Isabela Villas Boas Marta Diniz de Rezende

Activating the receptive skills

– beliefs and practice

versus current research

Motivation for our work

Classroom observation

s

• Our own and our colleagues’

Identification of

problematic areas

• Not in keeping with the institutional guidelines and experts’ recommendations.

Action

• Mini-course to raise awareness; Experiential approach

AssumptionsReading is seen as a boring activity that needs to be “packaged” in a fun way, which may actually hamper the development of reading skills. In an attempt to make the reading

and listening more palatable to students, teachers fail to help them develop strategies that will lead them to become independent readers and listeners.

Listenings and readings, especially, end up becoming more of a springboard to speaking or to learning grammar and vocabulary.

Explore main theoretical principles underlying listening and reading comprehension.

Examine what proficient readers do, focus on reading strategies, and go over the necessary steps in every listening and reading class.

Reexamine the questionnaire answered prior to the course, in the light of what was discussed on the four days.

Answer pre-course questionnaire: knowledge and beliefs concerning the teaching of listening and reading.

Engage in an authentic, integrated listening and reading lesson tailored to the group´s needs.

Fast Facts

Context: Private language institute

Participants: Most teachers with 5+ years of experience; 32 in two sessions, delivered in 2011 and 2012

Analysis of pre and post-mini-course questionnaires

Which items do you think

propitiated the greatest

awareness-raising?

1) Good readers believe that reading is decoding and pronouncing the words correctly.

Pre-

ques

tionn

aire

Post

-que

stio

nnai

are

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

31 0

2731

0

True False Not answered

9%

2) Reading aloud in class enhances students’ understanding and pronunciation.

Pre-

ques

tionn

aire

Post

-que

stio

nnai

re0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

8

0

24

32

TrueFalse

25%

http://kenwilsonelt.wordpress.com/2010/10/14/reading-aloud-in-class-is-a-complete-waste-of-time-discuss/

- If a teacher says ‘My students really enjoy X’, you can usually interpret this as ‘I like X, and I ask my students to do it a lot’. Which CAN be a good thing. But not with reading aloud.

- The idea that this kind of reading aloud is good speaking practice is patently absurd. It isn’t real speaking at all, it’s reading aloud, a sub-skill that very few people have in their own language, let alone in one that they are learning.

- Good for their pronunciation? Not in my experience. In fact, when I’ve had to the chance to talk to students afterwards, I discovered that their speaking was markedly better than I might have imagined if I had only heard them struggling through the text.

(...) This reading around the class is something we recall from our old school days. Why might this popular technique not be effective?-I read faster than he speaks.- It’s so boring.- She makes mistakes.- I’ve already read to page 37 myself.- He can’t pronounce it and he gets embarrassed.- I’m so nervous about reading, I miss the story.- I can’t follow the story with all these different people speaking.- I prefer to read to myself. - It’s going to be 35 minutes till my go.

Round the class reading tends to be a slow, tedious, turn-off rather than a rouser of enthusiasm.

(Scrivener, 2005, pp. 189, 190)

http://eltnotebook.blogspot.com.br/2006/12/reading-aloud.html

Frequently the task of processing meaning and speaking aloud at the same time is too much for the learner, with the consequence that processing meaning gets dropped. Thus, it doesn’t improve reading skills, and neither is it useful for language reinforcement, as the learner is reading without understanding.

Sue Swift@eltnotebook

3) Teaching reading and listening strategies guarantees students’ success in both skills.

Pre-questionnaire Post-questionnaire0

5

10

15

20

25

30

8

4

21

28

10

TRUEFALSEBlank

12%

(Anderson, 2009, p. 136)

Being strategic while reading does not guarantee successful comprehension. Readers may apply a variety of strategies, monitor their comprehension, and still not understand what they are reading. But the strategic reader will not give up. A strategic reader focuses on successful comprehension and does all that it takes to understand. Non-strategic readers give up soon.

4) The Communicative Approach emphasizes bottom-up processing at the expense of top-down processing.

Pre-questionnaire Post-questionnaire0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

12

2

17

30

3

0

TRUEFALSEBlank

40%

Types of comprehension processing

Top Down

Comprehension is the process of using linguistic knowledge to decipher the little black marks in the text.

The starting point is the text itself.

Data-driven

Bottom Up

Concept-driven

The starting point is within the mind of the listener or reader.

Comprehension is a process of making sense of a text in the most cost-effective way.

Han and D´Angelo (2009)

DUAL APPROACH

READING FOR COMPREHENSION

READING FOR ACQUISITION

Socio-psycholinguistic view of readingReading is a process

of constructing meaning from text.

Readers use background

knowledge and linguistic cues from

the graphophonic, syntactic, and

semantic systems as they read.

Freeman and Freeman (2009)

The almost exclusive focus on top-down, schema-based approaches to reading instruction emphasized in Communicative Language Teaching is insufficient to develop effective readers.

(Grabe, 2009)

5) The word “text” refers to any communicative unit.

Pre-questionnaire Post-questionnaire0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

20

31

11

11 0

TRUEFALSEBlank

34%

6) Reading and listening are passive skills which involve top-down and bottom-up processing.

Pre-questionnaire Post-questionnaire0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

17

1

15

31

TRUEFALSE

50%

READING AND LISTENING...

Receptive, not

passive

7) Letters, labels, comic strips, and reports are examples of text genres.

Pre-questionnaire Post-questionnaire0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

27

32

5

0

TRUEFALSE

15%

“Genres are forms of life, ways of being. They are frames for social action, the place where meaning is constructed.” (Bazerman, 2006)

8) I often assign readings for homework due to the lack of time in class.

Pre-questionnaire Post-questionnaire0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

10

6

11

15

1 1

TRUEFALSEBlank

12%

Pre, while, and post-reading

Snow

Scrivener

Brown

Anderson

9) I feel uncomfortable assigning a ten-minute text for students to read in class because I feel I’m not teaching.

Pre-questionnaire Post-questionnaire0

5

10

15

20

25

30

6

3

2628

01

TRUEFALSEBlank

09%

10) When the listening is too long or more challenging, it should be broken into smaller chunks.

Pre-questionnaire Post-questionnaire0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

20

0

10

32

20

TRUEFALSEBlank

62%

(Snow ,2007, p. 94)

Students should first listen to the whole recorded passage once, trying

to get the general outline.

A simple plan would be as follows:- Set questions.- Play recording.

- Check if students have found the answers.

- If not, play the recording again as often as necessary. (p. 172)

Utilize authentic language and contexts: authentic language and real-world

tasks enable students to see the relevance of classroom activity to their long-term

communicative goals

(Brown, 2001, p. 258)

11) Before students read a text, it is a good idea to pre-teach them all the most difficult words to lower their anxiety.

Pre-questionnaire Post-questionnaire0

5

10

15

20

25

30

14

4

16

28

20

TRUEFALSEBlank

37%

In order to make students, better readers, we need first of all to raise their awareness that

it’s not always essential to understand every word, and that

practising some different reading techniques in English may be very useful to them. (p.

184)

1. High frequency words deserve sustained attention.

2. Low frequency words are best ignored or dealt with

quickly.3. The vocabulary learning

strategies of guessing from context, analysing words

using word parts, and dictionary use deserve

repeated attention over a long period of time.

(Nation, 2009. p. 38)

Bargain with students: They do more or less what we ask of

them provided that we do more of less what they ask of us. We

may encourage students to read for general understanding

without understanding every word on a first of second read-

through. But then, depending on what else is going to be done, we

can give them a chance to ask questions about individual words

and/or give them a chance to look them up.

(Harmer, 2007, p. 287)

12) When the text is too long, we can break it into parts and have each group read one part and share it orally (jigsaw reading). This way, the class becomes more communicative and students won’t get bored by having to read the whole text.

Pre-questionnaire Post-questionnaire0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

29

8

2

23

1 1

TRUEFALSEBlank

65%

Controlling the formal aspects of language use in reading and writing is

a way out from subordinate and

marginalized uses of language. (...) Leaving language instruction at

an intuitive and ‘mystical’ level of ‘natural language acquisition’ may be easy for the teacher and may make some students feel

good, but it leads to disempowerment.

(Grabe, 2002, p. 279)

Teachers’ Voices

The mini-course Tips to activate

“Receptive Skills” was eye-

opening in several aspects.

Specifically, I have integrated

reading activities involving both

bottom-up and top-down

processing skills in my teaching

practice.

Teachers’ VoicesThe mini-course did have impact on my

teaching. During this semester, I tried

to work with different text genres to

raise students' reading comprehension

skills, which led to much more colorful

debates in class. Also, I didn't feel I was wasting time while doing long

listening and reading exercises in class; on the contrary,

the students benefited from the time given to read and

understand the texts (especially adults) and to explore

the vocabulary in a meaningful way.

References

Anderson, N. J. (2009). ACTIVE Reading: The Research Base for a Pedagogical Approach in the Reading Classroom. In ZhaoHong Han & Neil J. Anderson (Editors). Second Language Reading Research and Instruction – Crossing the Boundaries. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press.

Bazerman, C. (2006). Gênero, Agência e Escrita. São Paulo: Cortêz.

Brown, D. (2001). Teaching by Principles. White Plains, NY: Addison Wesley, Longman.

Freeman, D. and Freeman, Y. (2009). Effective Reading Instruction for English Language Learners. In ZhaoHong Han & Neil J. Anderson (Editors). Second Language Reading Research and Instruction – Crossing the Boundaries. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press.

Grabe, W. (2002). Dilemmas for the Development of Second Langauge Reading Abilities. In J. C. Richards and W. A. Renandya (Eds). Methodology in Language Teaching – Na Anthology of Current Practice. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Grabe, W. (2010). Reading in a Second Language. Cambridge University Press.

Han, ZH. and D’Angelo, A. (2009). Balancing between Comprehension and Acquisition: Proposing a Dual Approach. In ZhaoHong Han & Neil J. Anderson (Editors). Second Language Reading Research and Instruction – Crossing the Boundaries. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press.

References

Harmer, J. (2007). The Practice of English Language Teaching. Essex, England: Pearson Education Limited.

Nation, I.S.P. ( 2009). Teaching EFL Reading and Writing. New York, NY: Routledge.

Scrivener, J. (2005). Learning Teaching. Oxford, UK: Macmillan Education.

Snow, D. (2007) From Language Learner to Language Teacher – An Introduction to Teaching English as a Foreign Language. Alexandria, VA: Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc.

Swift, S. (?). Reading aloud. [web log post]. Retrieved from http://eltnotebook.blogspot.com.br/2006/12/reading-aloud.html.

Wilson, K. (2010, October 14). Reading aloud in class is a complete waste of time – discuss. [web log post]. Retrieved from http://kenwilsonelt.wordpress.com/2010/10/14/reading-aloud-in-class-is-a-complete-waste-of-time-discuss/.