Teaching English as a Foreign Language, Second Edition
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Teaching reading
First of all there is the question of teaching the mechanics of reading. As was pointed out earlier, where pupils are already literate in a language that uses the Roman alphabet the mechanics as such present few problems. Where the Roman alphabet is not known then the full panoply of techniques used for teaching initial literacy must be brought into play. A useful account of current methodology is to be found in C.Moon and B.Raban, A Question of Reading. The conventions of reading from left to right, and from top to bottom may have to be taught by such devices as simply getting pupils to follow the tip of a pointer which moves appropriately, picture story series arranged in the appropriate pattern, video or cine projections with moving points or areas of brightness which follow the left to right Reading 99 pattern all help. The shapes of letters may have to be taught by using all kinds of mnemonics which will help to link them with their sound values—S is a Snake, b is a big fat man with a big belly, and so on. The visual perception may have to be supported by the kinaesthetic, learning to write the letters as they are recognised, sandpaper cut-outs, plastic or wooden letters which can actually be handled, the range of devices available is almost overwhelming. Once the basic conventions are understood, then the combining of phonic analytic/ synthetic approaches and global pattern recognition approaches can proceed. It is at this point that learners should be made aware of the most usual regular English spelling patterns, and encouraged to recognise words by their block shapes thus has quite a different block shape from Flashcards, or better, flashboards are of great use here. A flashboard is a piece of black painted plywood or white thin melamine surfaced sheet, like Formica, about 30 cm long and 10 cm wide. The black painted surface can be written on with chalk and easily erased for re-use, similarly the white Formica surface can be written on with water-based felt tip pens. A set of nine or ten flashboards is sufficient for most purposes and avoids the consumption of great quantities of card. Longer boards can be used to encourage quick recognition of whole sentences in their written form and most teachers of complete beginners will find a set of five of these about one metre long extremely useful. Some teachers may have access to such sophisticated pieces of equipment as tachistoscopes or Wordmaster talking cards where the words or sentences being read are recorded onto a magnetic tape strip attached to the card on which the words are printed or written. When the card is run through the Wordmaster machine the printed words are reproduced in the spoken medium. The greater the variety of approaches that can be adopted the greater the likelihood of success. One relatively mechanical aspect of reading is that related to reading speed. The book by Edward Fry mentioned earlier gives sound guidance here. The simplest technique for improving reading speed is basically to use a series of timed texts, understanding of which is then tested in some way, most often by multiple-choice questions, but mechanical Reading 100 pacers which move a blind or a pointer down a page have also been shown to be useful, as have various types of film projection device. Obviously at very early stages it is possible to encourage rapid recognition by using flashboards as suggested earlier. Most teachers need to learn flashboard technique. The key things to remember are to stand where all pupils can see the board without the teacher having to move the board around, and to keep the board still when showing it. If the teacher holds the board horizontally across his chest so that the writing is upside down and facing him, calls for pupil attention, and then twists the board along its own horizontal axis, a good clear ‘flash’ can be achieved with the writing revealed right way up for just as long as the teacher may require. Given that the mechanical aspects of the teaching of reading are satisfactorily dealt with how are the intellectual reading skills to be developed? The classic approach has been by questioning, and a great deal can be done by this means. There are however a number of points that the teacher needs to bear in mind when using questions to help pupils to develop understanding of texts. The first is that there is a great difference between questions intended for teaching and questions aimed at testing. Teaching questions tend to be very numerous, oral rather than written, constructed in ordered sequences which lead the pupil to pay particular attention to various aspects of the text, and are likely to be provocative in the sense that they constitute the opening move in an exchange which might grow into a discussion. Sometimes teaching questions don’t have a ‘right’ answer because they ask for personal reactions, and any one of a dozen idiosyncratic responses may be equally acceptable. Teaching questions should seek to cultivate as many as possible of the different kinds of reading skill. It is therefore inappropriate to tell pupils to shut their books when asking questions which are intended to teach understanding of the text. Questions asked with the books shut test memory, either pure visual memory or memory of what was understood. To learn to comprehend, the pupil must learn to look at the actual black marks on the page and to make sense of them, and this can only be done with the book open. One useful technique for encouraging the pupils to |
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