Thank you Penny for another fantastic week.
Thank you Penny for another fantastic week.
Tip 1 on not asking students to read aloud was a really good reminder and made me think of so many language classes where we'd squirmed as students when called upon!
The first language school I worked at also had us ask students to read silently but themselves but this was mostly recommended for shyer students and/or those with less confidence.
On the occasions where I did get students to read aloud, it was often with the (misguided?!) notion that it would help them to practice/improve pronunciation, as well as identify difficult/new words. It was really good therefore to see you spell out the dangers so clearly, and all issues often applied!
"They may make mistakes in pronunciation
• They find it difficult to get the prosody right
(timing, pausing, stress)
• They may not speak clearly
• ... so they won’t help other students to
understand."
Tip 2 on getting students to follow while you read works well with my students, too. In addition, I sometimes pause and let them read the next work/words that I know they are familiar with and/or can 'sound out' based on their knowledge of phonics. I wonder what you and others think about this?
At other times, we do shadowing either (a) silently, or (b) aloud, if students wish. This seems to work well too as they try to mimic speed, rhythm and stress.
That said, afterwards, it's important to employ effective measures to check comprehension, and the tips you offered and shared here by other teachers so far (e.g. graphic organisers) can help to do this (better)!
Last but not least, I confess to asking students to guess from context a lot in my early teaching years (well, the first 5-6 years!), until I started reading vocabulary research. Now, I occasionally ask students to guess, especially as it can be required in various tests (e.g. TOEFL/TOEIC), but teach them about word parts (common prefixes, roots, suffixes), possible collocations either side, and the importance of knowing enough surrounding words (preferably 98%+).
Tip 1 on not asking students to read aloud was a really good reminder and made me think of so many language classes where we'd squirmed as students when called upon!
The first language school I worked at also had us ask students to read silently but themselves but this was mostly recommended for shyer students and/or those with less confidence.
On the occasions where I did get students to read aloud, it was often with the (misguided?!) notion that it would help them to practice/improve pronunciation, as well as identify difficult/new words. It was really good therefore to see you spell out the dangers so clearly, and all issues often applied!
"They may make mistakes in pronunciation
• They find it difficult to get the prosody right
(timing, pausing, stress)
• They may not speak clearly
• ... so they won’t help other students to
understand."
Tip 2 on getting students to follow while you read works well with my students, too. In addition, I sometimes pause and let them read the next work/words that I know they are familiar with and/or can 'sound out' based on their knowledge of phonics. I wonder what you and others think about this?
At other times, we do shadowing either (a) silently, or (b) aloud, if students wish. This seems to work well too as they try to mimic speed, rhythm and stress.
That said, afterwards, it's important to employ effective measures to check comprehension, and the tips you offered and shared here by other teachers so far (e.g. graphic organisers) can help to do this (better)!
Last but not least, I confess to asking students to guess from context a lot in my early teaching years (well, the first 5-6 years!), until I started reading vocabulary research. Now, I occasionally ask students to guess, especially as it can be required in various tests (e.g. TOEFL/TOEIC), but teach them about word parts (common prefixes, roots, suffixes), possible collocations either side, and the importance of knowing enough surrounding words (preferably 98%+).
Thanks for this, Phil. Yes, reading aloud but every now and again stopping to check students are following by asking them to say the next word is a nice technique. Anyhow, frequent checking that they are 'with you' is essential: sometimes just looking at them is enough, you can see from their eye direction where they are, but sometimes you need something more explicit.
ReplyDeleteGuessing from context: yes, there's a place for it - that 's why I wrote 'Don't (usually)' rather than just 'Don't'! And it's up to you to decide when. If they're going to need to do it in an exam, then clearly it's good to practice. Morphology can help. But it's important to tell them that when there seems to be a conflict between what the word-roots seem to mean and what the context implies - they should go for context every time.
Penny Ur Thank you Penny for your informative reply as always, especially with the point about going for context over the meaning of word-roots, etc. That's a great tip to share with learners, too! :-)
ReplyDelete