READING

Reading purposeCriteria for selecting material

The role of the teacher Teacher´s responsibility

Student´s role as readersTesting/evaluating reading

READING PURPOSE*Reading for survival. Serves immediate needs or wishes. (ladies, gentlemen and exit)

*Reading for learning. Serves the wider role of extending our general knowledge of the world

*Reading for pleasure. It is done for its own sake. We don´t have to do it.

CRITERIA FOR SELECTING MATERIAL

1.-Text as vehicle for teaching language structure and vocabulary

These are sometimes justified for classroom use on the grouds that they are not primarly for reading But are exponents of the stucture of the language

2.-Texts which teach language through reading.*We select text, not for any distinctive linguistic features, but because they promote reading.

*This is a line with the principle that language is developed in the course of reading.

3.- Texts which offer high-interest content.

The text must be interesting enough for the learner to want to read it.

*Readability (level, vocabulary, structure). *Suitability of content (according to Students´ likes)**Exploitability. (leads to a range of activities)

Authentic texts are vital because they:

*Motivate students*Offer a real context*Transmit TL cuture*Prepare students to read outside the classroom*Intend to communicate meaning

Reading Genres* They are socioculturally recognizable communicative events; they have different organizational and grammatical features.

Ballad, novel, epic poem, menu, shopping list, tutorial, medical examination, joke, essay, thesis.

They are typified by: *Communicative function*Organizational features*Syntax and lexis

THE ROLE OF THE TEACHER*Reading involves skills that students must learn for themselves.

When teaching reading a trouble is that it is easy to give too much help or help of the wrong king, so the question is.

What sort of help should we give?

*Provide suitable text *Provide activities that will focus the student´s attention on the text

THE ROLE OF THE TEACHER*Teacher must choose appropriate reading for students*Teachers may “reconstitute” an authentic text by adding features (headings, etc.) *Teachers need to test and assess students’ reading ability in some measurable way*Teachers provide appropriate pre-reading activities and ask the right post-reading questions

TEACHER ´S RESPONSIBILITY

*Finding out what students can do and what they cannot. *Working out a programme aimed at giving them the skills they need.*Choosing tasks and activities to develop the required skills. *Choosing suitable text to work on.*Make sure that everyone improves steadily according to his own capalility.

THE STUDENT´S ROLE AS READER*He should make sense of the text for himself.

*From the beginning, he must do for himself everything that he is capable of doing.

*The most basic thing he has to do is to associate the printed marks on the page with the spoken language he knows.

EVALUATING/TESTING READING

How do Teachers test reading?

*By making students read an authentic text that is unfamiliar but similar to texts practiced in the classroom

What should be tested?*Strategy use & comprehension.

Which factors do we take into account when testing reading?

* Informational background*Metacognition (how reader structures comprehension)* Intent (why we read the text)* Reader’s language proficiency

READING TEST SHOULD

* Assess student schemata as a factor in test selection* Include items that reveal a grasp of intersentential links* Enable students to demonstrate their view of textual organization*Ascertain the reasoning behind the student conclusions* Enable students to demonstrate a grasp of the text’s cultural and authorial characteristics

SETTING THE TASK

1.-Selecting texts.*Choose text of appropriate lenght.*Avoid text made up of information which may be part of candidates general knowledge*Assuming that it is only reading ability which is being tested, do not choose texts which are too cultural laden. *Do not use texts which students have already read.

2.-Writing items

The aim must be to write items which will measure the ability in which we are interested.

Possible techniques

*Multiple choice. The candidate provides evidence of successful reading by making marks againts one out of a number of alternatives.

*Unique answer. Here there is only one possible correct response.

*Short answer. When unique answer items are not possible , short answer itemas may be used.

*Guided shot answer. In such cases the desired response can be obtained by framing the item, candidates have only to complete sentences.

*Summary cloze.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Wallace, Catherine. Reading. 1992. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 161pp.

• * Hughes, Arthur. Testing for language teachers. U.K. Cambridge Univ. Press. 1989.

• Barnett, Marva A. More than meets the eye: foreign language reading. 1989. New Jersey: Center for Applied Linguistics & Prentice-Hall, Inc. 233pp.

• * Nuttal, Christine. Teaching reading skills in FL. Great Britain. Heinemann. 1982.

* Swaffar, Janet K. & Arens Katherine M. & Byrnes, Heidi. Reading for meaning: An Integrated Approach to Language Learning. 1991. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc. 264pp.