Unit 1

Sharing Experiences
Reflecting on Reading

This unit is intended to allow teachers:

- to share their classroom experiences based on their listening and speaking

lessons
- to consider the aims and objectives of providing reading instruction
- to reflect on the nature of the reading instruction that they provide their
pupils, and
- to consider the role and purpose of reading aloud.

Unit Overview

ACTIVITY 1: Discussing the listening/speaking lessons

ACTIVITY 2: Why Teach Reading?
ACTIVITY 3: Thinking about our Teaching
ACTIVITY 4: Some Thoughts about Reading Aloud

Timing

ACTIVITY 1: 30 minutes
ACTIVITY 2: 20 minutes
ACTIVITY 3: 40 minutes
ACTIVITY 4: 60 minutes

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ACTIVITY 1: Discussing the listening/speaking lessons

You have tried out the lesson plans and the activities that you
prepared for the teaching of the listening / speaking skills in
your English language lessons. In groups of 3-4, share your
classroom experiences based on your listening and speaking
lessons as well as the reflections that you carried out.

In your discussion, you may focus on the following aspects:

 Did the activities engage the pupils in a meaningful way? How?

 Were the pupils able to carry out the activities – consider the appropriacy of
the activities, the clarity of instructions given, etc.

 Which activity did the pupils enjoy most, why?

 How would you improve on what did not work well?

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REFLECTING ON READING

ACTIVITY 2: Why teach reading?

An obvious reason for teaching reading is to enable students to pass

their examinations.

Task 1

In your group, think of other reasons for teaching reading to our learners. Consider
questions such as these:

What are the goals of the reading instruction that we

provide our students?
To what extent is the reading instruction that we
provide able to meet our objective of making our
learners effective and independent readers?
What are the challenges we face when attempting to do
this?

Be ready to share your views with the class.

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ACTIVITY 3: Thinking about our teaching

Task 1
Two experienced teachers talk about what they typically do in their
reading classes. Note that these activities are not necessarily completed
in just one lesson. Read each teacher’s account. As you read, complete
the table provided by outlining the key activities that each teacher carries
out in her class.

When I teach reading, I give the

learners the text to read and ask them to
read it aloud, one by one. Then we go over
any unfamiliar vocabulary, when I try to
have learners guess the meaning. If they
can’t, I give them the equivalent word in
Bahasa Melayu. Then I ask them a couple of
basic questions to check their
Miss Ho comprehension of the main ideas. After that,
learners work in pairs to answer
comprehension questions and then we re-
assemble as a whole class and check all the
answers.

When I teach reading, I like my

learners to use the other skills too. I do
various things. For example, before
reading a passage, my learners discuss
the topic or brainstorm vocabulary they
predict they will read. Or, they listen to a
short passage on a related topic and
discuss it. At the reading stage, I make
sure to explain why they are reading. We
read a passage more than once, each
time with a new task. The learners fill in Miss
a chart, or match pictures to paragraphs Faridah
or answer true / false questions. Finally, I
make sure there is enough time for a
follow-up, like a role-play or group work
where the learners write a different
ending or discuss the issue in the text.

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 Miss Ho Miss Faridah

For each teacher, indicate:

what you like about her teaching;

what she could do better; and
which of these you practice in your own reading class.

Be ready to share your views with the class.

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Task 2
We want our learners to be independent readers who can read and
understand a variety of text types. Independent readers engage in
effective reading behaviours which assist them in comprehending
the texts they read.

A list of Effective Reading Behaviours is provided below. For each behaviour,

indicate how often you have tried to foster that behaviour in your reading lessons
since the beginning of this year.

EFFECTIVE READING BEHAVIOURS

Before Reading Very Often Sometimes Never

1. Preview text (look at title, pictures,

______ ______ ______
print)

2. Build background knowledge on the

______ ______ ______
subject before reading

3. Think about key words or phrases ______ ______ ______

4. Set a purpose for reading ______ ______ ______

During Reading

5. Adjust reading for different purposes ______ ______ ______

6. Monitor understanding of text and use

______ ______ ______
strategies to understand difficult parts

7. Integrate new information with

______ ______ ______
existing knowledge

After Reading

8. Decide if goal for reading has been

______ ______ ______
achieved

9. Evaluate comprehension of what was

______ ______ ______
read and ideas in text

10. Summarize the major ideas in a

______ ______ ______
graphic organizer or by retelling

11. Apply information to a new situation ______ ______ ______

Adapted from Irvin, 1998 (p.52).

Which of these reading behaviours have you NOT attempted to develop? Why?

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ACTIVITY 4: Some thoughts about reading aloud

You have just had a nice weekend. Try to recall where and when you heard or
observed someone read aloud?

Here are two teachers’ views about reading aloud.

A lot of teachers often ask their

learners to read aloud. When a
learner reads aloud, he often feels
tense and that can’t really help him
to grasp new language, can it?
Besides, after he’s read aloud, he
usually can’t even answer a basic
question: he has to reread the
passage silently to try to find the
answer. So I don’t think it’s helpful
at all and I don’t do it any more.
Mrs Anna
I’ve been teaching for ten years and
in my reading lessons I usually go
around the class, asking individual
learners to read aloud in turn. In
this way, the other learners
understand clearly: they can hear
something as they follow in their
books and I can also check their
pronunciation. They seem to like
being the ones to ‘shine’ – at least
when they pronounce the sentences
correctly!

Mr Riwin

Task 1

Discuss these questions in your group.

Which teacher do you agree with most?

What do you believe is the purpose of reading aloud activities?
Do you think reading aloud is effective? Why / Why not?

Be ready to share your views with the class.

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