-late (first) 3. Fair-y (last) 13. Mon-k-ey (middle) 23. s-n-ail (middle) 4. Ha-n-d (middle) 14. s-pin(first) 24. b-ring (first) 5. Star-t (last) 15. for-k (last) 25. pin-k (last) 6. Ne-s-t (middle) 16. c-old (first) 26. le-f-t (middle) 7. F-rock (first) 17. Part-y (last) 27. car-d (last) 8. Ten-t (last) 18. we-n-t (middle) 28. s-p-oon (middle) 9. Lo-s-t (middle) 19. f-r-og (middle) 29. h-ill (first) 10. N-ice (first) 20. n-ear (first) 30. Ever-y (last) Phoneme segmentation test (Yopp, 1988) Today we‘re going to play a diff erent word game. I‘m going to say a word, and I want you to break the word apart. You are going to tell me each sound in the word in order. For example, if I say old, you will say o-l-d. Let‘s try a few words together. (Three more examples are given ride, go, man) Total score = 22. Takes about 5–10 minutes. Dog lay keep Race Fine Zoo no Three She Job Wave In Grew Ice That At Red Top Me By Sat do Table 2.2 Phonemic Awareness Activities Activities The most basic procedures involve: 1) the teacher saying separate sounds (/t/ /e/ /n/) and the learner putting the separate heard sounds together to make a familiar word (ten) (i.e. phoneme blending); and Page 14 Teaching of Reading and Writing skills-ENG515 VU 2) the learner saying the separate sounds of a word for the teacher to guess what the word is (i.e. phoneme segmentation). These activities can be done as a game. Other activities include: 1. phoneme isolation (What is the first sound in run?) 2. phoneme identification (What sound is the same in rat, run, ripe?) 3. phoneme deletion (What word do we have if we take /t/ out of stand?) Principles Phonemic awareness activities should be done with known words. Phonemic awareness activities should be fun. Topic: 014:Prerequisites for Formal Reading Instruction ;Spoken Language and Reading Writing Conventions English has the following writing conventions. Not all languages follow the same conventions. 1. Writing goes from left to right (cf. Arabic—right to left, Japanese— top to bottom). 2. The lines of writing come one under the other starting from the top of the page (cf. Japanese). 3. The pages go from front to back (cf. Japanese—back to front). 4. Words are separated by spaces (cf. Thai—no spaces between words). 5. Sentences begin with a capital letter and end with a full stop, question mark, or exclamation mark. 6. Quotation marks are used to signal speech or citation. 7. English has upper case (capital) letters and lower case (small) letters. The use of capital letters may carry an extra meaning. 8. Sentences are organised into paragraphs. 9. In formal and academic writing there are conventions that need to be learned, such as the use of bold and italics, the use of headings and sub-headings, the use of indentation, the use of footnotes, the use of references, and page numbering. In early reading, learners may need to be checked for knowledge of these conventions, and some may need to be pointed out and explained. Spoken Language and Reading The experience approach to reading is based on the idea that when learning to read, learners should bring a lot of experience and knowledge to their reading so that they only have to focus on small amounts of new information. Sylvia Ashton-Warner‘s (1963) approach to teaching young native speakers to read is an excellent example of this. Here are the steps in her approach. 1. Each learner draws a picture illustrating something that recently happened to them or something that they are very interested in. 2. One by one the learners take their picture to the teacher who asks them what it is about. Page 15 Teaching of Reading and Writing skills-ENG515 VU 3. The teacher then writes the learner‘s description below the picture exactly as the learner said it using the same words the learner said, even if it is non-standard English. 4. This then becomes the learner‘s reading text for that day. The learner reads it back to the teacher and then takes it away to practise reading it, and to read it to classmates, friends and family. 5. These pictures and texts all written by the same learner are gathered together to be a personal reading book for that learner. Note that most of the knowledge needed to read and comprehend the text is directly within the experience of the learner. The ideas come from the learner, the words and sentences come from the learner, and the organisation of the text comes from the learner. The only learning needed is to match the new written forms provided by the teacher with this knowledge. It is possible to learn to read a foreign language without being able to speak it, but learning to read is much easier if the learner already has spoken control of the language features that are being met in the reading. Reading texts used with young native speakers of English use language that is already known to them and are on topics that interest them. However, young native speakers learning to read have an oral vocabulary size of around 5,000 words. Non-native speakers will have a very much smaller English vocabulary and so if native-speaker texts are used to teach second language reading, they need to be checked to see if they contain known and useful vocabulary. Topic: 015: Phonics and the Alphabetic Principle Learning phonics is learning the systematic relationships between written letters and sounds, for example, learning that the written form p is usually pronounced /p/. At a very general level, learning phonics means learning the alphabetic principle, that is that letters and groups of letters represent sounds in a largely systematic way. At a detailed level, learning phonics involves learning the range of spelling- sound correspondences that exist in a particular language. Some languages like Chinese do not follow the alphabetic principle. They do not have separate letters that represent the individual sounds that go together to make a spoken word. Other languages follow the alphabetic principle in a very regular way. The Maori language, for example, has 12 consonant sounds and five vowel sounds (10 if long and short versions of vowels are not counted as the same sound). These are represented by 11 consonant letters and five vowel letters. The only exceptions to a one letterone sound (not necessarily one phoneme) rule are that the letters wh represent a sound which is not /w/ plus /h/, and the letters ng represent a sound /ŋ/ which is not /n/ plus /g/. After a few lessons in Maori pronunciation, it is possible for anyone familiar with the English alphabet to learn all the Maori spelling- sound correspondences in a few minutes. This is an over-simplification because there are diff erent dialects of Maori. However, there are frequent, systematic relationships in English that can provide a good basis for eff ective phonics instruction. Here aresome English spelling-sound rules that are regular and very, very frequent. The letter b is pronounced /b/, f—/f/, k—/k/, m—/m/, v—/v/. There are exceptions to these rules, but most of the exceptions are rulebased (bb—/b/, mm—/m/) or do not occur in many words. As a fluent reader of English you already know the regular rules and can Page 16 Teaching of Reading and Writing skills-ENG515 VU thus make a reasonable pronunciation of written words that you have probably never seen before— lyncean, glogg, cordwain, sclerotium, tussah. If a teacher wants to do some phonics instruction, it is important to know what the most useful rules in English are and to be able to determine whether it is better to deal with a particular word phonically or simply to encourage learners to memorise the spelling of the whole word. Appendix 1 lists the important rules for English and provides some guidance and practice in applying the rules. By working through Appendix 1 you should be able to do the following things. 1. Make an ordered systematic syllabus for phonics instruction. In particular, decide what phonics rules deserve attention early in a reading programme. 2. Be aware of the most common exceptions to the rules. 3. Where there are conflicting rules, for example a—/a:/, a—/æ/, decide which one should get attention first. 4. Decide whether a word is regularly spelled or not. In other words, work out the learning burden of its written form. 5. Interpret errors in learners‘ reading aloud to see if they are rule-based or not. Topic: 016: The Role of Phonics in a Reading Program Phonics can fit into a reading programme in the following ways. Isolated Words and Words in Texts  Help learners in using phonics to read specially chosen isolated words.  Introduce phonics with known words.  Ask students to read interesting texts that use regular spelling-sound correspondences such as Dr Seuss books. Individual and Class  Use phonics in one-to-one reading instruction as a part of reading a text.  Carry out class teaching of the most frequent, simple, regular spelling-sound correspondences. Word Attack Skills  Teach learners to sound out all the sounds in a word.  Teach learners to concentrate on the first letters of a word.  Where possible, use phonics when giving help with difficult words. Outlandish Proposals  Use regularised English as an intermediary step.  Allow invented spellings that follow rules—the rule is more important than the items. Word recognition when reading is helped by familiarity with what is being read (from having read it before or from listening to it being read), by context clues coming from the meaning of what is Page 17 Teaching of Reading and Writing skills-ENG515 VU being read, by being able to recognise some words as complete units, and by being able to decode words phonically. It is worth drawing on all these sources of help because ultimately it is the quantity of successful reading that will contribute most to the development of reading skills, and using all these sources is more likely to guarantee success. As phonics involves spelling-sound relationships, it is significant both for learning to read and for learning to spell. Page 18 Teaching of Reading and Writing skills-ENG515 VU Lesson-04 TEACHING HOW TO RECOGNIZE AND SPELL WORDS II Topic: 017: Spelling: Productive Phonics I Being familiar with spelling-sound correspondences can be seen as a receptive skill in that it relates to the receptive skill of reading. The productive equivalent of this part of the reading skill is spelling, which is part of the skill of writing. There has been considerable research with native speakers on the learning of spelling and the definitive collection of research reviews is Brown and Ellis‘s (1994) Handbook of Spelling. From an applied linguistics perspective, the study of research on spelling is rewarding not only for the information it provides on the teaching and learning of spelling, but also because it provides valuable insights into many of the central issues involved in second language learning. Spelling is a very limited and clearly defined area, involving only 26 letters and a definable set of combinations of letters. Working within this limited area makes the issues clearer and easier to deal with in a comprehensive way. Table 2.3 lists the most important of these with a brief summary of findings from L1 research. Let us look briefly at some of these. Deliberate and Incidental Learning In the learning of both grammatical and vocabulary items there has been debate over the roles of incidental learning (acquisition in Krashen‘s Issues Findings Deliberate versus incidental learning Deliberate analytic learning can speed up learning and can help with learning problems. Regular tests help. Most learning is incidental. Substantial reading improves spelling. System learning versus item learning Some words can be dealt with by rules, others have to be learned as unique items. The unpredictability of the English spelling system is a major obstacle to learning to spell. A single kind of learning versus interactive systems Alphabetic learning interacts with lexical learning. The eff ect of other levels of language on this level Phonological awareness aff ects spelling and has and this level on others long-term eff ects on spelling. Spelling aff ects word recognition. Poor spellers have problems in writing— they use avoidance strategies. Phonological awareness aff ects reading and reading can aff ect phonological awareness. Writing the letter shapes helps learning. The direction of the eff ect Spelling aff ects use, use aff ects spelling. The eff ect of the origin of the feature Etymology aff ects spelling The treatment of irregularity Some high frequency items are irregular. Irregular items are learned as lexical units. The eff ect of frequency on the type of storage Highly frequent items, even regular ones, are stored as lexical items. Regular low frequency items are Page 19 Teaching of Reading and Writing skills-ENG515 VU dealt with by rules. The eff ect of age on learning Older learners are better at deliberate learning. The effect of age on learning Complex items need to be learned through a series of stages. The treatment of error Letting students invent spellings can have positive eff ects. The effect of the first language The writing system of the first language can have positive and negative eff ects on learning the second language. (1981) terms) and deliberate learning. Some argue that incidental learning is what really matters and that at best deliberate learning can only play an indirect secondary role. In vocabulary learning, however, there is considerable evidence supporting the deliberate learning of vocabulary as part of a well-balanced programme (Elgort, 2007). First language research on the learning of spelling also supports having both deliberate and incidental learning. Although most learning of the many sound-spelling correspondences is picked up incidentally and good readers are usually good spellers, deliberate analytic learning can speed up learning and can help with learning difficulties. Topic: 018: Spelling: Productive Phonics II System Learning and Item Learning Partly as a result of the impact of corpus linguistics, there has been considerable debate over whether learners develop substantial control of a complex grammatical system or whether what seems to be grammar learning is really the accumulation of knowledge of numerous collocations. That is, much language use is not rule-based but is based on the use of pre-fabricated units (see Pinker, 1999, for an interesting discussion of this). Research on the learning of complex words like decompose, combinability and unrefugeelike suggests that high frequency complex words are stored as whole, readymade units. Low frequency complex words are recreated each time they are met or used. That is, low frequency items are dealt with according to systematic rules, while high frequency items are dealt with by accessing memorised complete units. Frequency and complexity combine nicely in this argument. High frequency items are relatively small in number so there are not too many to store. If they were processed according to rules, because they are very frequent a lot of processing time would be spent dealing with them and that would be difficult. Thus storing them as readymade items is the most efficient option. Low frequency items are very numerous. There are too many of them to store as ready-made complex units. However, low frequency items make up only a small proportion of the running words so dealing with them according to rules does not occupy too much on-line processing time. Thus, processing them according to rules is the best option. Research on spelling supports this high frequency/low frequency distinction. Many high frequency words are irregularly spelled and must be stored as memorised items. Low frequency words tend to be more regularly spelled and can be dealt with by the application of rules. Page 20 Teaching of Reading and Writing skills-ENG515 VU Topic: 019: First Language Effects on Second Language Reading In its simplest form, the contrastive analysis hypothesis argued that second language learning can be strongly aff ected by first language knowledge. Where there are similarities between languages, second language learning will be easier. Where there are diff erences, second language learning will be more difficult. Complications in the hypothesis arise from the ways in which a second language is learned, and in the nature of the similarities and diff erences between the two languages. There is evidence of positive and negative eff ects of the first language on the second at the levels of pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, and discourse. Spelling is no exception, and there is plenty of evidence of first language spellings having both positive and negative eff ects according to the degrees of similarity and diff erence between the language items and rules. Topic: 020: Learning to Spell and Its Significance for Teaching Reading (I) English spelling is difficult. Although there are many rules, there are also many irregularities and decision points where competing rules need to be chosen. Learning how to spell in more regularly spelled languages likeIndonesian, Samoan or Finnish is a much easier task. If learners have poor spelling skills, they will typically avoid writing tasks, and when writing will avoid words that they find difficult to spell. One way of organising an approach to spelling improvement is to ensure that spelling is dealt with across the four strands of meaning-focused input, meaning-focused output, language-focused learning and fluency development. Spelling and Meaning-focused Input The more learners read, the more their spelling will improve. Continual receptive exposure to the written forms of words provides a useful basis for later written production (Cunningham and Stanovich, 1991). In the early stages of learning to read English as an L1, the number of words learners can read is much greater than the number they can spell and the size of this gap persists for several years. Spelling and Meaning-focused Output Spelling is particularly important for writing and at the very least, having to write can make learners aware of gaps in their spelling knowledge. In the early stages of writing by young native speakers, teachers accept the invented spellings they produce as useful steps on the way to more accurate spelling. Writing activities that can help with spelling are copying, delayed copying, read and write from memory, dictation, the various forms of guided writing, writing with the help of a dictionary, and free writing. Too muchattention to spelling when responding to learners‘ writing can result in an unwillingness to write or avoidance strategies where learners only use very familiar words. Page 21 Teaching of Reading and Writing skills-ENG515 VU Topic: 021: Learning To Spell And Its Significance For Teaching Reading (II) There are numerous techniques for giving deliberate attention to spelling. The critical factor is making sure that there is an appropriate balance of each of the four strands so that there is some deliberate attention to spelling but this attention does not become excessive. Deliberate attention to spelling can include the following. The Deliberate Memorization of the Spelling of Individual Words Cover and Retrieve The learner writes a list of difficult to spell words down the left-hand side of the page. The first letter or two of each word is written next to it, for example yacht y occurrence o The words are studied and then covered and each word is written from memory using the first letter clue. The first letter is written again so that the activity can be repeated. Yacht yacht y Using Analogies Working with the teacher or in pairs or small groups, the learners think of known words that share similar spelling features to words that they have difficulty in spelling. For example, if learning to spell apply, the learners think of the known words reply, supply, etc. Using Word Parts For advanced learners, drawing attention to word-building units can help. For example, separate contains the root par which is also in part. The spelling is therefore separate not seperate. Pronouncing the Word in the Way it is Spelled A word like yacht can be deliberately mispronounced as /yætc˘t/ as a kind of mnemonic for the spelling. Visualising Learners look at a word, close their eyes and try to see the spelling of the word in their mind. If a part of the word is particularly difficultto remember, try to think of that part in a striking colour such as red. Tests Teachers can have regular tests to encourage learners to work on spelling. These can be dictation tests or individualised tests as in the cover and retrieve technique where the learners each give the teacher a list of words on one sheet and on another sheet a list of the first letters of the words. The sheet with the first letters is used for the test, and the other for marking. The Deliberate Study of Regular Correspondences and Rules Noticing Patterns Page 22 Teaching of Reading and Writing skills-ENG515 VU Words following a similar set of sound-spelling correspondences are grouped together so that learners see several examples of the same correspondence, for example day, play, say, may, stay Learners‘ involvement in such noticing can be deepened by getting learners to work in pairs grouping such words from a mixed list, by dictating the words to the learners, by getting learners to suggest other words that follow the pattern, and by following up these activities with a dictation test drawing on a variety of patterns. Studying Rules A few very common complicated rules deserve a bit of deliberate study, particularly for advanced learners. The most useful of these rules are: 1. i before e except after c 2. free and checked vowels. The rule for free and checked vowels is rather complicated but it is very useful because it provides explanations for the doubling of consonants when adding affixes, the function of final silent e, and the spelling and pronunciation of a large number of words. To understand the rule it is necessary to know what the free vowels are and what the checked (or limited or short) vowels are. The free vowels a e i o u are pronounced / ei i: aiou u:/, which is the same as their names (for example, the name for the letter a is pronounced /ei/). The checked vowels a e i o u are pronounced /æ e i o u/. Some people call free and checked vowels long and short vowels but this is misleading from a phonological point of view because there is much more than a length diff erence between the two sets of pronunciations. Here are the rules associated with the free and checked vowels. These rules apply only to stressed syllables. 1. Free vowels occur in the pattern freevowel+consonant+vowel. date, medium 2. Checked vowels occur in the patterns checkedvowel+consonant with nothing following the consonant hat, fetch, sip, lot, shut checkedvowel+consonant+consonant (+consonant)+vowel happen, better, sitting, bottle, funny Note (a) the single letter x behaves like two consonants, (b) y in final position acts as a vowel. If you have understood the above explanation, you should be able to answer these questions. (Answers are supplied on page 24.) 1. What job does final silent e do in the following words? plate, scene, fine, home, tune 2. Why do you have to double the final consonant in the stem when you add y to the following words? fun, fat, slop, bag Page 23 Teaching of Reading and Writing skills-ENG515 VU 3. Why don‘t you have to double the final consonant when you add ing or ed to the following words? Look at each word carefully. weed, lengthen, push, hope 4. Why is occurrence correct and not occurence? 5. Why is exclamation correct and not exclammation? There are exceptions to the rules and it may be that the best use of the free/checked rule is as a way of explaining and helping to learn difficult words that follow the rules. The free and checked rules are items AV3, AV14, AV18, AV24, AV1, AV8, AV13, AV16, AV23 in Appendix 1. The exceptions are BV7. Strategy Training Learners should have familiar and well-practised strategies to follow to: (1) commit the spelling of a newly met word to memory; (2) find the spelling of a needed word when writing; and (3) decide how to pronounce a newly met word when reading. These strategies should be made up of activities that have already been practised in class. A Strategy for Memorising Spellings The activities described above in the section on deliberate memorisation can be put into a sequence that can be followed as far as is necessary foreach word. That is, first, the learner should close their eyes and try to visualise the word, that is, make a retrieval. Second, the learner should think of similarly spelled words. Third, if possible, the word can be broken into parts to see if knowing the parts helps remember the spelling. Fourth, if the word is really difficult to remember, it can be added to a list to use with the cover and retrieve technique. Alternatively, it can be placed on a word card for spaced recall practice. Ideally, learners should get plenty of practice using this strategy, and reflecting on it by thinking about it and talking about its application with other learners. A Strategy for Finding the Spelling of a Word Before looking up the spelling of a word in a dictionary, the learner should make an informed guess about how the word might be spelled. This can be done by thinking about other known words that sound the same and, if possible, checking that the spelling fits known rules. A Strategy for Deciding how to Pronounce a Written Form First, if the word looks like known words, the learner can try that pronunciation. Second, breaking the word into parts could help with getting the stress in the right place. Third, seek confirmation by asking someone who might know or by using a dictionary. Spelling and Fluency Development Fluency in spelling will come from large quantities of reading and writing, and from fluency practice in reading and writing. A typical writing fluency development activity is ten minute writing where learners write as much as they can on an easy topic in a regular, timed ten-minute period. The teacher does not correct spelling errors or grammatical errors, but responds to the content of the text encouraging the learner to write more. The speed of writing in words per minute is kept on a personal Page 24 Teaching of Reading and Writing skills-ENG515 VU graph by each learner and their goal is to see their speed in words per minute increase. This is done about three times a week. Topic: 022: Designing a Focused Spelling Program for Reading If spelling is a significant problem for learners, it may be worthwhile giving it some focused, planned special attention. Numerous studies looking at spelling and on other learning issues have shown the positive eff ects of a balanced, focused programme. Table 2.4 lists general principles that can be applied to any focused programme. These are organised under the headings aff ective, cognitive and social to make them easier to remember and to put into practice the idea that an eff ective programme will approach a problem from several perspectives; in this case, the attitudes and feelings ofthe learners, the knowledge involved, and the support that others can give. Table 2.4 also gives examples of application of the principles. There could be a third column in Table 2.4 and that would show the particular applications to a spelling programme. Let us take an example. Under the applications of the aff ective principle, Keep learners motivated, there is the application, Do mastery testing. Mastery testing involves repeated learning and testing until learners gain near perfect scores in what they have to learn. For mastery testing to work, there needs to be a clearly defined set of things to learn and there needs to be repeated and varied opportunities to do this learning. Mastery testing could be applied to a spelling programme in the following way. For a particular course, the focus may be the regularly spelled words in the first one thousand words of English. Those words would be ones that could be completely described by sections A and B of Appendix 1. Each week a few correspondences would be focused on and these would be tested by word dictation tests to see if learners had mastered the rules. If they did not score 90 percent or more on a 20-item test, they could sit another test focusing on the same correspondences. Before sitting another test, the teacher or learners could analyse the errors in the previous test and the learners could work on some practice items. Table 2.4 can also be used as a basis for evaluating a focused programme. Not all of the applications need be used but there should be variety and balance. Table 2.4 Features of a Good Intensive Learning Programme Principles Applications Affective Keep learners motivated Praise success Give quick feedback Do mastery testing Measure progress Record success on graphs or tables Make learning fun Use attractive aids Have amusing competitions Cognitive Encourage thoughtful processing Use rich associations, mnemonics, rules, retrieval, visualisation, deliberate learning, movement Use both analytic and holistic techniques Isolate and focus on problems Plan for repetition and revision Give regular practice Plan increasingly spaced revision Provide training Combine activities into strategies Train learners in strategy use Get learners to reflect on learning Organise the items to learn in helpful ways Group the items to learn into manageable blocks Page 25 Teaching of Reading and Writing skills-ENG515 VU Avoid interference Group helpfully related items together Plan for transfer of training Provide fluency training Social Provide peer support Do peer tutoring Get learners to report progress to others Organise support groups Aim for individual responsibility Let learners choose what and how to learn Encourage autonomy Note that the multi-focused approach in Table 2.4 can be applied to other things besides spelling, for example, learning to read, pronunciation, writing and so on. Spelling is only a small part of learning a language and for some learners it may not be an important focus, either because they have no problem with it or because writing is not a major part of their language use. What should be clear from this chapter is that spelling is no diff erent from other aspects of language use. If it is given attention, this attention should be balanced and in proportion to other focuses. Page 26 Teaching of Reading and Writing skills-ENG515 VU Lesson-05 TEACHING INTENSIVE EFL/ESL READING I Topic: 023: Introduction to Intensive EFL/ESL Reading Intensive study of reading texts can be a means of increasing learners‘ knowledge of language features and their control of reading strategies. It can also improve their comprehension skill. It fits into the language focused learning strand of a course. The classic procedure for intensive reading is the grammar-translation approach where the teacher works with the learners, using the first language to explain the meaning of a text, sentence by sentence. Used on suitable texts and following useful principles, this can be a very useful procedure as long as it is only a part of the reading program and is complemented by other language-focused learning and by extensive reading for language development and extensive reading for fluency development. At its worst, intensive reading focuses on comprehension of a particular text with no thought being given to whether the features studied in this text will be useful when reading other texts. Such intensive reading usually involves translation and thus comprehension of the text. So, one goal of intensive reading may be comprehension of the text. The use of translation makes sure that learners understand, and when the learners do some of the translation themselves, it allows the teacher to check whether they understand. Intensive reading may also have another goal and that is to determine what language features will get attention in the course. That is, the language features that are focused on in each text become the language syllabus for the course. This has several positive aspects. First, the language features are set in the communicative context of a text. The text can beused to show how the language features contribute to the communicative purpose of the text and this can be good preparation for subsequent writing activities. Second, choosing features in this way is likely to avoid the interference between vocabulary items or grammatical features that can occur when topic-centred syllabus design is used. There are also negative aspects to letting texts determine the language features of a course. First, the features given attention to may be an uncontrolled mixture of useful and not very useful items. That is, high frequency and low frequency vocabulary, frequent grammatical items and very infrequent or irregular grammatical items may get equal attention. Second, the topic of the text determines the salience of the items and the teaching gets directed towards this text rather than what will be useful in a range of texts. If intensive reading is to be done well, the major principle determining the focus of the teaching should be that the focus is on items that will occur in a wide range of texts. The teacher should ask ―How does today‘s teaching make tomorrow‘s text easier?‖. There are four ways of putting this important principle into practice. 1. Focus on items that occur with high frequency in the language as a whole (see Table 3.1 for examples). Such items will occur often in many diff erent texts. 2. Focus on strategies that can be used with most texts (see Table 3.1 for examples). Page 27 Teaching of Reading and Writing skills-ENG515 VU Table 3.1 Useful Focuses in Extensive Reading Focus items Strategies Comprehension Question type Predicting Question forms Standardised reading procedures Sound-spelling Regular sound-spelling Spelling rules Free/checked correspondences vowels Vocabulary High frequency vocabulary Guessing Noting and learning on Underlying meanings of words cards Word parts Dictionary use Grammar and cohesion High frequency grammatical Dealing with sources of difficulty features (clause insertion, what does what?, coordination, cohesion) Information content Topic type constituents Topic type Genre Features that typify this type of Generalise to writing text 3. Quickly deal with or ignore infrequent items. 4. Make sure that the same items and strategies get attention in several diff erent texts. Topic: 024: Focuses In Intensive Reading Intensive work on a reading text can focus on the following aspects. These will be looked at in more detail in the rest of this chapter and in other chapters in this book. 1. Comprehension. Intensive reading can aim at understanding a particular text. 2. Regular and irregular sound-spelling relations. This can be done through the teaching of phonics, through teaching spelling rules, and through reading aloud. This is covered in Chapter 2 on sounds and spelling. 3. Vocabulary. Learners‘ attention can be drawn to useful words, and the underlying meaning and use of these words can be explained. Words from the text could be assigned for later study. 4. Grammar. Difficult grammatical features can be explained and analysed. 5. Cohesion. Learners can practise interpreting what pronouns refer to in the text, what the conjunction relationships between sentences are, and how diff erent words are used to refer to the same idea. 6. Information structure. Certain texts contain certain kinds of information. Newspaper reports, for example, can describe what happened, what led to the happening, what the likely eff ects will be, who was involved, and when and where it happened. Learners can be helped to identify these diff erent kinds of information. This is covered in Chapter 9 on topic types. 7. Genre features. The vocabulary, grammatical features, cohesive features and information all contribute to the communicative eff ect of a text. Intensive reading can focus on how the text achieves its communicative purpose through these features and what this communicative purpose is. 8. Strategies. Intensive reading can be used to help learners develop useful reading strategies. By working intensively on a text, learners can practise the steps in guessing from context, using a dictionary, simplifying difficult sentences and taking notes. They can also receive training in integrated packages of strategies. In this chapter, strategies are included in the sections on comprehension, vocabulary, grammar and cohesion. Page 28 Teaching of Reading and Writing skills-ENG515 VU The discussion and explanation of the text need not be done using the first language, but use of the first language makes explanation much easier. The eff ect of this teaching should be to get learners to actually learn specific features or to make them aware of these so that they notice them in future reading and thus have a greater chance of learning them later. Language-focused learning for reading can occur through intensive reading with a teacher and it can also occur through written exercises accompanying a text. Topic: 025: Features Of Good Intensive Reading Exercise Let us look at what a good reading exercise should do. 1. A good reading exercise directs the learners‘ attention to features of the text that can be found in almost any text, or to strategies for dealing with any text, with the aim ―to develop in the language learner the ability to comprehend texts, not to guide him to comprehension of a text‖ (Davies and Widdowson, 1974: 172). To put it another way, when learners study a reading text, we want them to gain knowledge that will help them to understand tomorrow‘s reading text. We want them to learn things that apply to all texts. We want them to gain knowledge of the language and ways of dealing with the language rather than an understanding of a particular message. If a reading exercise does not focus on generalisable features of a text, it does not provide much opportunity for any useful, cumulative learning to take place. This requirement is particularly important for teaching reading. 2. A good reading exercise directs the learners‘ attention to the reading text. That is, the learners need to read the text or at least part of it in order to do the exercise. It is also important that some reading exercises require the learners to consider parts of the text in relation to their wider context, that is, other parts of the text, and information from outside the text. 3. A good reading exercise provides the teacher and the learners with useful information about the learners‘ performance on the exercise. If the learners were not successful on some parts of the exercise, then they should be aware of what they have to learn in order to do the exercise successfully with another text. Also, the teacher can get guidance from the learners‘ performance to improve teaching. Good exercises provide useful feedback for the teacher and the learners. Also, if the teacher understands what an exercise is trying to teach, they can judge the value of the exercise according to what they think is important for teaching reading. 4. A good reading exercise is easy to make. Teachers have to choose texts suited to the particular needs of their learners, and if these texts do not have satisfactory exercises, the teachers must make their own. Often teachers may want the learners to work with a textbook that is used in another discipline they are studying, and so they will have to make their own exercises. This should require a minimum of skill and time. If the preparation of language teaching materials becomes the job only of experts, then language teachers will have lost the flexibility needed for successful teaching. So, a good reading exercise focuses on items or strategies that apply to any text, requires the learners to read the text, provides useful feedback for the learners and the teacher, and is easy to make. Page 29 Teaching of Reading and Writing skills-ENG515 VU Topic: 026:Are Comprehension Questions Good For Reading Exercise? (I) Comprehension questions in one form or other are one of the language teaching techniques most frequently used to train learners in reading. They can take many forms, namely pronominal questions, yes/no questions, true/false statements, multiple-choice items and blank-filling or completion exercises. However, although comprehension questions may have a role to play in practising reading, the various forms of reading comprehension questions are not so eff ective for teaching learners to read. In order to show this, let us look at comprehension questions according to the four features of a good reading exercise. After that, a variety of other reading exercises are described which may also be used in intensive reading. The basic weakness of comprehension questions is that a simple question form can do so many things. A question can check vocabulary, sentence structure, inference, supposition, the ability to understand the question itself, and many other things. It is not always easy to decide which of these is being asked for in a particular question. Let us now evaluate comprehension questions as a type of exercise by seeing how they fit the four criteria given in the previous section. 1. Comprehension questions are local rather than general. They focus attention on the message of a particular text and, although they may require the learners to use more generalisable knowledge (like the interpretation of reference words or modal verbs), this requirement is usually hidden to the learner, and often to the teacher, by the message-focusing eff ect of the question. The teacher‘s aim should be to help the learners develop knowledge of the language and its conventions of use, and strategies, so that they can successfully deal with any text that they may meet. This knowledge of the language, however, is more difficult to gain if the learners‘ attention is directed not towards the language but towards the meaning or message of a particular text. The motivation to give attention to language features is diff erent from the motivation to give attention to particular messages (George, 1972: 11). Comprehension questions say to the learners ―Do you understand this passage?‖ whereas a good intensive reading exercise should say ―Can you handle these language features which are in this passage and other passages?‖. 2. Generally, comprehension questions direct learners‘ attention to the reading text, although occasionally some questions are answerable from the learners‘ own experience without having to refer to the text. Comprehension questions in standardised tests are usually pre-tested to make sure that they cannot be answered without reading the text. Comprehension questions can be designed to make the learners consider more than one sentence in the text in order to find the answer. 3. As comprehension questions can do so many jobs, it is not always clear which job they are doing and thus it is difficult to get useful feedback. Munby (1968) tried to solve this problem by using very carefully constructed multiple-choice comprehension questions. Topic: 027: By setting carefully constructed distractors we can train [the learners] to reason their way through the linguistic and intellectual problems posed by the text. (p. xxii)... in comprehension training we want [the learner] to recognize the areas of comprehension error (through the distractors) so that he learns to respond accurately and more maturely to what he reads. (p. xiii) Page 30 Teaching of Reading and Writing skills-ENG515 VU One of the most important steps in Munby‘s technique is discussion between the teacher and learners in order to eliminate the distractors. The value of Munby‘s technique is that through the discussion it becomes clear to the learners that they have made errors in comprehension and that these errors, as long as their causes are clearly identified, can be avoided by mastering recurrent language features. There are three important weaknesses in the technique. First, such comprehension questions are difficult to make. Second, such questions are clearly inefficient in terms of opportunity for learning the significance of a particular language feature. For example, there will probably be only one or two questions at the most for one text which focus attention on conjunction relationships, and so the learners will have few opportunities to master them. Third, from the learners‘point of view, the most important information that they will gain from making an error is that they made the wrong choice and their interest will be in discovering what the right answer is rather than in discovering what they should do to avoid a similar error in the future. Thus comprehension questions which could give valuable feedback to the learners will be unlikely to do so, because there will always be the more immediate attraction of getting the right answer for that particular item. 4. It is difficult to make good comprehension questions. It takes considerable skill, time, and eff ort. Thus most teachers who wish to use such exercises will be forced to rely on often unsuitable published material. In spite of these disadvantages, comprehension questions are useful ways of practising reading and of motivating learners to read. Page 31 Teaching of Reading and Writing skills-ENG515 VU Lesson-06 TEACHING INTENSIVE EFL/ESL READING II Topic: 028: Comprehension of the Text (I) Typically comprehension questions are used as the major means of focusing on comprehension of the text. The learners read a text and then answer questions about the content of the text. There is a variety of question types that can be used. Question Forms 1. Pronominal questions are questions beginning with who, what, when, how, why, etc. What is a saccade? How long does a fixation take? These questions often test writing ability as well as reading ability because the learners must write the answers. The questions can ask for one-word answers, or ask the learners to copy the answers directly from the passage. This makes them easier to mark. The learners can also answer questions using their first language. Instead of questions, commands may be used. Explain the three kinds of eye actions. Describe a fixation. 2. Yes/no questions and alternative questions only need short answers so the learners do not need to have a high level of writing skill. Does a fixation take a longer time than a jump? Do some words get more than one fixation? Does every word get a fixation? 3. True/false sentences are similar to yes/no questions. As with yes/no questions the learners have a 50 percent chance of guessing correctly. The learners look at each sentence and decide if it is true or false according to the passage. The learners answer by writing True or False, or by copying the sentences that are true and not copying the false sentences. This last way provides an opportunity for more learning to take place. A good reader makes about ten fixations per second. Most jumps are from one word to another. The learners may also be asked to rewrite the false sentences making changes so that they are now true. Page 32 Teaching of Reading and Writing skills-ENG515 VU Topic: 029: Comprehension of the Text (II) 4. Multiple-choice sentences are easy to mark. If four choices are given, the learners have only a 25 percent chance of guessing correctly. If the questions are not well made, often the learners‘ chances are higher. Good multiple-choice questions are not easy to make and often they are more difficult than they should be. This is because the wrong choices must seem possible and not stupid. If they are possible then they might be partly correct. 1. A fixation (a) takes about two-tenths of a second (b) is about one word long (c) is the opposite of a regression (d) is longer in Finnish than in English 5. Sentence completion. The learners complete sentences by filling the empty spaces to show that they understand the reading passage. The sentences come after the reading passage. There are four diff erent types of sentence completion. (i) The sentences are exact copies of sentences in the passage. (ii) The missing words can be found in the passage. (iii) The sentences are not exactly the same as the sentences in the passage although they talk about the same idea. (iv) The missing words are not in the passage so the learners must use their knowledge of vocabulary to fill the empty spaces. A skilled reader makes about fixations per 100 words. A skilled reader makes around fixations per minute. The learners are helped if there is a short line for each letter of the missing word, if the first letter is given and so on. 6. Information transfer. The learners complete an information transfer diagram based on the information in the text (Palmer, 1982). Chapter 9 provides examples of information transfer diagrams. 7. Translation. The learners must translate the passage into another language. Although translation is often a special skill, it can also show areas of difficulty that the learners have in reading. It also shows clearly where the learners do not have any difficulty. It is a very searching test of understanding, but it includes other skills besides reading. 8. Précis. After the learners read the passage they write a short composition about one-quarter of the length of the passage containing all the main ideas that are in the passage. This is called a précis. It can be done as group work. The learners are divided into small groups. Each group makes a list of the main ideas in the passage. Then the class as a whole discusses the main points and the teacher writes them on the blackboard. Then each group writes the précis (Forrester, 1968). Usually, a summary is made by choosing the main ideas from a text. Chambers and Brigham (1989), however, suggest a more teachable strategy, summary by deletion. This involves systematically deleting unimportant parts of the text and using what is left as the text for the summary. The steps are: Page 33 Teaching of Reading and Writing skills-ENG515 VU (1) read the passage and delete all the sentences that merely elaborate the main sentences; (2) delete all unnecessary clauses and phrases from the main sentences; (3) delete all unnecessary words from what remains; (4) replace the remaining words with your own expressions; (5) write the summ