making reading communicative

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Making reading communicative

teachingenglish.org.uk /print/501

Making reading communicative

Submitted by TE Editor on 9 November, 2006 - 13:00

If telling my students "And now we're going to practise listening," elicits looks o f dread and fear,

announcing reading practice can of ten elicit yawns, heads descending to desks, o r eyes ascending

heavenwards. And these reactions are f rom my adult st udents . My young learners' react ions may be even

more extreme. "I can read at home, I come to lessons to speak!" more than one of my students has told me.

Many students do seem to regard reading as a waste of class time but how many of these s tudents will

read outs ide class without encouragement inside? The aim of this art icle is to consider a few approaches

to making classroom reading more communicative, by which I mean integrating it with other skills work, so

that s tudents can see its value.

Can reading be communicative?

Strategies I use f or communicative reading

Pre-reading tasks

While-reading tasks

While-reading tasks leading into post- reading tasks

Post- reading tasks

Conclusion

Can reading be communicative?

Communication suggests interaction of some so rt, perhaps in many students ' minds between speaker and

listener. Is reading, therefore, s ince it is o f ten a so litary activity, a non-communicative activity? Surely not

since the reader is interacting with the writer, albeit in a less direct way than speaker and listener. Reading

is, of course, just as communicative as any other form of language use and as teachers our aim is to bring

out that communicative element. For example by establishing direct communication between reader andwriter by exploit ing students' written work for reading practice (see below f or ideas). Another feature of real

reading is that while we may read alone we communicate what we read to others constantly. Talking about

what we have read is a rich source of classroo m possibilities.

Strategies I use f or communicative reading

One of the things to bear in mind when lesson planning is that classroo m reading is not the same as real

reading. Classroo m reading aims at helping students develop the skills they need to read more ef f ectively in

a variety of ways (t he same variety of ways as they can employ in their own languages, o f course). To

enable this we plan 'pre-reading', 'while-reading', and 'post-reading' stages. These stages can help us make

reading more communicative.

Pre-reading tasks

Pre-reading tasks o f ten aim to raise the readers' knowledge of what they are about to read (their

schematic knowledge) as this knowledge will help them to understand the text. In our L1 we use this
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knowledge subconsciously and as a result need to raise it consciously in an L2. This raising of awareness

is most ef f ectively done collaborat ively. Approaches I use include:

Tell your partner what you know about t he topic

Do a quiz in pairs to f ind out what you know about t he topic

Look at some pictures related to the topic

Skimming the f irst paragraph for gist and then predicting.

When reading in our L1 we are constantly using our schematic and linguistic knowledge to predict content

(both related to the topic and the language itself ). In class, predictions can be communicated to colleagues,

of course. Some examples of what predictions can be based upon include:

A tit le

Visuals

Knowledge of the author

A skim of the f irst paragraph

A set of keywords f rom the text

Reading the end, predicting the beginning.

Reading the middle, predicting the beginning and the end.

While-reading tasksAlthough reading is of ten a solitary activity and the idea o f 'reading in pairs ' seems odd, reading can be

collaborative. Approaches I use include:

Running and reading: this approach especially lends itself to scanning as the idea is t o encourage the

students to read as quickly as poss ible in a race.

1. Divide the class into student A and student B pairs. Student A sits at one end of the classroom.

2. Stick the text to be read on the wall at the other end of the roo m.

3. Give student A a list o f questions.

4. Student A reads the firs t question to st udent B who has to run down the classroom to f ind the

answer in the text, and then run back to dictate the answer to student A, who then tells B quest ion 2

and so on.

5. The f irst pair to answer all the questions wins. (I ask the students to swap roles half way through so

everyone gets a chance to scan).

Slashed / Cut up texts: This is a genuinely collaborative reading approach.

1. Photocopy a suitable text and cut it diagonally into f our.

2. Seat st udents in f ours . Give a piece of the text to each student. They mustn't show their piece to the

others.

3. Give each group a set o f questions.

4. The group have to work collaborat ively to answer the questions since no one has the whole of the

text.


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5. Groups can compare answers when they have f inished.

Using websites: if you have a computer roo m available this is a very ef f ective way of promot ing

communication as students can work on a reading task in pairs reading f rom the same screen.

While-reading tasks leading into post- reading tasks

Jigsaw reading is an o ld f avourite but perennially ef f ective.

1. Divide a text into two parts o r f ind two (or three) separate texts o n the same to pic.

2. Students A get one text and a related task, students B get the other text and task.

3. Students A complete their tasks in a group. Students B likewise. Compare answers in A & B groups.

4. Students get into A & B pairs and tell each other about their tasks.

Creating a class text bank: I encourage students to bring in interesting texts that they have fo und (perhaps

as a homework task using the Internet) which can be submitted to the class text bank. For weekend

homework each student selects a text to take away which they then discuss with the student who originally

submitt ed it. This is, o f course, what readers do in real lif e.

Exploiting graded readers: this is a goo d way to help with detailed reading since this implies reading forpleasure. I have used two approaches:

1. Using a class set o f the same reader so that everyone reads the same book. This leads into class

discussions of what everyone has read.

2. Students read dif f erent books and then recommend their book (e.g. by writing reviews) to their

colleagues.

Exploiting students' written work: I of ten put students written work up on the walls f or the others to read.

Tasks can include guessing who the author is, vo ting on which is t he mos t interesting, selecting some f or a

class magazine.

Post- reading tasks

As mentioned above, telling someone about what we have read is a very natural reaction to a text. I have

already mentioned a f ew in connection to 'while-reading' (e.g. recommending readers to the class) but other

ideas I have used include:

Discussions about the text

Summarising texts

Reviewing texts

Using a 'f ollow-up' speaking task related to the to pic

Loo king at the language of the text (e.g. collocations).

Conclusion

I would not be exaggerating to say that one of the things that all the mos t successf ul language learners I

have met have in common is that they are dedicated readers in English. They all recognised the value of

reading as a way to develop their language independently of the classro om but equally saw the value of

investing class time in becoming more ef f ective readers in English. They were willing to make thisinvestment because they realised that reading could be f ully integrated into other skills work and thereby be

ust as communicative as any other classroo m practice.

Patrick Howarth, Teacher, Trainer, Spain


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making reading communicative

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