The document discusses beliefs about teaching reading in English. It presents statements that teachers may agree or disagree with on topics like using literature vs newspapers, pre-teaching vocabulary, reading for comprehension vs tests, choosing appropriate texts, and roles of the teacher and student. The comments provide perspective on the statements and discuss concepts like extensive and intensive reading. It also covers strategies for dealing with new words, pre-reading and while-reading techniques, and consolidating reading skills.

1. teaching reading

2. Teach Reading in Tieng Anh 10 Do Tuan Minh English Department College of Foreign Languages Vietnam National University, Hanoi

3. Your Beliefs about Teaching Reading Students should only read good literature in English. Comics and newspapers are bad for them in school. 2 It is important to pre-teach all new vocabulary before students read the text. 1 Don’t know Dis-agree Agree Statements

4. Your Beliefs about Teaching Reading Students need to read for a purpose, not to read so that they can just answer multiple choice questions. 4 My students don’t have the opportunity to read outside school so it is my responsibility to choose suitable texts for them in school. 3 Don’t know Dis-agree Agree Statements

5. Your Beliefs about Teaching Reading Using graded comprehension questions is the only real way of checking that students have understood the text. 6 I don’t think students learn a lot from reading things like timetables, indexes, recipes, directories. 5 Don’t know Dis-agree Agree Statements

6. Your Beliefs about Teaching Reading English newspapers are too difficult for my students. Students should concentrate on reading simplified texts from their textbooks 8 The teacher’s job is to help students learn to read by themselves. S/he cannot do the reading for them. 7 Don’t know Dis-agree Agree Statements

7. Your Beliefs about Teaching Reading The real purpose of reading is for students to learn more about grammar and how the written language is constructed 10 If I don’t translate the text for my students they don’t understand it. 11 Getting students to read aloud is a useful way of making them understand what they are reading 9 Don’t know Dis-agree Agree Statements

8. Your Beliefs about Teaching Reading 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. 13 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. 12 Don’t know Dis-agree Agree Statements

9. Your Beliefs about Teaching Reading comments 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.

10. Your Beliefs about Teaching Reading comments 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.

11. Your Beliefs about Teaching Reading comments 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.

12. Your Beliefs about Teaching Reading comments 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.

13. Your Beliefs about Teaching Reading comments 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.

14. Your Beliefs about Teaching Reading comments 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.

15. Extensive or Intensive? answer key novels stories textbook readings instructions recipes application forms What types of material are used for each type? reading for gist, reading for pleasure increasing reading speed understanding every word, recognising grammatical rules What is it used for? Extensive Intensive

16. Extensive or Intensive? comments 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.

17. Extensive or Intensive? comments 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.

18. Guessing the Meaning of New Words 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.

19. Guessing the Meaning of New Words 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.

20. Guessing the Meaning of New Words 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 .

21. Guessing the Meaning of New Words C. Fill in the table showing the different ways teachers can deal with new words. ignore guess not essential for understanding the passage teach passively pre-teach carefully essential for understanding the passage Above the students’ level At the students’ level If the word is

22. Guessing the Meaning of New Words 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

23. Guessing the Meaning of New Words 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

24. pre- and while-reading techniques Answer key 6. ordering 5. gap-fill 4. multiple choice 3. ordering pictures 2. true / false prediction 1. open prediction WHILE- PRE- TECHNIQUES

25. pre- and while-reading techniques Answer key 12. networks 11. comprehension questions 10. matching 9. grids 8. pre-questions 7. answers given WHILE- PRE- TECHNIQUES

26. consolidation and micro-teaching Answer key ordering pictures grids network gap-fill matching … are most suitable for Grade 10? List the techniques here: Which techniques…

27. consolidation and micro-teaching Answer key network, open prediction … require the least preparation ? ordering pictures multiple choice T / F prediction … require the most preparation ? List the techniques here: Which techniques…

28. consolidation and micro-teaching Answer key ordering multiple choice gap-fill … need to be on a photocopied worksheet ? network open predictions answers given … can be written on the blackboard easily? List the techniques here: Which techniques…

29. consolidation and micro-teaching Answer key grids ordering pictures … are least similar to the school exams ? T/ F prediction multiple choice comprehension questions … are most similar to the school exams ? List the techniques here: Which techniques…

30. consolidation and micro-teaching Answer key discussion open prediction … integrate the listening skill ? discussion open prediction … integrate the speaking skill ? gap-fill write-it-up … integrate the writing skill ? List the techniques here: Which techniques…