Let's read

How do you teach reading in your classroom?
Is it the traditional text from the book? Do you get your students to read aloud? Do they read silently? How about the activities? Are they always from the course book? Do they get the reading comprehension activities as homework? Do they have to translate? How about vocabulary?
I guess it's a combination of all the above mixed with other non-book activities depending on the text and its purpose.
So today I am sharing some activities that I use with my students in order to motivate them a bit more to read.

1. Listen to your partner
This is a reading/listening/ speaking activity. You can use the text from your course book or find any other text with the topic you'd like to teach. Students are in pairs. They get a text and a list of questions each. Text A and questions from Text B is what the one student has and text B and the questions from Text A is what the other student gets. Student 1 reads their text to Student 2, who has to answer to their questions while they are listening to their partner reading. And then Student 2 treads their text to Student 1. This activity also enhances the class spirit since each pair helps each other in order to complete the activity. (Cab be used with very low levels as well)

2. Where does this go?
This is a group activity. You will need a bigger article. Cut the article in pieces and put them around in class. The students have to find the pieces and co-operate to put them in the right order. They practise speaking and reading skills but also critical thinking and debating. (preferable with levels B2 and above)

3. What is this all about?
This is a more complicated activity and you need a lot of people to participate. Divide the class into 3 teams. Each team chooses a person who will have to read a text. (I use 3 texts in the same subject from newspapers or news websites). The reader of each team describes their text to their team while they keep notes. The teams try to re-write the text and present it to the class. Then they compare their texts with each other and the original texts. (Higher levels, C1, C2 practising reading, re-phrasing, vocabulary and speaking)

"The princess who had no kingdom" by Athanasia S.

Once upon a time there was a princess who had no kingdom. She had a pony called Pretty and a cart. The princess wasn't rich like the other princesses, but she earned a little money delivering strange parcels and looking for her kingdom.

There was a duchess who didn't want her son, the prince, to see the princess, because, if he fell in love with her, he would want to marry her and what's the point of a wedding without a kingdom?
So, she sent him away boating.

The duchess and her six daughters invited the princess for tea, but they treated her unkindly. They gave her their old dresses and the jester gave her his red tights to keep her warm. The princess sold the dresses but kept the tights.

One day she went to the coronation of the new King and all the princes and the King himself wanted to marry her because she was very beautiful. The princess got tired of all their fighting and left.
On her way, she saw a young man who was trying to pull his cart and horse out of a ditch and she helped him. The man was the duchess' jester.  the jester offered his heart to her and together they wandered.

One day the princess received a parcel with her lost umbrella. On the parcel was written: " To the princess of here, there and everywhere". So the jester told her: " This is your Kingdom".
So they became the Queen and the King of  here, there and nowhere.
And they lived happily ever after!!

Athanasia is in pre-intermediate level and this was her first attempt of writing a summary of a book in English.
This fairytale was written by Ursula Jones and Sarah Gibb and the images are taken from there. 

ELT reading club (my contribution)

This is my homework for our ELT Reading club. The idea of this club is to meet every now and then and talk about books we have read.

 

I chose:

--> “Setting limits in the Classroom” by Robert J. MacKenzie, ED.D."

 

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One might wonder why I chose to read this book that has actually nothing to do with ELT.

It was 8 years ago, when I still used to work at a language school; I had to deal with a really problematic situation. A couple of teenage kids, no manners at all, with a very disruptive behavior.  Since they don’t teach us how to handle with such situations at the university and in my case, I did not have the support of the school owner; I had to find ways to handle the situation alone.

I read a lot of articles and books on the subject, which helped me a great deal, but this particular book made the difference.

Written in a very simple way, giving many examples, the author makes his points clear to everybody.

The first rule is: Clear rules and instructions from the beginning.

There are four kinds of approaches the teachers use:

·      The student- oriented permissive approach: Teacher gives freedom to the students, but freedom without limits is not democracy. Students tend to ignore the teacher and the rules

·      The teacher-oriented punitive approach: The teacher plays the role of the “detective”, the “judge”, and the “probation officer”. The teacher’s behavior is firm but not respectful, though, so it usually backfires.

·      The mixed approach: a combination of the two mentioned approaches, but when we go back and forth, this usually causes burnout.

·      The democratic approach on the contrary is firm and respectful. It keeps the balance between the teacher and the students. It gives clear limits and offers acceptable choices.

Students will always test you when you introduce new rules. Our job is to be firm and consistent to our initial plan.

Giving second choices is not always the best solution.

The plan goes like this for example

·      Students disrupt

·      Teacher gives warning and mentions the consequence. (it is important for students to know what happens if they don’t stop)

·      Students usually test.

·      Teacher follows the plan and tells student to proceed with the consequence. (i.g. quiet time by themselves or have them read or write something). Consequences must be logical and immediate.

·      If student refuses to co-operate, Plan B comes to action. (Talk to the director or with the parents)

This book gives examples of all ages and types of schools, for teachers, administrators and parents, gives solutions to a lot of problematic situations (from the very simple incidents like avoiding doing homework to really violent behaviors).

It has helped me a lot to understand my students and myself better. 

Limits from Theodora Pap