This document summarizes a workshop on helping students become independent readers without causing frustration. It discusses focusing students on why they can't understand words, using different reading techniques to make sense of difficult words, and providing tools to help students learn independently from the teacher. The workshop also aims to make students enjoy exploring language rather than fearing it.

1. Thank you to OUP for
sponsoring this event
through the provision of the
platform to host this
workshop.

2. Helping students to become
independent readers...
...without driving them nuts.
Alastair Grant
Teacher Development Manager
International House - San Isidro

3. …session
aims…
1. Help to focus students on WHY they “can’t” understand words.
2. Helping students to make sense of “impossible” words by looking at
different reading techniques.
3. Tools for helping students become independent (from you!).
4. Enjoying the confusion!

4. lollygag
(v.) by giving him/her sweets
a) to stop a small child crying
b) to waste time / fool around
c) to spend money on pathetic practical jokes, (like fake dog poo,
etc. etc.)

5. epasm (n.)
a) an amazing feeling you get from getting an email you’ve been
waiting ages for
b) a powder used to reduce perspiration
c) a strong sense of happiness brought on by illegal drugs

6. mumping
(n.) small cash favours from tradesmen
a) a police term for accepting
b) getting your mum to dump your girlfriend for you
c) getting as much as you can out of your parents by making
them feel guilty

7. new + or =
word

9. “The meaning of the text is expected to come naturally…
based on the reader's prior knowledge of words… and
the syntactical patterns of his/her language. ”
(McCormick, T. 1988)

11. by Anthony Burgess
http://kubrickmovies.hostei.com/aconovel.html

12. Slang dates
quickly... Groovy baby!
Oh, smashing, groovy, yay !
Au contraire baby,
you can't resist me!
What say, you, we go out
on the town and swing,
baby?
“Smashing Baby! When this ship comes a' rockin', don't come a' knockin', baby!”

13. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:A_Clockwork_Orange
word meaning origin

14. “I was sitting in the bar with
my droogs, talking and
having a drink”
What does “droogs” mean? How do you know?

15. Let’s play
bingo...
Tick the words you hear
smecking plot devotchka
viddy sophitos veck
govreeting malenky crasting

18. ...the most important words in
the sentence...
_____ Monday, Britney tried _____ look _____ ______ word “mumping”
____ ____ dictionary ____ sadly, _____ boyfriend _____ lost it.
On Monday, Britney tried to look up the word “mumping” in the dictionary but sadly,
her boyfriend had lost it.
function words content words
•Pronouns •Nouns
•Prepositions •Verbs
•Conjunctions •Adjectives
•Articles •Adverbs
•Auxiluary verbs

19. verbs nouns adjectives adverbs
viddy droogs malenky skorry
rassoodocks
mesto
…making up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening…
…things changing so skorry these days…
…and viddy him swim in his blood…
…he viddied the four of us like that

20. Maggie and Robin’s 43rd
date.
Maggie brushed her nyengly trasses in the bathroom mirror and sighed. It had been days since she’d
washed her trasses and it was beginning to look greansky. How on earth would Robin ever look at her
and find her greety now? No matter, the yars when she would sit and pine for his mimotions were far
behind her and she reminded herself that she had to grit her pearlies and face the new yar with a brave
face.
Slowly and deliberately, she mooshed her topmap onto her cheeks and began trying to peense about
the evening that was ahead of them both.
Since the last time they had met at Kansas, Robin had been boleeting very strangely and would hardly
ever utter a moop when she questioned him about marriage…
•Underline all the strange words you can see.
•Write them all here:
•What word class are they?
•What do think they mean?

21. More
nonsense…
???
by Lewis Carrollthe slithy toves
`Twas brillig, and
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! 'Well, "slithy" means "lithe and slimy".
"Lithe" is the same as "active".
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
You see it's like a portmanteau — there are
The frumious Bandersnatch!” two meanings packed up into one word.'
(from Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, 1872)

22. Portmanteaus

23. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcnLDTkFuIU&feature=related
“Symphony in 1.
2.
What’s ____________?
I was born with a ________
a.
b.
____________________
____________________
Slang” 3.
_________ in my mouth
One day at the __________of c. ____________________
dawn
a. got out of bed early
4. I couldn’t _________the_________ d. ____________________
b. met Mary and started dating
5. I was _________myself with anger e. ____________________
c. went to Chicago 6. I made some ________ f. ____________________
d. they had dinner together 7. A beautiful girl ___________ into g. ____________________
e. he wrote a cheque which wasn’t the picture
accepted 8. Our eyes ___________ h. ____________________
f. got fired 9. I got ___________pimples i. ____________________
g. went home to think
10. Mary’s clothes fit her like a j. ____________________
_______
h. went to texas and got a job on a farm
11. She looked mighty pretty with her
i. he didn’t have much money left
hair done up in a ____________ k. ____________________
j. got a job in a restaurant
12. She had good looking ________too l. ____________________
13. We went around together for some
m. ____________________
time, ___________the town red
n. ____________________
14. Mary let her _______ _______…
o. ____________________
15. …and ate like a ___________
p. ____________________
16. I writes a check: it ___________!
q. ____________________
17. Brother, I was really in a ________!

24. http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/index.xml

25. http://corpus.byu.edu/coca/

26. Get your students to invent their
own nonsense words.
a loser in aluminium foil (n. / count.)
a manicorn (n. / count.)
déjà moo (n. / uncount.)
http://www.urbandictionary.com/

27. …session summary…
Focus students on WHY they “can’t” understand words:
• Students panic! But get them to try and work words out – this helps the meanings to stick.
• Allow them to take time to practise deducing meaning from context, generating independence.
Top-down reading:
• Activate students’ schemata before giving them a reading.
• Make sure students are aware of the whole context before and during a reading.
Bottom-up reading:
• Raise students awareness of the difficulties of decoding words out of context.
• Raise students’ awarness of content and function words.
Concordances etc.
• Give students tools to get to grips with words and see for themselves how to decode them.
• Give students independence through seeing words in context to think about what they mean.
Playing with language:
• Allow students to “play” with English by getting them to invent portmanteus or “urban” words.
• Let them see that words are part of life – not to be feared, but to be enjoyed.

28. Alastair Grant
Teacher Development Manager
International House - San Isidro
email: alastair@ihsanisidro.com.ar
twitter: alastairjgrant
IH blog: https://ihsanisidro.wordpress.com/
My blog: http://alastairjamesgrant.wordpress.com/

29. Thank you to OUP for
sponsoring this event
through the provision of the
platform to host this
workshop.