2. Quick Quiz:
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1. Name the skills in language learning.
2. Which of these are productive skills?
3. What are the other skills called?
Reading, Writing, Listening and Speaking
Writing and speaking
Reading and listening are called Receptive skills.
Active Reading Skills
4. Active Reading
Session Aims:
By the end of the session you will have:
• Participated in a model Reading Skills lesson
• A clear idea of the stages in a Reading Skills lesson
• A set of class activities to make Reading an ‘active’ skill
• Identified the different approaches to Teaching Reading
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Well, what does True / False / Not Given actually mean?
•True means that the text agrees with or confirms the information in
the statement.
•False means that the text contradicts or is the opposite to the
information in the statement.
Not Given means that there is no information or it is impossible to
know.
Try a True / False / Not Given exercise
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1.Children under 12 cannot leave the camp without an adult.
a. True
b. False
c. Not Given
2.Children aged 11 go to bed at 9.30 on Friday evenings.
a. True
b. False
c. Not Given
3.Only parents are allowed to visit.
a. True
b. False
c. Not Given
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Answers
The answer to question 1 is True because it is stated clearly in the
passage: ‘Children under 12 must not leave the camp unless
accompanied by an adult.’
The answer to the second question is False because in the passage
it is mentioned that ‘Bedtime is at 10.30 for children under 12’ and
‘On Friday and Saturday nights bedtime is an hour later.’
The answer for question 3 is Not Given as there is no such
information in the passage. It says ‘visitors’ and does not specify
what kind of visitors.
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Lessons to learn
So, what are the key strategies when answering this question?
•Read the instructions and all the statements carefully. Try to understand what the whole statement means, and
do not focus only on key words.
•Identify any words that qualify the statement, for example some, all, mainly, often, always and occasionally.
These words are there to test if you have read the whole statement because they can change the meaning.
•Don’t skim and scan the text to find the final answer. You will have to read the appropriate part of the text very
carefully in order to understand what the writer means.
•Try to think of what synonyms might be in the text. This will help you identify the matching part of the text.
•The answers will be sequential with the passage. This means that the answer to the first question will come first
in the passage, the second question after and the last one or two, near the end.
•Do not spend a long time looking for the answer to one question; if you have no idea what the answer is, put
‘Not Given’. You probably have no idea because the answer is not there.
And finally:
•Don’t assume anything based on your knowledge and experience. Read the text and find the answers there.
•Don’t overthink your answer. You could start building long logical sequences that will lead you to the wrong
answer.
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Learning points:
To do well in this type of question, you need to be sure you understand
the focus of the heading and the point(s) of the entire paragraph. Here
are three lessons.
1.The heading is really a summary. Some paragraphs will cover a few
separate, but related, points. The heading needs to summarise the whole
paragraph, not just a part of it.
2.Look at every word in the heading. If even one of them does not
accurately reflect the meaning of the paragraph, then this heading is
probably wrong.
3.Watch out for distractors. This question type is a good example of
how the examiner can try and mislead you by including words or phrases
from the passage in the wrong heading; and missing them out entirely
from the correct option.
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Example
Read this paragraph from an IELTS Reading passage (this one comes
from Road to IELTS, the British Council’s official IELTS preparation
course), then choose the most suitable heading below.
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Along with dodgy food, cramped seating and screaming infants,
turbulence is one of the banes of modern air travel. Avoiding turbulence is
a somewhat haphazard business. Pilots do their best to fly around storms
and to steer clear of turbulent areas reported by aircraft further along the
route. But a series of experiments that has just finished in Colorado could
eliminate some of the guesswork, by enabling airlines’ existing radar
systems to pick up signs of the most common kind of turbulence, called
‘convective turbulence’, with just a simple software upgrade.
a. How convective turbulence could be identified
b. A potentially dangerous phenomenon
c. Current methods and new research
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Note down your answer (a, b or c), and look at the three options below, one
by one.
Option a: How convective turbulence could be identified
At first sight, this option is attractive. The words ‘convective turbulence’
appear in the paragraph, as does the word ‘could’. Moreover, the paragraph
does identify a new method for identifying convective turbulence. However,
this is only in the second half of the paragraph, and you need to make sure
that the heading summarises the whole paragraph. So this option is not
correct.
Option b: A potentially dangerous phenomenon
The key word in this heading is ‘potentially’, which means that the danger
does not exist now. But convective turbulence is not a potential danger — it
is a current danger. This option is therefore not correct either.
Option c: Current methods and new research
You will not find any of the words in this heading in the paragraph, but this
does not mean it is incorrect. Examine the two topics in the heading. Does
the paragraph cover ‘current methods’? Yes, it talks about how pilots report
turbulence to each other. Does the paragraph cover ‘new research’? Yes, it
talks about ‘a series of experiments in Colorado’. Note that ‘a series of
experiments’ means the same as ‘research’. Option c is therefore the
correct answer because it summarises the whole paragraph accurately.
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In groups….
Discuss
Who are the longest married couple you know?
What do you think is the secret of a successful marriage?
In the future, do you think marriage will be regarded as being as
important an institution as it is now?
23. Now, answer the following questions:
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Where is the text from?
What is it about?
Who is in the photos?
24. Now, answer the following questions:
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Where is the text from?
What is it about?
Who is in the photos?
From a newspaper
The longest married couple in the UK
Fred and Olive Hodges, the longest married
couple in the UK
27. Are these sentences true or false?
1. Fred and Olive first met in winter.
2. They were from Northampton.
3. They got married in 1925.
4. John and Brenda didn’t have children.
5. Fred and Olive bought a house in Northampton.
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28. Past tense verbs from the article:
1 2 3 4
saved met came was
skated left gave had
started
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You make the past form of verb
by adding ‘-ed’
You cannot add ‘-ed’ to make the
past form
What do we call the verbs in
column 4 above?
Regular verbs – saved,
started
Irregular verbs – met, gave
Auxiliary Verbs
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In groups…..
Write a summary
Fred and Olive first …. 1915. They met again in ……war. They fell…
engaged. In 1925 they bought …. Married. Fred and Olive ….
Children. Fred … 1960s.
The couple …. 102. They now have …. Great-grandchildren. They
live … home. They have been …. In April. They are … longest
married couple.
30. Re-cap :
How did we begin this session?
What did we do next?
Can you list the sequence the activities we did in this session?
Example: Stages of life, ordering them, …., Read quickly, guess what
might be in the passage…..
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Which activities were pre- reading, while-reading and post-reading?
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Pre-Reading
Pre-teach difficult vocabulary
Preview grammar to be used in
passage
Activate Schemata- See what
learners already know about the
topic
While Reading
Skim for gist, check prediction
Read intensively to help notice
grammar (pronouns)
Read for detail
Read for specific information
Post-Reading
Write a summary.
Speak about related topic
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32. Top down or Bottom up?
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In this session we used learners existing
knowledge about the context to facilitate
reading –
Top down reading.
Sometimes, we go from
knowing individual words to
the larger picture –
Bottom Up reading
Top down or bottom up reading?
•Learner type
•Objective of the lesson
33. IELTS Reading: Six key tips
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1. Manage your time
2. Decide the best order of operations
3. Know where to look for answers
4. Don’t panic when things get hard
5. Make every mark count
6. Learn to paraphrase
