Teaching reading for high school students in Vietnam

Slide 1: te ac hing re ading By: Do Tuan Minh, CFL, VNU

Slide 2: Teach Reading in Tieng Anh 10 Do Tuan Minh English Department College of Foreign Languages Vietnam National University, Hanoi By: Do Tuan Minh, CFL, VNU

Slide 3: Y o ur B e lie fs a b o u t Te a c h in g R e a d in g S tatements Agree Dis - Don’t agree know 1 It is important to pre-teach all new vocabulary before students read the text. 2 Students should only read good literature in English. Comics and newspapers are bad for them in school. By: Do Tuan Minh, CFL, VNU

Slide 4: Y ou r B e lie fs a b o u t Te a c h in g R e a d in g S tatements Agree Dis- Don’t agree know 3 My students don’t have the opportunity to read outside school so it is my responsibility to choose suitable texts for them in school. 4 Students need to read for a purpose, not to read so that they can just answer multiple choice questions. By: Do Tuan Minh, CFL, VNU

Slide 5: Y ou r B e lie fs a b o u t Te a c h in g R e a d in g S tatements Agree Dis- Don’t agree know 5 I don’t think students learn a lot from reading things like timetables, indexes, recipes, directories. 6 Using graded comprehension questions is the only real way of checking that students have understood the text. By: Do Tuan Minh, CFL, VNU

Slide 6: Y ou r B e lie fs a b o u t Te a c h in g R e a d in g S tatements Agree Dis- Don’t agree know 7 The teacher’s job is to help students learn to read by themselves. S/he cannot do the reading for them. 8 English newspapers are too difficult for my students. Students should concentrate on reading simplified texts from their textbooks By: Do Tuan Minh, CFL, VNU

Slide 7: Y ou r B e lie fs a b o u t Te a c h in g R e a d in g S tatements Agree Dis- Don’t agree know 9 Getting students to read aloud is a useful way of making them understand what they are reading 10 The real purpose of reading is for students to learn more about grammar and how the written language is constructed 11 If I don’t translate the text for my students they don’t understand it. By: Do Tuan Minh, CFL, VNU

Slide 8: Y ou r B e lie fs a b o u t Te a c h in g R e a d in g S tatements Agree Dis - Don’t agree know 12 Students don’t need to be aware of the reading sub-skills like 'skimming' and 'scanning' - that’s information only the teacher needs to know. 13 If I get my students to think about the topic before they start reading, and try to predict what the text is about , they find the text easier to understand. By: Do Tuan Minh, CFL, VNU

Slide 9: Y o ur B e lie fs a b o u t Te a c h in g R e a d in g c om m e n ts 1. In Grammar-Translation, all new words are taught / translated, but it is better to pre-teach only a few key words and teach students how to guess the rest from context. 2. All kinds of reading materials should be encouraged because different reading skills are required to read different texts. By: Do Tuan Minh, CFL, VNU

Slide 10: Y o ur B e lie fs a b o u t Te a c h in g R e a d in g c om m e n ts 3. It is unrealistic to think students will read on their own - mostly because of lack of habit and lack of material. 4. However, a lot of 'schooling' and testing just encourages a culture of 'right answers' instead of teaching the skill, the process of reading. 5. See 2 above. By: Do Tuan Minh, CFL, VNU

Slide 11: Y o ur B e lie fs a b o u t Te a c h in g R e a d in g c om m e n ts 6. This is the traditional way but not the only way. This module will present teachers with many alternatives. 7. Reading is an individual skill. Also, reading skills cannot be developed through reading in groups. By: Do Tuan Minh, CFL, VNU

Slide 12: Y o ur B e lie fs a b o u t Te a c h in g R e a d in g c om m e n ts 8. It is not so much about level of difficulty but about reproducing authentic materials for large classes, and finding time to use such material in an already overcrowded time-table. 9. This is the traditional approach for teaching pronunciation, but reading aloud does not facilitate comprehension, nor does it help students develop skills and strategies for reading. By: Do Tuan Minh, CFL, VNU

Slide 13: Y o ur B e lie fs a b o u t Te a c h in g R e a d in g c om m e n ts 10. This is the traditional Grammar Translation approach, but the real aim of teaching reading now is to develop comprehension skills, information retrieval, reading for a purpose other than grammar. 11. Teachers need to train students to be able to extract the main ideas and details without understanding every word as in real life. By: Do Tuan Minh, CFL, VNU

Slide 14: Y o ur B e lie fs a b o u t Te a c h in g R e a d in g c om m e n ts 12. Teachers should make the sub-skills of reading explicit to students, just as with grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary rules are made specific. 13. This characterises the approach to reading that we will learn in this module. By: Do Tuan Minh, CFL, VNU

Slide 15: E xte n s ive o r In te n s ive ? a n s we r ke y Intensive Extensive What is it used  understanding  reading for gist, for? every word,  reading for pleasure  recognising  increasing reading grammatical rules speed What types of  textbook readings  novels material are  instructions  stories used for each  recipes type?  application forms By: Do Tuan Minh, CFL, VNU

Slide 16: E xte n s ive o r In te n s ive ? c o m m e n ts Most reading activities are focused on intensive reading; only a few are devoted to extensive reading. One very practical reason is that it is too expensive to provide students with novels or magazines or newspapers and it would make the textbook too long to reproduce extensive reading texts in it. If school had libraries stocked with graded readers in English, we might be able to tackle the problem. But in most cases, students do not have to access to this kind of resource. By: Do Tuan Minh, CFL, VNU

Slide 17: E xte n s ive o r In te n s ive ? c o m m e n ts The solution is to apply some of the extensive reading techniques to the intensive reading texts supplied in the textbook. Instead of trying to get students to understand every new word, encourage students to read extensively. Use comprehension activities such as reading for gist, guessing the meaning of words, ignoring difficult vocabulary, keeping on reading, speed reading, reading for personalisation or discussion, and do not do reading for grammar practice etc. By: Do Tuan Minh, CFL, VNU

Slide 18: G ue s s in g th e Me a n ing o f Ne w Word s B. List the problems teachers face when dealing with new words in a reading passage. 1. There are a lot of new words in each reading. 2. The time is too limited to cover all these new words. 3. Students cannot remember so many words. By: Do Tuan Minh, CFL, VNU

Slide 19: G ue s s in g th e Me a n ing o f Ne w Word s B. List the problems teachers face when dealing with new words in a reading passage. 4. Students do not develop the skill of guessing the meaning of new words, if the teacher teaches all the new words. 5. Most students do not know how to guess the meaning of new words. They need to be trained to do it. By: Do Tuan Minh, CFL, VNU

Slide 20: G ue s s in g th e Me a n ing o f Ne w Word s B. List the problems teachers face when dealing with new words in a reading passage. 6. Most teachers do not know how to teach students this guessing skill. By: Do Tuan Minh, CFL, VNU

Slide 21: G ue s s in g th e Me a n ing o f Ne w Word s C. Fill in the table showing the different ways teachers can deal with new words. If the word is At the Above the students’ level students’ level essential for pre-teach teach passively understanding the carefully passage not essential for guess ignore understanding the passage By: Do Tuan Minh, CFL, VNU

Slide 22: G ue s s in g th e Me a n ing o f Ne w Word s D. List the strategies for guessing the meaning of new words. 1. Find repetitions, compare contexts 2. Identify parts of speech. (suffixes, prefixes, auxiliaries, articles) 3. Identify proper nouns By: Do Tuan Minh, CFL, VNU

Slide 23: G ue s s in g th e Me a n ing o f Ne w Word s D. List the strategies for guessing the meaning of new words. 4. Ignore adverbs and adjectives. 5. Keep reading the 5 – 10 words before or after the new word. 6. Check your guess: substitute unknown word with synonym or Vietnamese translation By: Do Tuan Minh, CFL, VNU

Slide 24: p re - a nd wh ile -re a d ing te c h n iq u e s Ans we r ke y TECHNIQUES PRE- WHILE- 1. open prediction 2. true / false prediction 3. ordering pictures 4. multiple choice 5. gap-fill 6. ordering By: Do Tuan Minh, CFL, VNU

Slide 25: p re - a nd wh ile -re a d ing te c h n iq u e s Ans we r ke y TECHNIQUES PRE- WHILE- 7. answers given 8. pre-questions 9. grids 10. matching 11. comprehension questions 12. networks By: Do Tuan Minh, CFL, VNU

Slide 26: c on s o lid a tio n a n d m ic ro -te a c h in g Ans we r ke y Which techniques… List the techniques here: …are most suitable • ordering pictures for Grade 10? • grids • network • gap-fill • matching By: Do Tuan Minh, CFL, VNU

Slide 27: c on s o lid a tio n a n d m ic ro -te a c h in g Ans we r ke y Which techniques… List the techniques here: …require the least • network, preparation ? • open prediction …require the most • ordering pictures preparation ? • multiple choice • T / F prediction By: Do Tuan Minh, CFL, VNU

Slide 28: c on s o lid a tio n a n d m ic ro -te a c h in g Ans we r ke y Which techniques… List the techniques here: …can be written on • network the blackboard • open predictions easily? • answers given …need to be on a • ordering photocopied • multiple choice worksheet ? • gap-fill By: Do Tuan Minh, CFL, VNU

Slide 29: c on s o lid a tio n a n d m ic ro -te a c h in g Ans we r ke y Which techniques… List the techniques here: …are most similar to • T/ F prediction the school exams ? • multiple choice • comprehension questions … are least similar to • grids the school exams ? • ordering pictures By: Do Tuan Minh, CFL, VNU

Slide 30: c on s o lid a tio n a n d m ic ro -te a c h in g Ans we r ke y Which techniques… List the techniques here: … integrate the • gap-fill writing skill ? • write-it-up … integrate the • discussion listening skill ? • open prediction … integrate the • discussion speaking skill ? • open prediction By: Do Tuan Minh, CFL, VNU