testing & teaching

2. FORWARD
TO EVERY GOOD READER…
‘ The essential is invisible to the naked
eye’
• ‘The heart understands what the mouth can’t
ever tell and what the ear can’t hear’.
•Read in the name of thy LORD who created…
• ‘The eyes look, but the brain sees’

3. How do we read?
Box 1.1 SOME ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT THE
NATURE OF READING
1. We need to perceive and decode letters in order to read
words.
2. We need to understand all the words in order to understand
the meaning of a text.
3. The more symbols (letters or words) there are in a text, the
longer it will take to read it.
4. We gather meaning from what we read.
5. Our understanding of a text comes from understanding the
words of which it is composed .
Do you agree with them? Disagree? Agree, but with
reservations. Note down your responses.
Task

4. Short experimental readings
Box 1.2 CAN YOU READ IT?

5. cont.
Box 1.3 How LONG DOES IT TAKE YOU TO
READ?
1. X P T A Q E W T
2. Jam hot pin call did tap son tick
3. How quickly can you read and understand
this?
Which took you most time to read and which least? Why?
Task

6. Cont.
Box 1.4 : READ QUICKLY PLEASE.
The handsome knight mounted his
horse, and galloped off to save the
beautiful princess.On and on, over
mountains and valleys, until his
galloping house was exhausted .At
last he dismounted…….Where was
the dragon?
Task
Read the text in this box as quickly as you can.

7. Conclusion
1.When beginning to read a text, or where there
is little or no helpful context , we depend on
decoding letters to understand words; but as
soon as there is a meaningful context we tend
to bring our interpretation to the word
according to its general ‘shape’ and the sense
of the text rather than according to its exact
component letters.Thus reading activities
should probably stress reading for
understanding rather than exact decoding of
letters.

8. 2. WE need to understand some words
in order to understand the meaning of
a text, but by no means all: we often
‘skip’ or misread words in order to
make sense of the whole more quickly
or conveniently.The implication of this
for reading is probably that we should
not insist too strongly on our learners
understanding every word, but rather
encourage them to go for the the
overall meaning of a text.

9. 3. Very roughly, the more sense units there are
in a text, the longer it will take to read it. If
smaller sense units (words, sentences) are
combined into bigger, coherent ones (
sentences, paragraphs), the whole is much
faster in reading than if they are separate or
incoherent. Learners therefore will probably
read more successfully if given whole
meaningful units of a text than reading
disconnected ‘bits’.

10. 4. And 5. The word ‘gather’ implies that somehow
the meaning of a text is there in the words and
all we need to do is to pick it up. However, our
understanding is based on far more than
simple reception of the words themselves, and
the process of reading would be better defined
as ‘constructing’ meaning from a written
text.The ‘construction’ of meaning that occurs
in reading is a combination of ‘bottom-up’
processes(decoding and understanding words,
phrases and sentences in the text) and ‘top-
down’ ones( our expectations, previous
knowledge constructs (schemata) of the text
content and genre).

11. Teaching Reading
 What does “Reading” mean?
Choose the most suitable definition (s) from the following :
1. It is the process of decoding the encoding message
of the writer.
2. It is the process of deciphering the graphic symbols
on the paper and changing them into sounds
3. Reading is a physical & a mental process which involves
an emotional side that triggers off when the reader’s
emotion is stimulated and ignited by the printed words,
joy, excitement, sympathy, anxiety, indifference…etc.

12. What is reading comprehension?
Understanding a written text means
extracting the required information from it
as efficiently as possible.
e.g.: 1) Looking at a notice board to see if there is an ad
for a particular type of flat.( here a competent reader will
quickly reject the irrelevant information and find what he is
looking for).
2) Carefully reading an article of special interest in a
scientific journal.( it is not enough to understand the
gist of the text ; more detailed comprehension is
necessary.)

13. WHY DO WE READ?
There are two main reasons for reading:
1. Reading for pleasure
2. Reading for information( in order to
find out something or in order to do
something with the information you
get).

14. WHY DO WE TEACH READING?
 To substitute real experiments by imaginary ones.
 To develop the Ss’ ability to extract the message
the text contains. (symbolic effect)
 Professional competence depends on reading.
 Higher education depends much on the quality &
quantity of reading.
 Cross-cultural problems can be tackled by wide
reading.
 The more the students read, the more background
knowledge they acquire.

15. THE COMPONENTS OF READING
COMPREHENSION: THE SUBSKILLS
 Recognizing the script of a language
 Deducing the meaning and use of unfamiliar
lexical items
 Understanding explicitly stated information
 Understanding information when not explicitly
stated
 Understanding conceptual meaning
 Understanding the communicative (function) of
sentences and utterances

16.  Understanding relations within the
sentence
 Understanding relations between the parts
of a text through lexical cohesion devices
 Interpreting text by going outside it
 Identifying the main point or important
information in a piece of discourse
 Distinguishing the main idea from
supporting details

17.  Selective extraction of relevant points from
a text
 Extracting salient points to summarize( the
text, an idea etc.)
 Basic reference skills
 Skimming
 Scanning to locate specifically required
information
 Transcoding information to diagrammatic
display

18. In order to develop these skills, several types of exercises
can be used. These question-types can have two different
functions:
1. To clarify the organization of the passage.
The questions can be about:
 The function of the passage
 The general organization ( e.g. argumentative)
 The rhetorical organization (e.g. contrast ,comparison)
 The cohesive devices ( e.g. link-words)
 The intrasentential relations ( e.g. derivation,
morphology)
TEXT ATTACK SKILLS

19. 2.To clarify the contents of the passage.
The questions can be about:
 plain fact ( direct reference)
 implied fact ( inference )
 deduced meaning ( supposition )
 evaluation
N.B. The above skills, question-types & question-
functions are constantly related since a given
exercise uses a certain type of question, with
certain function, to develop a particular reading
skill.

20.  Classroom Reading Performance
 Oral  Silent
 Intensive  Extensive
 Linguistic  Content  Skimming  Scanning
 Global

21. HOW DO WE READ?
The main ways of reading are as follows:
 Skimming: quickly running one’s
eyes over a text to get the gist of it.
 Scanning: quickly going through a
text to find a particular piece of
information.

22.  Extensive reading: Reading longer texts,
usually for one’s own pleasure .This is a
fluency activity, mainly involving global
understanding.
 ‘It is intended to develop good reading
habits, to build up knowledge of
vocabulary and structure, and to
encourage a liking for reading.’
Richards et al. (1992)

23.  Intensive reading: reading shorter texts,
to extract specific information. This is
more an accuracy activity involving
reading for detail.
It is ‘the detailed and time-consuming
analysis of reading material, usually in the
classroom’, the purpose of which is ‘to teach
vocabulary and structure in context, to
teach reading skills such as scanning or
guessing unknown words, and to prepare
students to eventually read and
comprehend all kinds of written material in
the target language.’ Bramford (1984)

24. Reading involves both bottom –-
up and top-down processing.
The ‘construction’ of meaning that occurs in
reading is a combination of:
1. Bottom-up processes ( decoding and
understanding words, phrases and
sentences in the text ):
The old lady took her dog to the park
2. Top-down processes ( our expectations,
previous knowledge constructs (schemata)
of the text, content and genre)
The old lady took her dog to the park

25. CLASSROOM READING PROCEDURES
1. Pre-reading phase:
Here the teacher has to motivate the
learners to:
 Anticipate the topic( looking at the title/
the pictures/ graphics, subtitles)
 Arouse their interest
 Activate learners’ formal and content
schemata

26. Box 1.8.1 : QUESTIONS GIVEN
BEFORE THE TEXT
Read the questions and guess what the answers
are. Later , you will read the text and are going
to be able to check how many you got right.
1. Where was Jane walking?
2.What did she hear behind her?
3. What was her necklace made of?
4. What did the thief steal (two things).
5. What did he do next?

27. Box 1.9.2 PASSAGE FOLLOWING
QUESTIONS
As Jane was walking down the street,
she heard someone walking quietly
behind her .She began to feel
afraid.Suddenly a large hand touched
her neck; her gold necklace broke
and disappeared. In another moment,
her bag too was gone, and the thief
was running away.

28. 2. While-reading phase
This phase is tailored on the text rather
than on the learners’ ideas previous to
reading. Its aims are:
 Helping understanding the writer’s
concepts.
 Helping understanding the text
structure.
 Helping clarifying the text content.

29. 3. The post-reading phase
This stage includes any reactions to the
text and the while-reading phase. It should
contribute in a coherent phase way to the
writing, speaking and listening skills. The
aims of this stage are:
 Consolidating what has been read or
acquired.
 Relating the text to the learner’s own
knowledge, experience, interests or views.

30. CHARACTERISRICS OF EFFICIENT READING
AND IMPLICATONS FOR TEACHING
If reading is to be efficient a number of
considerations is to be borne in mind:
1. Starting with global understanding and
move towards detailed understanding.
{ Reading comprehension exercises
should preferably start with the overall
meaning of the text, its function and aim
rather than on working on vocabulary or
more specific ideas.}

31. This treatment is important because:
 It is a very efficient way of building up the
student’s confidence when faced with
authentic texts that often contain difficult
vocabulary or structures.{ They will feel
that at least they understand what the text
is about and will subsequently feel less
diffident when tackling a new text.}

32.  It will develop an awareness of the way
texts are organized (e.g. stating the main
information and developing it, or giving
the chronological sequence of events)
→ It is this awareness of the general
structure of a passage that will allow the
students to read more efficiently later on.
 Reading is a constant process guessing,
and what one brings to the text is often
more important than what one finds in it.

33. This is why , from the very beginning, the
students should be taught to use what
they know to understand unknown
elements, whether these are ideas or
simple words. This is best achieved
through a global approach to the text.
One could sum up this kind of approach
in the following way :

34. Study of the
layout: title,
length, pictures,
type face,
of the text
Anticipation
of where to look
for confirmation
of these
hypotheses
Making
hypotheses
about the
contents
and function
Skimming
through
The passage
Confirmation
or revision
of one’s
guesses
Further
prediction
Second reading
for more detail
→ →
↓
↓
←
←

35. 2. Getting students accustomed to
reading authentic texts from the very
beginning.
(‘simplifying’ a text often results in increased
difficulty because the system of references,
repetition and redundancy as well as the
discourse indicators one relies on when
reading are often removed or at least
significantly altered).

36. Reading comprehension should not
be separated from the other skills.
There are few cases in real life when we
do not talk or write about what we have
read or when we do not relate what we
have read to something we might have
read.
It is therefore important, to link the
different skills through the reading
activities chosen:

37.  Reading and writing:
e.g. summarizing, mentioning what you
have read in in letter, note-making, etc.
 Reading and listening:
e.g. comparing an article and a news-
-bulletin , using recorded information to
solve a written problem, matching
opinions and texts, etc.
 Reading and speaking:
e.g.
discussions,debates,appreciations,etc.

38. IDEAS FOR READING ACTIVITIES
1. Pre-question (general questions)
2. Do-it-yourself questions (learners compose and answer)
3. Provide a title
4. Summarize
5. Continue ( provide n end to a story)
6. Preface (suggesting what might have happened
before)
7. Gapped text
8. Mistakes in the text.
9. Comparison
10. Re-presentation of content (ss present the text in
a different graphic medium) e.g.
 a drawing that illustrates the text
 colouring * marking a map
 lists of events or items described in the text

39. Questioning : Teaching or Testing?
COMPREHENSION TEXT AND QUESTIONS(1)
READ THE TEXT AND ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS
Yesterday I saw the palgish flester gollining begrunt the bruck.
He seemed very chanderbil,so I did not jorter him, just deapled
to him quistly. Perhaps later he will besand cander, and I will
be able to rangel to him.
1. What was the flester doing, and where?
2. What sort of flester was he?
3. Why did the writer decide not to jorter him?
4. How did she deaple?
5. What did she hope would happen later?

40. COMPREHENSION TEXT AND
QUESTIONS (2)
READ THE TEXT AND ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS
Yesterday I saw the new patient hurrying along the
corridor. He seemed very upset, so I did not
follow him, just called to him gently. Perhaps later
he will feel better, and I will be able to talk to him.
1. What is the problem described here?
2. Is this event taking place indoor or outside?
3. Did the writer try to get near the patient?
4. What do you think she said when she called to
him?
5. What might the job of the writer be?
Why do you think she wants to talk to the patient?

41. Remark:
What is it about these questions which
makes them answerable in spite of the
incomprehensibility of the source text?
 The aim of comprehension exercises
must be clearly defined and a clear
disntinction made between teaching
and testing.
 TESTING will obviously involve more
ACCURACY-TYPE exercises whereas
through teaching one should try to develop
the sub-skills listed on slides(15,16&17)

42. CONCLUSION:
 The students must be taught how to
approach and consider the text to
become INDEPENDENT & EFFICIENT
readers.
 The meaning is not inherent in the text: each reader
brings his own meaning to what he reads based on
what he expects from the text and his previous
knowledge.
 This shows how difficult it is to test
competence in reading comprehension
and how great the temptation is to impose
one’s own interpretation on the learners.