Pr ocedures that promote learning

Text talk
One of the matn thtngs students have to learn is how to interrogate texts: how to

continually stop and ask yourself questions like 'Now, what does the writer mean by
saying that?'or 'I don't understand this word: does it matter?' or 'When 6he refers to
"the prevlous meeting", what meeting is she talking about?' In the early days, you
may like to talk through some texts in this way with the class, thinking aloud about
the questions the text raises. (There are examples of this later in the book.) Many
students will have had no experience ofreading as an active process, so it is helpful
for them to see what interrogating a text looks like.
In addition, you will want to devise plenty of activities that focus attention on the text,
especially on bits of the text that are important anil possibly problematic. (I urge you
not to focus on problems that don't matter, but teach students to ignore them.) We
shall be giving a lot of attention (especially in Part Two) to the kinds of things that can
give rise to mlsunderstanding in texts - the kinds of things a reader should treat as
warning signals. I hope this rvill help you to recogaize potential problems, so that you
in turn can alert students to them, until they are able to do it for themselves.

Classroom atmosphere
One habit you may have to break is asking 'Do you understand?' and believing people
when they reply 'Yes'. Try to thtnk of other ways to chgck understanding, such as
asking a question which they cannot answer unless they do understand. Or at least
ask for an explanation.

However, the students will soon learn to admit that they don't understand, when they
see that you don't consider this anything to be ashamed of (in fact, to admit it is
positively admirable), especially ifyou succeed in creating a supportive, nonjudgemental and constructive atmosphere. This is done by expeeting people to have a
go, not criticizing them ifthey do not fully suceeed, and accepting frequent not-fullysuccessful attempts as the normal price to be paid for learning.
Your attitude to students who are unsuccessflrl needs to reflect a spirit of common
endeavour, not assessment. Matter-of-fact and gentle recognition of error achieves more
than criticism or condemnation, and the sooner the students follow your example in
their attitude to one another, the sooner real learning will begin. We all learn from one
another's attempts, and welearn morefrom those which are imperfect, becausethat is
where you can use scaffolding to push the students towards their 'next step'level.

Learner tratning
Much of what I have suggested you do in the classroom can be summed up as Iearner
rralning: a conscious attempt on your part to equip the students to make a conscious
attempt on their part to find out what helps them to read better, so that they can adopt
successful strategies for tackling texts. Obviously this should staft as soon as
possible. It takes time (patience and tenacity are useful qualities for a teacher), but it
works, provided you adopt the kinds ofclassroom procedure described above and
elsewhere in the book, and provided you make sure that the students always
understand the point ofwhat they are doing. Many students have never taken charge
of their own learning, nor experienced critical thinking before. They flnd it difftcult
at flrst, but liberating and powerful once they have learnt how to do it; and you may
be rewarded by seeing them develop remarkably.

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