UTALIA MONICA Englez-Romn, an III

Motivating pupils to read

This is an article that looks at ways to apply the process model of motivation as proposed by Dornyei to a number of suggestions and techniques for making the challenge of reading authentic literature accessible and motivating. This article describes ways to generate initial motivation; the second one shows how to maintain this motivation. Motivation Motivation is one of the key factors that determine the rate and success of attainment. It provides the main incentive to initiate learning a foreign language and later the determination to persevere and sustain the long and often difficult learning process. Without sufficient motivation, even individuals with the best of abilities cannot accomplish long-term goals. Teachers working in state schools are first and foremost supposed to teach the curriculum, but we cannot ignore the fact that this cannot happen without motivating our learners. In addition, adolescent learners come with their own emotional and psychological baggage and interests making the task of motivating them one of the greatest challenges for teachers. Using authentic literature to supplement core materials is one way of motivating adolescents yet the task of reading a short story or novel in a foreign language can be daunting for many pupils. Creating the basic motivational conditions

Create a pleasant and supportive learning environment. A context, which is Establish ground rules or a class contract between yourself and your class regarding Encourage peer support groups, which recognise individual pupils' interests, levels,

supportive, will encourage pupils to develop their full potential.

behaviour and norms, which everyone agrees to.

skills and strengths. See also final outcomes below - many of these can be produced as group outcomes thereby exploiting different talents and intelligences within each group. Generating initial motivation

Inform your pupils of why they are being asked to read an authentic text, and explain 1

the benefits to them. For example, exposure to the richness of real English will develop language

awareness, language competence and passive vocabulary assimilation, it will develop global rather than discrete comprehension, it will be different to their regular materials and activities and provide variety, it will develop knowledge of the culture of the target language and, overall, will contribute to pupil's long term language learning goal. Make sure pupils realise that when reading an authentic text the objectives will be different to those for studying a short text so they can form realistic expectations and avoid frustration and disappointment. Tell them they can do it and will enjoy it!

Involve pupils in the selection of the text, if possible. For example, if you are using a

collection of short stories, give a brief description of each or provide a point of entry for three or four and organise a class vote for the one pupils like best and, if possible, different groups can work on the story they prefer. Being involved in such decision-making will give pupils a sense of ownership and responsibility. Furthermore, much of successful reading is affected by the way the subject matter relates to the pupil's existing cultural and general knowledge or to subject-specific knowledge. Pupils will be helped in their reading if some of the information is already understood and this will help the learning of new vocabulary. The choice of appropriate texts is important as those, which provide 'too low a level of challenge can result in apathy, but a too high a level can lead to over-anxiety or stress'1. The word challenge suggests something that is not easy but that can be overcome, given outside support and encouragement, in addition to the pupil's own hopeful attitude to the outcome. It also suggests something that is worth overcoming because it leads to personal growth and a sense of achievement.

Explain how the book is to be worked on. For example, once a week for half an hour

in class, fifteen minutes in class and fifteen minutes in the pupils' own time. Make sure the rhythms of reading are built up and class interaction on the reading is developed. How much class time dedicated to reading will depend on your teaching situation, your curriculum requirements as well as on yourself and your pupils.

Prepare your pupils. Most pupils will need help in making the leap from teacher-

guided close study of graded short texts to authentic literature. Encourage pupils to think about their approaches to reading and how to build their confidence. Allay fears they may have about not understanding every word by emphasising that 100 per cent comprehension is not necessary to understand the overall meaning. They should use all available clues from the language, the context and from the illustrations, where relevant, to help make sense of the book. We need to bear in mind
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Williams, M. 'Motivation in language learning', English Teaching Professional, 1999 2

that 'training of pupils to be hopeful and robust in the face of a challenge, and to develop and use strategies to deal with 'difficulty' is very much the teacher's responsibility' 2. Therefore, train pupils in some of the strategies needed for effective reading such as previewing, skimming and scanning, inferring meaning etc., and explain that support will be provided (see below).

Provide a point of entry. This could be a scene from a story, an illustration or any

paragraph or even page can be looked at or read in class before the actual reading of the whole book begins. The main criterion is for the material to be accessible to the pupils and sufficiently stimulating to arouse interest and motivate and give a flavour of the work in terms of setting, characters, and narration etc. It can provide a starting point (and a future point of reference throughout the reading) for all subsequent reader involvement with the text. The point of entry should be able to be read largely without explanation, and the pupils should be encouraged to react to the stimuli the passage contains. Pupils can predict what the story will be about or express a reaction (positive or negative) to the material. If there is a film tie-in or audio recording of a story containing sound effects, these could also be used as points of entry.

Provide pre-reading stimuli. This is a before reading stage involving, for example,

previewing the title and the cover illustration, the back cover, information abut the author, looking at the list of contents or chapter headings, and looking through the book to get an impression of layout, print size and illustrations. Pre-reading stimuli will also exploit various elements, which lead into the story involving stimulating pupils' interest, eliciting vocabulary, introducing characters and setting, making predictions about genre and using prior knowledge to conceptualise a story and to relate it to what they already know. For example, for Treasure Island ask pupils what they know about pirates and pirates' tales. What do the stories have in common? (Treasure, violence, excitement, mutiny, etc.)

Inform pupils of a final outcome. Many stories lead naturally to a stimulating

outcome such as acting out a story, producing a poster, creating a quiz, a role-play, writing a summary, a letter, a book review, or questionnaire, organising a project or a display, recording favourite passages complete with sound effects, directing a TV book programme, etc. Knowing that their work is leading towards something concrete and relevant can help pupils invest the necessary effort and persevere throughout the reading process.
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Rixon, S. 'What is "Too Difficult" for young learners of English to understand? The Journal,

Vol.2, N 1, TESOL France in association with the British Council, 1995. 3

Practical activities to help students with reading WWW reading task - Holidays on the web Simple search tasks are incredibly easy to set students using the web as a language learning tool. They don't have to be particularly complicated, or even well researched, although this helps! A simple task I have used with students is to set your students the task of finding out about holiday information (although the same process could be used for just about any type of information, for example buying a car or presents for your family) Firstly, prepare a worksheet something like this: "The 14th of next month is my girlfriend's birthday. I would like to take her to Rome the weekend afterwards (18th - 20th). Can you find out how much it would cost for two return airfares from London Gatwick? When we get there we need a place to stay, but I don't want to spend more than 100 Euros a night. Can you find a hotel near the city center? I would also like to find out what plays are on at the theatre" You could alter this. For example to review sports vocabulary, you could ask them to find out what sports are popular in your chosen destination. This can work quite well on its own, but to make it more communicative, get your learners to work in pairs or small groups of three with each group finding out about a different city with a set budget. The class then decide which city would be best - perhaps based on information about your personal tastes and interests, so they have to decide which city break would be best for you. If you only have one or two PCs available for your class, set different students the task over the course of a week before conducting a discussion at the end. You can control the answers more, and speed up the task by suggesting sites for your students to use, but this may remove a degree of authenticity from the task - most of us, faced with this kind of task would either use a selection of known names, or go to a directory. Jigsaw reading This is an approach to reading that involves the students in speaking and summarizing skills. It is very useful when working with short authentic texts such as newspaper articles. Jigsaw reading can be done in two ways 4

Two separate stories If you have two news stories that share a theme - for example two separate stories on

crime - prepare comprehension questions for each story. Give one half of the class (Group A) one story, and the other half (Group B) the other. The students read their article, answer the questions and check understanding. Students then pair up with someone from the other group and tell them about their story, and listen to the other one. To help students remember their story you may get them to take notes. Alternatively, the students can keep the article with them to refer to. Be careful though, as lazier (or ingenious) students will either read the article aloud, or simply gives it to their partner to read.
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One story split in two Some stories can be clearly divided in two. Follow the same procedure as above, but

giving each group only one half of the story. When the students are recounting their half of the article, make sure that the student with the opening half goes first. Once the students have orally exchanged stories, they should then read the other person's article. As a refinement, you can give student B questions to quiz student A about their article. Jigsaw reading is a great way to introduce speaking into a reading lesson. It provides a real opportunity for genuine communication. In real life, we may tell people about a news article we have read, so this is a classroom activity that is fairly authentic. Working with classroom readers There are many ways you can work with classroom readers that are more inspiring and engaging than standard approaches, which can have negative effects on learning. Answering questions may become simply a repetition of what is written in the story. The simple retelling of a paragraph may become an instrument to "drill and kill" students' use of language. Comprehension questions may turn into a dissection of the text, while the pleasure of reading is left aside. We can help children experience the story from the inside out, not from the outside looking in. The key word is "engagement". Helping learners become better readers (and writers) implies dealing with the organization of ideas: the know-how to distinguish a main idea from a secondary one, and it means that students must be aware that there are connections between ideas at paragraph and text level. Activities designed for readers must not be artificial but opportunities to engage the students' minds, interests and feelings. Some activities to do with texts 5

Pre-reading activities
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Predicting from... first or last lines visuals a key word the title Matching titles of books with extracts Ordering pictures from the story and predicting the order in which they will appear Asking about pictures Brainstorming related vocabulary Matching pictures and quotations from the text Casting film stars to act the different characters Interviewing the characters Creating a time line of the story Dramatizing a part of the story Questioning the author of the book Creating a new character Writing the diary of one of the characters Writing a review for a specialized magazine Designing a poster to advertise the book Changing the end of the story Comprehension activities: Reordering sequences from the story Writing questions on the text Taking notes Inventing another title Un-jumbling texts Correcting a summary

Post-reading activities
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References Dornyei, Z. Motivational Strategies in the Language Classroom, CUP. 2001. Ellis, G., McRae, J. The Extensive Reading Handbook for Secondary Teachers, Penguin English, 1991. Rixon, S. 'What is "Too Difficult" for young learners of English to understand? The Journal, Vol.2, N 1, TESOL France in association with the British Council, 1995. Williams, M. 'Motivation in language learning', English Teaching Professional, 1999.