FACILITATING READING TASKS-revised -Le Hong.ppt

Modern Approaches to Receptive Skills Practice
An Overview of techniques to Enhance Student Comprehension
June 28 & 29
, 2008
AGENDA
Receptive Skills Practice - An Overview
Traditional vs Modern Methodology
Task feedback circle
Eliciting and Concept checking
Skills work guidelines

OVERVIEW
RECEPTIVE SKILLS PRACTICE
Main focus is on real communication (understanding of reading/listening) & focus on specific sub-skills (e.g. inferring meaning of unknown items)

PRODUCTION SCP/FREER PRACTICE
Focus on choosing suitable items & on integrating them into conversations, etc.
Traditional methodology
Hand out the text or play a recording of it with little or no preparatory work
Ask the students to read or listen
Ask the students detailed questions about its informational & language content

Question: In what ways might this type of plan be unsatisfactory?
Listening is one of the four Macro skills. What are some of the Listening micro skills needed?
Understanding the of what is heard, e.g. Who is talking? Where are they? What are they doing? Relationship?
Understanding information re. quantity, reference numbers, prices, etc. when listening to a business telephone call
for words & phrases not heard clearly in an informal situation e.g. at a pub or party
gist
precise
Compensating
Consider how you listen to a radio weather broadcast.
Half-listen until you hear information relevant to your part of the country & concentrate to catch the key phrases
What would be different if you listened to one in a foreign language you’ve been studying for a year or so?
Even if you DID know all the words and grammar used, you would still have to:
Decipher the words because the announcer “talks too fast”
Try to pick out what is important and what is not.
Modern principles
Extensive reading & listening (for gist or for specific information) are more common in real life than are intensive reading & listening (word by word)
Intensive reading & listening may inhibit development-to worry about meaning of every word in text and so working from the part to the whole
Effective readers & listeners work from the whole to the part using overall context to help clarify meaning of individual words & structures. They tolerate uncertainty, ignoring unknown items or inferring their meaning from context.
The task-feedback circle
A basic procedure
Eliciting & Concept Checks
There are three steps to eliciting:
You convey a clear idea to the students, perhaps by using pictures, gestures or questions, etc.
The students then supply the appropriate language, information, ideas, etc.
You give them feedback
You can elicit: ideas, feelings, meanings, context, memories…
You can’t elicit: things they do not know
Teach then Check
Practice is more important than input
Teach a little amount then check what the students have taken in
Concept Questions
Some examples
A. She’s given up smoking.
Did she smoke before? (Y)
Does she smoke now? (N)
Did she stop? (Y)
B. I’m looking forward to my vacation.
Is the speaker thinking about the past, present, or future? (Future)
How does he/she feel about it? (Happy, excited)
Is he/she excited? (Yes)
C. You shouldn’t have suggested that.
Did the person suggest something? (Yes)
Now or in the past? (the past)
Is the speaker happy about it? (No)
Is the person criticizing the person’s actions? (Yes)
How not to do it
What’s the problem with the following ways of checking understanding:
Do you understand?
(To low level students) “What does ‘disorientated’ mean?”
OK, everyone understands so let’s move on.

Concept Questions are a useful way of checking students’ understanding of items you are presenting, but they must be well thought out. Can you identify the problem with these concept questions?
A. He managed to climb the mountain. (manage + to + base form)
Concept Question: Did he manage to climb the mountain?
B. I’m used to commuting to San Francisco. (be used to + verb + ing)
Concept Question: Am I describing an experience which although at first problematic has now become somewhat easier for me to deal with?
C. He used to smoke. (used to + base form)
Concept question: Did he used to drink?
D. He is an optimistic person.
Concept question: Is he happy?
Limit Your language: Less is More
What the teacher says… What the lower level std hears…
“So why don’t we all get in pairs, OK? And then try to figure out those questions, OK? And let me know when you’ve finished, OK?”
“Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, OK? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, OK? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, OK?
Ordering stages
in a listening lesson
The original order is:
The stages 1, 2 & 9 are interchangeable
Shows progression from introduction to very simple first task to more difficult task to task involving interpretation of much longer piece of speech
Process rather than product
3, 6, 5, 9, 7, 1, 8, 2, 4
THANK YOU