Showing posts with label Teaching Reading. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Teaching Reading. Show all posts

Teaching Receptive Skills - A Subskills Approach


Does the approach to teaching reading and listening currently used in the majority of textbooks really help our learners? This article includes materials from our Delta Module Two course which first address this question and then go on to look in more detail at an alternative - using a subskills approach. And as many of the subskills involved in the two receptive skills are relevant to both, why not teach them together? 

A big thank you to Diana, Oana and Erica - the participants in the seminar - for giving me permission to use the filmclips.

Part One - The Standard Approach

The film for Part One is split into two clips, which together last about an hour. You can't see the slides very well on the clips, so you can look at them here while you watch. See here:  Slides





Part Two - A Reading Lesson

If you've watched the first part of the Delta Module Two seminar above, you'll have seen that I argued that the common pre-, while and post- approach to listening and reading was a useful, but not sufficient, strategy for teaching these skills.  The seminar then argued that approaching the skills through focusing on the development of subskills is not only a necessary addition but, when the subskills overlap, also often  allows us to integrate the teaching of the two skills.

In the second part of this seminar, after summarising the previous part, we look at a lesson that takes this approach, teaching the subskills of 
a)  inferring non-explicitly stated meaning, and...
b) inferring the meaning of unknown words. 

It is based around some lesson materials which you can find here: Lesson materials. You are welcome to use these in the classroom.

Click on the link (not the photo) to listen to the recorded presentation from the seminar, which lasts  about 32 minutes in total.




Part Three - A Listening Lesson

These two subskills are equally relevant to listening, but listening has to be done in real-time and is therefore more difficult. The speaker says something and then immediately moves on or expects an answer or other contribution from the listener. Where subskills overlap, initial presentation and practice through reading is therefore easier for the learners, who have the chance to look at the text several times to identify the "clues". However, once this has been done and the subskill acquired, the same approach can be taken in a listening lesson.

The lesson in the following lesson plan does this. It presumes the subskill of inferring non-explicitly stated meaning has already been taught through reading - as in the materials above - and asks the learners to transfer it to listening. Of course, not all subskills are transversal in this way, so the lesson also introduces another which is not relevant to reading and therefore can only be taught through listening - the use of fillers and hesitation devices in spoken discourse. But again, the idea of transversal application is present: the learners need to understand these items when listening, but also use them when speaking.

The story in the listening is based on an idea from Colin Mortimer (1980), Dramatic Monologues for Listening Comprehension, CUP. Unfortunately, I no longer have access to the book so can't use the original text, but the idea for the story was his (if after 40 years I've remembered it correctly!) while this version and the way it is used is mine. Again, you are welcome to use it in the classroom.





Highly Recommended Reading

Richards, J.  Listening Comprehension: Approach, Design and Procedure, from The Context of Language Teaching CUP. This was a very early article on the topic and uses the term micro-skills. But this was later dropped in favour of subskills, which is now the standard term.


The plan and film of another listening lesson taking a subskills approach is included in our Delta Module Two Preparatory Programme. It focuses on phonological subskills which can block understanding if not taught explicitly on the course. Click on the link for details of how you can access the programme and watch the lesson.

Extensive Reading

 


This article, based on material used on our Delta Module One course, focuses on extensive reading and asks:

a) What are the differences between extensive reading and the  reading activities normally found in coursebooks?

b) Why can  extensive reading  usefully be incorporated into a language programme?

c) What are the disadvantages of using graded readers with learners?




Section a – Differences

1. Coursebook reading texts are aimed at the development of reading skills and/or focus on specific language items. There is generally a pre-reading (scaffolding) phase, a while reading stage (usually involving the text being read at least twice, first for gist, then for detail to ensure comprehension, and possibly a third time for language focus) Texts for extensive reading are read for pleasure, usually only once with no scaffolding, comprehension activities or language focus. They are read in the same way that a reader would read eg novels or magazines in their L1.

2. This is because coursebook reading texts are often above the level of the learner and need both scaffolding and intensive study if learners are to be able to deal with them. They may be authentic, and the tasks graded rather than the text in line with the precepts that learners need to learn to cope with the type of authentic text they might meet outside the classroom and that “you don’t need to understand everything. Extensive reading on the other hand is done using graded texts at the learner’s level, each page containing no more than a couple of items unlikely to be known but easily inferable. Graded readers are most commonly used at lower levels, though advanced level learners may well move on to authentic texts such as novels. I often recommend crime thrillers to my learners as they are generally dialogue based and avoid long passages of complex descriptive language (as found in eg fantasy novels).

3. Coursebook reading texts are generally used in the classroom and in a lockstep approach. All learners in the class read the same text, which they have not chosen but which “comes next” in the course. They do the same activities, generally in the same timeframe. In contrast, learners involved in extensive reading may all be reading different texts, which they have chosen depending on their personal interests (and possibly, in a mixed ability class, different levels). The reading may be done in class,  but may also be done outside class and learners may choose to devote different amounts of time to the activity..

4. The tasks attached to coursebook reading texts generally test understanding, and the T’s role is to confirm correct answers, explain misunderstandings and generally evaluate learners responses. Extensive reading is not evaluated – the reading is its own reward, though the Ls should have the possibility of asking the T about any language items that they “noticed” in the text and want a fuller explanation of. The T’s role is therefore to guide the learners (eg explaining why extensive reading is useful, helping them choose suitable texts) and to motivate and support them. The T. may also be a role model of a reader – see point 10 below


Section b – Why useful?

5. Because the extensive reading texts are at the learners level, they automatically consolidate language that has previously been taught. In particular, various writers including Nation point to the positive effect that extensive reading has on vocabulary acquisition.

6. Extensive reading accords with Krashen’s “input hypothesis” – the idea that large-scale exposure to “comprehensible input” will lead to acquisition. In recent years Krashen has extended this to the idea that “compelling input” – ie when Ls are so interested in the ideas that they “forget” about the language – will maximise unconscious acquisition. Texts chosen because they reflect Ls’ interests can provide this “compelling input”.

This exposure to added input would be particularly important if Ls are studying in a non-English speaking environment, where they will not have automatic exposure to English outside the c/r.

7. Because there are no tasks to complete and because the text presents no great comprehension difficulties, learners tend to read faster when reading extensively. Again, work by various researchers, including Bell, suggests that this increase in reading rate will transfer to other types of reading, increasing overall reading fluency.

8. Other research  (eg by Krashen) has suggested that extensive reading often improves writing skills. This would seem to be because the learners are being exposed to effective models of text, with accurate use of grammar, a wide range of lexis, and models of organisation – eg chronological or flashback tor organisation in novels, logical paragraphing in expository texts etc – which are unconsciously acquired and transferred to productive use.

9. Motivation : Because they are reading texts which interest them and are at their level, the experience of extensive reading should be enjoyable Day and Bamford point to an increase in motivation and positive affect resulting from the use of graded readers. This motivation may be particularly important for young learners, as recognising that reading is enjoyable should also motivate them to read in their own language. It therefore also has an aim which reflects the T’s role as educator rather than as “just” as language teacher.

10. Extensive reading may be a stimulus for other spoken or written activities and therefore again help to consolidate language and also to promote fluency. In talking or writing about the books they have read, the learners are automatically using the language which was contained in the text.  For example, although extensive reading is not formally evaluated, if it is an “obligatory” activity (either done in class time or for homework) as might happen with young learners, the T might ask for a written book report or a “show and tell” type presentation after the learners have finished the book. Displaying the reports on the class notice board or listening to the presentations may well motivate other learners to read the same book. The type of report/presentation required can first be modelled by the teacher, showing the Ls that s/he too reads extensively. Alternatively/Additionally, the learners may regularly be asked to discuss in small groups what they have been reading, whether they liked it and why, who was the most interesting character etc etc.

11. Learners may need to cope with long texts outside the classroom – eg EAP learners who need to read textbooks in English. Extensive reading can act as a “halfway house” between dealing with the type of text length they will find in their coursebooks and whole articles or chapters in academic textbooks. Otherwise, the Ls might find themselves having to cope with long and complex texts without having ever read a text more than one page long in a coursebook.

12. Some readers are accompanied by audio recordings. Listening and reading at the same time helps the learners acquire the pronunciation of the words, and of the rhythm, stress and intonation patterns of the language. They can practice these by using the shadow reading technique (Sturtridge and Geddes) – ie reading aloud at the same time as listening to the recording, trying to keep their performance as close as possible to that heard,

 

Section c – The disadvantages of using graded readers

13. Because the language of graded readers is simplified and carefully selected to match learner level, it is very different from natural written discourse, lacking in the structural and lexical complexity, figurative language, cultural references etc that would be present in authentic text. For example, it is only at level 7 (CEFR B1) that the Cambridge Readers include ellipsis – a common feature of all forms of authentic discourse. This means that if learners only use graded readers at lower levels, later exposure to authentic text which they don’t fully understand may come as a shock and be demotivating.

14. The simplification and grading in these readers also means that learners do not develop important reading subskills while reading them. For example, words which would possibly be unknown are often glossed, meaning the learners will not develop the subskill of inferring unknown words from context.

15. Cost: Graded readers cost around €8-€9 (on amazon.it). If a school is going to create a library which caters for all lower levels, all age groups, and all interests, and which has a book available for each learner all the time, this means a large number of titles and a considerable outlay. Alternatively, learners would need to buy the books themselves, which they might not be willing or able to do, at least on a regular basis.


References and Further Reading


Bamford and Day, Extensive reading activities for teaching language

Bell, Extensive Reading: Why? and How?

Maley, Extensive Reading: Why it is good for our students and for us.

Nation and Waring, Extensive Reading and Graded Readers

Qi Rong Ng et al, Extensive Reading

Stanley, Extensive Reading

Using Authentic Reading Texts in the Classroom

 

This post, based on material used on our Delta Module One Course, discusses the use of authentic reading texts in the classroom. In particular it looks at:

a) the advantages of using authentic reading texts with learners.

b) the disadvantages

c) how the disadvantages can be overcome

d) alternative text types and their uses

 


Section A – the advantages

 

Advantage 1) Learners may need to understand authentic language even at the early stages of learning eg learners taking a course prior to a holiday in the States, learners studying Business English (or any other ESP area) who need to read emails, reports, the business press etc in their daily work.  “Protecting”  learners from authentic language does not meet their needs as simplified/constructed texts will inevitably distort the discourse because of the very features that make them useful are unnatural (grading of language to include only what learners already know, repetition of specific structures, avoidance of others, limitation of vocabulary etc). The Communicative Approach therefore took the view that exposure to natural discourse from the early stages of learning was beneficial and the learners should be taught to cope with the difficulties rather than never meet them.  


Advantage 2) It is possible for learners’ receptive competence to be developed to a higher level than their productive competence. They can therefore be “ready” for authentic texts much sooner than they might be able to produce the language they contain and it will be motivating for learners to feel that they can cope with “the real thing”. (Communicative Approach) This creates feelings of achievement (that they are progressing towards their goal of second language competence) and self- esteem (Maslow).

 

 

Sections B (disadvantages)  and C (solutions)

 

Disadvantage 1: The high level of content that is not comprehensible to the learners  may leave them (especially at lower levels) feeling overwhelmed by the difficulty of the text, feel they will never be able to understand, and because their achievement/self-esteem needs are not being met, become demotivated. (Maslow). This “incomprehensible content may be due to such features as:

i) grammatical structures which the learners have not yet met in their course or which have a different use to that which they have met.  Eg second form verbs (Lewis, The English Verb, Heinle - see here for an analysis based on his ideas) used not to express past time, which they would meet at A1 level and believe they recognised, but hypothetical present events – I wish I had more money; Imagine you lived in the Arctic; If I could get another job… etc

ii) features of natural discourse which make the text less explicit and more difficult to decode. (eg ellipsis).

iii)  a high density of lexis which the students have not met and which is uninferrable.   This will be a particular problem with speakers from non-Romance languages who won’t be able to draw on lexical cognates to help them . Eg an Italian learner, seeing the word hydrogen in a text with a scientific context  would have no problem inferring it from the Italian cognate idrogeno whereas for a Finnish learner there would not be this possibility (the Finnish word is vety)

iv) culture-specific references which are missing from the learner’s “knowledge of the world” and which therefore make the text more difficult to understand. Eg : “He thought his chances of success were roughly the same as those of England retaining the Ashes that year.”

vi) a high degree of figurative language which, even if the individual words are understood, is not transparent in meaning. Eg Not in a month of Sundays; He didn’t beat around the bush.

 

Solution a :  Not every text is necessarily extremely difficult. Easier authentic texts can be used to give learners the experience of succeeding to understand a larger percentage than normal of the text, despite the fact that it is authentic. Eg menus, information leaflets. Menus for example can be used at early levels as the foods included in the lists of dishes and their ingredients are easy to illustrate with photos found on the net.  

Solution b :   “Grade the task not the text” – ie identify in the text what the learners can understand, and develop tasks which focus on these elements. This is a basic principle of receptive skills work in the Communicative Approach and contrasts with the audiolingual reliance on strictly graded texts and the principle “Nothing should be spoken before it has been heard. Nothing should be read before it has been spoken. Nothing should be written before it has been read” which meant that receptive competence could never exceed productive competence.  

Solution c : Ensure that the focus remains on what the learners do understand. They could eg be asked to predict what percentage of the text they will understand before reading it, and then be shown that they actually understood more, or that they now understand more of a previously encountered text than they did 6 months ago etc. 

Solution d : Teach “text attack” skills/coping strategies explicitly – eg prediction of content from knowledge of the world, visuals etc; using headings and topic sentences to understand main points; inferring unknown vocabulary from context. 

Solution e : Scaffold the task to remove some of the major blocks to comprehension and ensures the text will be “manageable” and that demotivation does not set in (Bruner), by eg pre- teaching certain items, providing a glossary, or providing dictionaries and telling learners they can look up five key items.  

Solution f :  Choose texts that the learners actually have to or want to read outside the classroom, to keep motivation for “coping” with the difficulties high. The T. can choose texts based on his/her knowledge of the Ls’ interests and/or ask the learners to bring texts in which interest them, and give them to the teacher who can prepare a lesson around them.  Eg :  I currently teach a 121 course with a lawyer who specialises in international family law. Much of the course is based around articles on family law and family law cases which I find on the web. These are used for comprehension work, language focus, spin-off discussion and even writing activities (eg the learner imagines she is the lawyer for one of the protagonists and writes and email to the American or UK lawyer of the other person involved) . In this way authentic texts can be used for more than “just” reading comprehension work. 

Disadvantage 2: Learners want to understand everything in a text and will become demotivated by the T. telling them eg “it’s not necessary to understand everything”. This will just lead to frustration and the feeling the teacher isn’t doing his/her job. In contrast, Thornbury argues for an approach that leads to “zero uncertainty” where the learners to analyse and fully understand every word or other language item in the text. 

Disadvantage 3: Alternatively, if the teacher does try to explain every item in an authentic text, the Ss will be overloaded by the variety of language, and become confused, so that their grasp of the language they are studying for productive purposes is also affected. I would argue that the text-based approach used by most current textbooks produces this effect. I have seen that Ls, in comparison to those who studied in the eighties,  although they may be fluent, are frequently inaccurate and that a large proportion of those inaccuracies are errors rather than mistakes – ie stemming from not having fully understood the language they have encountered in their books. This means that in the courses, time has been wasted which would have been better spent on consolidation of simpler items.

 

Solution (for both Disadvantages 2 and 3) : Not every authentic text is long. Some are short enough to allow the teacher to scaffold the text and move the learners to the point of “zero uncertainty” without confusing them. Eg I have used short authentic texts from the website “Tripadvisor” reviewing holiday sites, accommodation and restaurants to focus on ellipsis. Ellipsis is pre-taught using sentence level examples and field specific lexis is reactivated/fed in during a warm up discussion about the learners’ own holiday experiences. After gist comprehension (what type of place is being reviewed? A hotel? A museum? etc )  and more detailed comprehension work (What did/didn’t the writer like about the place?) further language focus takes place where the learners identify the instances of ellipsis in the texts and decide what the missing words are.

 

Section D: Alternative text types

 

1) Specially constructed or simplified texts can be used where, although comprehension work is done first, the main aim is the introduction of a new structure, focus on a discourse feature such as text organisation, consolidation of a lexical field etc. By grading the text to the learners’ level, the T can ensure that after comprehension work the ls are not “distracted” by other features of the text but can concentrate fully on the specified aim. 

2) Specially constructed or simplified texts can be used in lessons with reading comprehension as the primary aim to give the Ls the chance to tackle longer texts without the disadvantages mentioned elsewhere.

3) Graded readers can be used for extensive reading for pleasure either inside or outside the classroom. Writers such as Nation and Wang have pointed to the positive effect that this has on the retention of vocabulary.

4) Lexically enhanced texts can be used where the teacher wishes to focus on as many lexical chunks as possible. By rewriting the texts to include more of these (as eg in Powell, Business Matters, LTP) new lexical chunks can be introduced and those already met can be recycled regularly  so as to prevent “forgetting”.  

Inferring unknown words from context (Part One)

It is very unlikely that any of our learners will ever know all the words they need. English has an enormous number of words - on the Oxford University Press website they estimate it at a quarter of a million words. Even advanced learners, who may have more than sufficient productive vocabulary for their needs are unlikely to be able to read something like a newspaper feature article without finding a word that stymies them (and if you’re a non-native speaker who I’ve just stymied with the word stymy – it means block or confuse). And even native speakers are going to come across a vast number of words that they don’t fully understand – if you doubt this, take a look at Oxford’s Word of the Day. As I write, the word is chrominance. It’s a technical term, but don’t ask me the meaning because I didn’t even understand the explanation. From chrom I can deduce that it’s something to do with colour, but that’s as far as I got.

On the other hand, when we meet new words in context, the contextual clues often allow us to understand what the word means. What’s the word which I’ve represented by XXXX in the next sentence? We had forgotten to close the XXXX of the field, and the cows got out. No prizes for coming up with gate. Learners, however, frequently block when they meet a word like this which they don’t know. They reach for a dictionary, panic and lose the thread of what they were reading about.

As you’ve been reading this, you may have thought Yes, but I always ask my learners to guess unknown words. But notice that I’ve not used the word “guess” at all. You can’t guess the meaning of a word, you can only infer, or deduce, it. And to enable you to infer the meaning of the word, there have to be clear clues in the context. A lot of lessons go horribly wrong because the teacher asks students to “guess” the meanings of words without checking whether or not they are inferable. It’s easy enough to do. Take the word out and replace it with XXXX. Reading the sentence or paragraph now, is it clear what the missing word is, or are there various possibilities? What are the clues which point you towards the meaning?

Let’s take an example. I doubt whether many of you have ever come across the word bonxie, so that puts you in the same position as the learner if I use it. Now if you read it in this sentence - There were a lot of bonxies around this year - you are not much the wiser. You can work out that it’s a noun from the sentence and word structure, but there are no clues whatsoever as to the meaning. If this is all the information that the text contains, then there’s no way you can “guess”.

Here are some examples of extracts from authentic texts where I suggest it’s impossible to infer the meaning.
a)But as Professor Weeks points out, those characteristics are dangerously elastic: an "adventurous" company that fails suddenly becomes a "XXXXXX" company; a "bureaucratic" company that succeeds is seen as "disciplined".
b) The British talent for self-deprecation is well known; disciplined Japanese companies and XXXXXXXXX Americans may not appreciate the subtleties of the issue, he says.
c) To people who have just joined Nutzwerk, the friendly atmosphere is XXXXXXX.
If you want to check that there's really no extra informatiopn in the text that helps comprehension, you'll find extracts a and b here, and extract c here.
You can probably work out from the sentence structure that they are all adjectives – and that in the first example that it’s probably disparaging, but I suspect that’s as far as you can get. Of course, you can easily fill in the gap with a word that fits – for example in the last extract stimulating would be fine. But that doesn’t mean that that’s the correct meaning. It could just as easily be disconcerting, which changes the meaning completely.

So when you’re analysing a text prior to using it in the classroom, that’s your first question : of the words which the students are unlikely to know, which are and which aren’t inferable? Once you’ve decided which aren’t, you then have to decide what to do with them.

Your answer will probably depend on another question: how important is the word for an overall understanding of the writer’s meaning? In example b for example it probably isn’t. You can understand the writer’s point without knowing exactly what he thinks of Americans. But in example c it’s much more important. Because both derogatory and positive adjectives would fit, it’s not possible to understand what the writer is trying to say without understanding the word.

This type of word – unknown, uninferable but important to the text needs to be dealt with in a different way, which we’ll look at in the continuation of this post tomorrow - and I’ll also tell you what bonxies really are :)

Click here for Part Two of this article .

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Inferring unknown words from context (Part Two)


If you've not yet read Part One of this article, click on the link

To summarise where we’ve got to so far :
  • inferring words from context is a skill which is necessary for our learners if they are to deal effectively with the vast amount of unknown vocabulary which they will encounter

  • not every unknown word in the text will be inferable

  • not every unknown, uninferable word will be important to the overall meaning of the text
Firstly, the words which can't be inferred but are important. In this case you may decide to pre-teach them. One way of doing this is to include each word in a sentence where it is inferable, and to ask the students to work out the meaning. To take the problem word from extract c in the last post: He had to spend several weeks in quarantine because the disease was XXXXX (Obviously, for learners the actual word would be included.)
I doubt if you had much difficulty this time deciding the word was catching or infectious or contagious. But I also doubt that any of you thought of this meaning when you first read extract c. This time the clues were in the sentence, in the original they weren’t.
By using this technique, you’re actually killing two birds with one stone : firstly, you’re ensuring that the students will understand the words when they meet them in the text, and secondly you’re developing the skill of inferring from context. So that when students meet the other words in the text which are inferable, they’ll be better equipped to deal with them. If they have difficulty with your sentences it’s a good sign that the skill is not yet developed and they need help – which you can give by asking pointer questions such as Why do people have to stay in quarantine? What type of disease requires quarantine?
Notice here another point about inferring – to be able to do so, you need to understand the words which contain the clues. Here, for instance quarantine. If the text has a high proportion of unknown words, learners will have great difficulty inferring anything – they just don’t have enough clues to go on.

But even when a word is inferable, it is often only general rather than precise meaning which is accessible and students sometimes balk at the idea of not having 100% comprehension. Having only a vague idea of the meaning of words is something we take for granted in our own language, but which is often difficult for learners to accept. One way of showing them this is pointing out that even when they look it up in a bilingual dictionary, they often have no more idea of the meaning than when they inferred the meaning from the contextual clues. Let’s go back to our bonxie example. This time, I’ll give you a bit more information.

There were a lot of bonxies around this year. A pair attacked us as we were walking down to the beach ….
OK – so what can attack you? Must be something animate –animals? A pair of thuggish teenagers??
We must have got too near their nests ..
Aha - nests! Must be animals, probably birds.
They just dived out of the sky at us … They were huge, with great big beaks, and really frightening.
Yes, definitely birds. Large birds.
They spend most of the year at sea, but come to the island in summer to breed.
Oh – some sort of large seabird.
You’ve now got to the general meaning of the word bonxie – it’s the name of a large seabird. But, unless bird-watching is your hobby, you probably still don’t know exactly what type of bird. In fact bonxie is not standard English but a dialect word from the Shetland Isles. So let’s imagine that you have a bi-lingual Shetland Dialect-Standard English dictionary and you look it up. What do you find? Skua. (If you’re a non-native speaker teacher you might like to look it up in your own dictionary at this point.)

Now, presuming that you’re not an avid bird-watcher, how much more do you really understand than you did before, now that you know the word in your own language? Probably nothing at all. And if you came across the word skua while you were reading, as long as you understood that it was a large, aggressive, seabird, you would be unlikely to drop the article and rush to the library for a book on birds. You might decide to check later, but general comprehension would be adequate for reading the article.
Our knowledge of the language is full of words like this. Here are some of mine: I know that an apse is an architectural feature of a church, but I’m not sure what; I know that a spinney is a group of trees and so is a copse, but I’m not sure what the difference is; I think that a halberd is some sort of medieval weapon (though it might be a piece of clothing???), but I’m not sure what it looks like; and as I was writing the words infectious and contagious for the first part of this article, I realised that I wasn’t sure if they were really synonyms or not. I suspect there may be a difference (transmission via air or by contact ???). But I’m not sure, and unless I find myself teaching a group of doctors or nurses, probably won’t bother to check.
Many students reject this type of general comprehension when reading in English and don’t believe they’ve understood a word unless they’ve seen the exact translation. Give them words like skua in context and ask them to infer the general meaning. For example :
a. There are a lot of skuas nesting near the beach this year.
b. My last horse was grey, but this one is roan.
c. There was a lot of sedge growing on the bank of the river.
d. The church is famous for its apse.

Then let them check in their bilingual dictionaries and realise that they probably wouldn’t have known any more than they could infer even if they’d had the translation from the beginning. Once they recognise that they don’t have 100% comprehension even in their own language, they’re liable to feel happier about living with the uncertainty which is an inevitable part of using a foreign language.
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You don't need to understand everything.... or do you?

One of the questions in a Needs Analysis questionnaire that I use with general purpose intermediate learners asks them What do and don't you enjoy doing in the classroom? In reply to this question, one learner replied I don't like reading long texts, and when we discussed this in the group, nearly all the members of the class were in agreement.

 Yet current coursebooks are full of long texts. Pull any coursebook off your shelf and flick through it. Nine out of ten of them will contain at least one long reading text per unit, and listening texts of a similar length.

 Back in the seventies, at the beginning of the methodological change from Audiolingualism to the Communicative Approach, one of the things teachers most often said to learners in then classroom when introducing a listening or reading text was Don't worry about the bits you don't understand. concentrate on what you do understand, you don't have to understand everything.

Thee was a very good reason for this. The new approach was a reaction to the old Audiolingual principle that receptive and productive competence should proceed in tandem - learners should not be exposed to language above their productive level in order to avoid confusion and therefore error.  However, the Communicative Approach argued that 

a) receptive competence could be developed to a higher level than productive, and learners did not need to be "protected" from language they didn't understand.

 b) learners needed to be able to cope with texts above their level of competence, as it was these that they would often meet outside the classroom. They therefore needed to be taught coping strategies to deal with them. These coping strategies included subskills like inferring the meaning of unknown words from co-text - but also recognising that not all words were crucial for an overall understanding of the text. Hence the insistence It's not necessary to understand everything and also the introduction of authentic texts into teaching materials.

This use of materials above the general level of the learners, and the shift apparent in coursebooks to a text-based approach to teaching,  was given further impetus by various other movements that have occurred in EFL over the past forty years :

 a) Acquisitional approaches, which suggested that language would gradually be subconsciously acquired by simple exposure - particularly Krashen's Input Hypothesis. If learners were in an English speaking environment, this would automatically happen outside the classroom. However elsewhere, listening or reading texts  used in the classroom would often be the learners' main source of exposure to the language.. 

 b) The Lexical Approach, which emphasised the enormous number of lexical items, collocations etc in English that the learner needed to be able to deal with. Long texts are the best way to bring these into the classroom and increase learners’ exposure to them.   Powell (1996),  describing the Business English  textbook Business Matters explains:
 “The articles and many of the exercises in Business Matters have been specially written to contain a large part of the target language of the course. They are not simplified but lexically enhanced with a disproportionately high number of word partnerships and/or fixed expressions (and little of the redundant or colloquial language found in many authentic texts). And this makes them eminently exploitable in the classroom as the main source of input as well as fuel for discussion. Your learners would have to read an enormous number of newspaper and magazine articles to be sure of covering anything like the same range of content language.” 

c) Genre based approaches, which suggested that if learners were to be able to produce specific genres (whether written or spoken) they needed first to see and analyse the features of models of those genre. Simplified texts, written to reflect the learners' level, would inevitably distort the discourse, giving a false picture of the genre features of the text type in question  - which again led to the use of authentic materials and a text-based approach.

 The text-based approach is now the dominant approach to EFL teaching and has been apparent in all coursebooks published in the later years of the Communicative Approach.  Just as an example, Moor et al (2014) Cutting Edge Intermediate, (Pearson 3rd edition) has fourteen units. Unit Two has ten pages with a longish reading or listening text on seven out of the ten - and one page has both reading and listening.

 The standard approach for dealing with these texts is the pre-. while and post reading framework :

  • Pre-reading : Activation of schemata; reactivation of or pre.teaching of key lexis. 
  • While reading : a) reading for gist b) reading for detailed information 
  • Post reading : language focus / spin off activities 

Many teachers take it for granted that this is how texts should be used, but the approach has a number of disadvantages:

  • Time – to really deal with the texts thoroughly would take far longer than is available on the average course. 
  • The course books don’t encourage teachers to deal with the texts thoroughly. The activities for the first long text in the Cutting Edge unit mentioned above are : a) an extended warm-up discussion, part of which involves discussing 5 shorter texts (activities 1 and 2); b) a gist reading activity (activity 3); c) a reading for detailed information activity (activity 4); d) a spin off discussion (activity 5). Thus comprehension of the information is dealt with, but there is no opportunity for learners to really get to grips with the language of the text.
Clandfield (see here) has suggested that there are three uses for texts :  
  • TALO: Text as a linguistic object 
  • TAVI: Text as a vehicle for information 
  • TASP: Text as a springboard for production
This suggests that our Cutting Edge example has used the first text for TAVI and TASP, but has ignored TALO. Or has it? Both the main text and the five short texts contain language that will later be focused in the unit. It could therefore be seen as acting as a preview.  However, at this point in the course the learners don’t fully understand that language (if they did it wouldn’t need to be taught later) and it therefore might be confusing or distracting. Additionally, there will inevitably be other language points in the text that the learners aren’t sure of but never get a chance to focus on. This I would suggest is why our learner at the beginning of the article "hates reading long texts". Too much language that she only half understands is being thrown at her all at the same time, and she has no chance to sort it out. She wants what Thornbury has termed "zero uncertainty" - in other words a full understanding of everything in the text. If you've never read Thornbury's  article, click on the link and do it now. It's short - but i think one of the most important criticisms of current methodology that has been published in recent years.

So - what would be an alternative approach? 

Firstly, we would need to use shorter and fewer texts that can be dealt with thoroughly and that the learners can cope with better – ie which will have less unknown language to distract them, or which are short enough that all the unknown language can be fully explained. 

Secondly, we can use a framework that allows for TAVI and TASP but emphasises TALO.  The framework we saw before can easily be adapted for this : 
  • Pre-reading : Activation of content or situational schemata (TAVI); reactivation of or input of key language,which the teacher doesn't want to have to focus on later (so eg not including words which s/he wants learners to infer at a later stage), whether lexis or structure (TALO). This will usually involve a PW/GW discussion (TASP), which needs its own framework : set-up, enactment, follow up – content and language. 
  • While reading : a) reading for gist b) reading for detailed information. These stages, I would argue should focus on developing specific subskills and coping strategies - eg inference of unknown words from co-text; inference of non-explicitly stated meaning; inference of speaker/writer attitude through connotation; dictionary skills; decoding features of connected speech  etc.  As you can see, this means that we are not just asking random questions to check understanding of content (TAVI), but also continuing work in the TALO area started in the pre-reading stage. It also means that we are not throwing the idea of teaching learners to cope out of the window, but actively teaching them the subskills they need to do so.
  • Post reading : a) language focus (TALO). But not just a bit of guided discovery and practice of language items selected by the teacher or coursebook writer.  Go through the text before the lesson to identify anything that might cause learners problems and be ready to explain and/or practise it. Yes, by all means prepare activities to focus on items that would be particularly useful to the learners, but don't stop there. Most important of all, finish the TALO section by asking the learners Does anybody have any other questions about the language in the text? And finally b) spin off activities (TASP)
  • And in the next or later lessons : come back to the text. Gap out the words that you looked at and see if the learners can remember them; use it as a running dictation or dictogloss; jumble the sentences and see if the learners can put them back in order; gap the verbs, provide the infinitives in brackets, and see if the learners can remember them - there are many different activities you can use to recycle the texts. (see also the article on the value of task repetition).
Unfortunately, the texts in current coursebooks are, as we've seen, of a length that would make all of this impossible - hence the need for shorter texts. We could of course ignore coursebooks all together and choose short texts based on our learners' interests - or even better, let the learners choose them. If you do this I suggest giving the learners a length limit (number of words for reading texts, number of minutes for listening) and getting them to email you their suggestions. You can then check they really are suitable, develop activities around them and generally prepare yourself to use them in the classroom.
That, however, is not possible in many teaching situations where a coursebook is "imposed" and the teachers must use it.

But until publishers come round to the idea, how can you adapt your coursebook based lessons to incorporate a more thorough focus? Some ideas :
  • Reorganise the coursebook - teach the TL before you get to the text so that the text acts as consolidation rather than confusing the learners while they're working on TAVI activities
  • Don’t worry about ‘missing texts out’. Use as many of the texts as time allows for TAVI and TASP but ignore any texts that have more unknown language than you think you can deal with thoroughly in the time available. In some teaching situations, however, even that may not be allowed - the coursebook is not only "imposed" but teachers are expected to deal with a double page spread every lesson (crazy as it allows no scope for dealing with the learners' needs. The course just turns into a matter of "ploughing through" the material.) So...
  • Deal with each text but don't use the whole of it in class - just one or two short paragraphs which you can deal with thoroughly. Then give the learners the option of working on the rest of the text for homework, using guided activities which you provide. Leave time in the next lesson for follow up and, as always, a final  "any other questions?" stage to deal with any doubts they still have

An ELT Glossary : Reading Strategies


Extensive and Intensive Reading


Extensive reading involves reading a text at normal speed to understand the contents without necessarily retaining all the details. It's the way we would normally read a novel, for example, or often an article in a magazine or newspaper, and is generally done for pleasure. After we've finished, we'll remember the general plot of the novel, but not necessarily particular facts - for example, if someone asked us "On p.64 Erica drove to the hospital. What colour was the car?" we're unlikely to remember unless the detail had been extremely important for the development of the plot.


Extensive reading contrasts with intensive reading, where we might read more slowly, go back and re-read sections, take notes etc. Intensive reading is the way you might read a textbook that you were studying for an exam for example. This time it is important that you not only understand the text in general but also retain the specific facts.  

Skimming, Gist Reading and Reading for Detail


An example of skimming might be looking through a newspaper. The reader would be likely to flick through the pages looking at the headlines and photos, and maybe quickly reading the opening paragraph of articles that look interesting. But only once s/he had decided that an article was definitely of interest or relevance would s/he start reading more intensively.

 This suggest that we often look at a text more than once and "read" it in different ways each time. If we are studying for example, the first time we might just skim read the text - ie look at the headings, glance rapidly at each section to identify key lexical items, look at illustrations and their captions, etc.  We might then go back to the beginning of the text and read for gist. This is very similar to extensive reading - reading at a fairly normal speed aiming to understand the main points but not necessarily retain the details. Finally, pencil in hand, we might go back to the beginning again and read through more slowly, this time reading for detail. As we read, we'd pause to think about the contents of the text, underline or highlight the points and details that we wanted to remember and /or take notes. 

Or would we? If we knew from the beginning that we needed to retain the information in the book, might we not read intensively, pencil in hand, from the beginning?

Scanning and Search Reading

There are times though when the text as a whole doesn't interest us at all - we just want to find one particular piece of information. 

Scan reading involves rapidly running the eye over the text, searching for a specific word or phrase that the text is known to contain. For example,  if I've collected some seeds from a marigold flower that has been growing in my garden, and want to know when and how to plant them, I might get one of my gardening books and turn to the index. I'd probably go to about the middle page of the index (because "m" is in the middle of the alphabet) and first run my eye up and down the list for the words starting with "m". I'd then run my eye up to the top of the "m" words (because the next letter is "a") and run my eye over those words till I found "marigolds". If there were sub-headings I'd then run my eyes down those till I found the word "sowing" and the page number. If not, I'd turn to the marigold page, and run my eyes over the text for the same word. Only then, when I'd found it, would I switch to another type of reading strategy.

Search reading, on the other hand,  involves looking through the text to find specific information, without necessarily knowing the exact words that will be used to describe it. For example if I am reading an article on the life of a famous person, the question in my mind might be "I wonder how/why he died?" I'd therefore skim through the article, almost ignoring most of it, until I found the section on his death, when I'd slow down and start to read more intensively.

 What was your purpose in reading this article? Which of the strategies did you employ and, if more than one, in which order? How did your purpose in reading affect the strategies you chose? Think about these questions not only for this text but also anything else you've read today.
Recommended Reading

 Wallace, C. (1992) Reading, Oxford University Press 






An ELT Glossary : Terms connected with language skills

       



Authentic texts/materials
Backchannel language
Bottom up processing
Circumlocution strategies
Coherence
Cohesion
Communication strategies
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