Very insightful discussion this week-

Very insightful discussion this week-

I'd never thought about the potential negative effects of asking students to guess words from the context. It's something I have done in the past and after this week's discussion, I will reconsider its effectiveness...

It's also made me acknowledge the difficult students have when reading a text for the first time: they are thinking about pronunciation, comprehension & probably the fact that other class members are listening to them. Perhaps something to avoid in the future with lower level groups...

Comments

  1. Elizabeth BekesDecember 1, 2017 at 7:01 AM

    I really liked the advice on not asking students to read aloud (namely, that the student asked to read will not understand what he or she is reading). It is logical, it is a simple consideration, we've seen it hundreds of times and we still ask students to read unknown pieces of text... It is exactly these little gems why I signed up for this course and I know that Penny has hundreds more.

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  2. Jelena RuzicDecember 2, 2017 at 3:47 PM

    Indeed, Elizabeth! Students who read out loud definitely focus on their pronunciation rather than the meaning. I actually had some students reading out loud and then telling me ''Ok, now let me please read this again, I don't know what I've read''.

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  3. Scott van LeenenDecember 3, 2017 at 6:40 PM

    I also am guilty of asking students to read aloud first pass. I will no longer do so. However, reading aloud is a requirement in public Jr. High schools here in Japan. Students are graded on it. I will revise my practices though, based on these sessions.

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