☆ Read to Think & Learn To Explore ☆ Tips to Power up the Reading Class

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Being an English Teacher: Dreams or Nightmare?

Challenges for EFL Teachers in Taiwan

Need for Survival?

For Test Only?

Challenges for an EFL teacher/learner in Taiwan

English as a Foreign Language

One doesn’t need to speak the language to survive.

Learning a language is like…

Learning English in Taiwan is like…

Put on the Thinking Cap

Questions to Ponder

•What matters most in your English Class?•What do you think

how one learns? •What is your

philosophy?

What matters most in my class…

•Motivation •&

•Involvement

•What do we mean by “learning”?

•Aren’t there any other possibilities?

How Much Grammar Do we Need?

• Janice Yalden(1987), The communicative Syllabus: Evaluation, Design, and

Implementation

The Beginning Level

Linguistic Form(pattern drills/

verb tense/sentence structure)

Communicative Function

The Intermediate Level

Linguistic Form(pattern drills)

Communicative Function

The Advanced Level

Linguistic Form(pattern drills)

Communicative Function

Three Levels in a Balanced System

Linguistic Form(pattern drills)

I II IIII

Communicative Function

What happens in our classroom?

To Teach English as a Subject for Test?

To Teach English as a Tool to use?

Looking for the Missing Piece!

•Exposure and Involvement

A Motto for Effective & Enjoyable Teaching

• Involve them! Get Them Busy!

• Tiny Achievements!

• Work Hard, Play Hard: Pleasure and Fun!

•Motivation matters!

From Learners to Users

Use it to Keep it!

Keep Them Busy Right from the Start

• Start the class like a fire!

• Warm-Up:• A Proverb A Day

• A Quote a Day

• A Riddle A Day

• A Tongue Twister A day

• A Mini-Speech A Day

• A Joke A Day

• A Song A Week…

A Riddle a Day

Gloves

What have four fingers and a thumb, but no flesh, bones,

or blood?

A Riddle a Day

A sandwich.

What do you call a witch at the beach?

Riddle Fun

• What is more useful when it is broken?

An Egg

A Riddle a Day

Pun Riddle

What’s higher without a head than with a head?

A Pillow

What am I?

• What is greater than god,

• More evil than devil;

• The poor have it;

• The rich want it,

• And if you eat it you will die?

Nothing

A Riddle a Day

A Brain Teaser

In a Dictiomary

•Where does afternoon always come before morning?

A Riddle a Day

Pun Riddle

Why is “heat” faster than “cold”?

Because people

catch colds

A Proverb A DayA Proverb A Day

• Turn Proverbs into Plays

~A Proverb A Day~

•On a regular basis?•Why not stop and smell

the roses?

• 1. Haste makes Waste.

• 2. Everyman has his price.

• 3. Don’t put all the eggs in one basket.

• 4. Laughter is the best medicine.

• 5. Handsome is that handsome does.

• 1. Haste makes Waste.

• 2. Everyman has his price.

• 3. Don’t put all the eggs in one basket.

• 4. Laughter is the best medicine.

• 5.

A Joke A Day• A birthday present that goes from 0 to 200

in 5 seconds

A Scale1 pound = 0.45 Kg

Clean clams crammed in clean cans.

Betty bought some butter, but the butter Betty bought was bitter,

so Betty bought some better butter, and the better butter Betty bought was

better than the bitter butter Betty bought before!

A Tongue Twister A Day

• Whether the weather be fine,

• or whether the weather be not.

• Whether the weather be cold,

• or whether the weather be hot.

• We'll weather the weather

• whether we like it or not.

• Swan swam over the sea,Swim, swan, swim!

Swan swam back againWell swum, swan!

A Quote a Day

• Students take turns sharing a quote every day!

• Procedures:• Review the last three quotes!

• Introduce the new one!• Tell us why this one!

• Examples

How to Find a Quote

• 1. Google: Quote

• 2. By Topics: Learning, Friendship, Success, Life, Knowledge, failure, family, love, humor…

• By Author: Mark Twain, Einstein, Churchill, ….

• 3. Keyword: quote+ Topic word

Today’s Quote

• Winners never quit; quitters never win.

~ Vince

Lombardi(Famous American

Football Coach )

• You may delay, but time will not.

~ Benjamin Franklin

• What doesn’t kill me only makes me stronger!

• ~ Nietzsche (German Philosopher, 1844 - 1900)

• If life gives you an orange, enjoy it.

• If life gives you a lemon,

• • .

Make it lemonade!

• Be the change you want to see in the world. ~ Gandhi

• We can do no great things, only small things with great love. ~ Mother Teresa

• Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much. ~ Helen Keller

Great Wisdom in Simple Words

• The proud man counts newspaper clippings, the humble man his blessings.

• ~ Fulton J. Sheen Bishop

• Time is what we want most, but what we use worst. ~ William Penn

• "A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out."

• -Walter Winchell

Language Art: Parallelism

Great Wisdom in Simple Words

• You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist. ~ Golda Meir

• People are lonely because they build walls instead of bridges. - Joseph Fort Newton

• The mind is like a parachute. It doesn't work if it is not open. ~Frank Zappa

• Pun: Double Meaning

• “Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted.

• ~Albert Einstein

Quotes by Variation• By Author• Week for Mark Twain• Week for Winston Churchill • Week for Abraham Lincoln….

• By Subject• A Month for Witty Quotes• A Week for Quotes on failure/ $ / Learning /

Friendship….

A Song A Week

• Glee

• Lean On Me!

• Imagine!

• Somewhere Over the Rainbow

• Bad Romance

Why warm-up like this?

• Students Participation• Exposure & Practice

• Peer Power/PressurePeer Power/Pressure• The beauty of languageThe beauty of language

• Sheer FunSheer Fun

• Save your Breath!

Read to Think

• Boost the Reading Power Through Thinking Training

GOALS OF READING TRAINING

To Read for them?or

To Have Them Read on Their Own?

Tips on Reading TrainingTips on Reading Training

• Make Reading a Guessing/Hunting Game!

• Give them a purpose to read!

• Give them Questions!

• Don’t feed them Answers.

Goals of Reading Training

• How to Help Your Students Become Active Readers

What do good readers do while reading?

• Motivation: Read with a Purpose• Read for Main Idea:

• Look over the text before reading• Guessing at the meaning:

Make Predictions with Prior Knowledge • Read with strategies: Skimming, Scanning, Browsing

• Evaluate the Quality of the Text

• Fastrup, A; Samuels, S. (2002) What Research Has to say about Reading Instruction. Newark, De: IRA

• 師大英語系 陳秋蘭 教授 < 批判閱讀與思考能力 >

Reading Strategies

• They are not tabla rasa, a piece of blank paper!

• Activate their background knowledge!

• Resources and strategies

Bottom-up Process

Top-Down Process

Help them form Good Reading Habits

1. Have A Quick Overlook:

Main Ideas/Keywords/Topic Sentence

2. Make Predictions:

What do you know about the topic?

(Background knowledge)

Form Good Reading Habits

3. Look for Road Signs: Transition Words? (however, nevertheless, but…)

4. Think about the Organization

5. Have Your Say My Favorite Quotes/Parts/Characters,

Any Parts you disagree with?Any Comments or Questions?

Questions for discussion

The best thing for reading training

Never stop asking questions!

Make Reading a Guessing Game!

Extra Credits!

Basic Structure of Expository Writing

• Claim, and Support

• Claim and Support

Basic Structure of Expository Writing

Claim: Topic Sentence (main idea)

Support: Facts / Reasons / Explanations / Process

(supporting details of the main idea)

How to Grasp the Structure

• Visualize the structure

• Graphic Organizers

• Mind Map/Graphic Organizer: http://www.eduplace.com/graphicorganizer/

• http://www.graphic.org/goindex.html

Intro: Main idea

Paragraph 1:Topic Sentence:

Paragraph 2:Topic Sentence:

Paragraph 3:Topic Sentence:

Supporting detailsSupporting details Supporting details

Unit 3 Is Your Diet Saving the Earth?

How to Grasp the Structure

• Visualize the structure

•

• Graphic Organizers

• Mind Map/Graphic Organizer: http://www.eduplace.com/graphicorganizer/

• http://www.graphic.org/goindex.html

Persuasion Tree

Flow Chart

Goal-Reason Web

Students’ Outline

Online Resources

• Graphic Organizers:

• http://www.sanchezclass.com/reading-graphic-organizers.htm

• Character Study

• Plot Study

• Problem/Conflict Study