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Transforming English For You into Headway: Organizing Reading Tasks in Large Multilevel Classes Within a Strict Curriculum and With Limited Resources

Slide 1: Transforming English For You into Headway: Organizing Reading Tasks in Large Multilevel Classes Within a Strict Curriculum and With Limited Resources

Transforming English For You into Headway: Organizing Reading Tasks in Large Multilevel Classes Within a Strict Curriculum and With Limited Resources

Dominik Lukes

Peace Corps

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Slide 2: Nothing new

Nothing new

How to do the things you already know…

…and not to lesson plan yourself to death.

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Slide 3: Teacher Complaints

Teacher Complaints

  • Students of many levels in one class
  • Too many students in classrooms
  • Textbooks inappropriate to the level of students
  • Not enough time for creative lesson planning
  • Strict inspections

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Slide 4: Teaching Reading (All the theory in under 30 seconds)

Teaching Reading (All the theory in under 30 seconds)

  • Two goals for teachers
    • Learn language (vocabulary, functional grammar, phrases)
    • Learn how to work with texts (acquire additional learning skills)
  • Two purposes for students
    • For enjoyment
    • For information
  • Two cognitive modes
    • For detail
    • For gist

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Slide 5: Reading Steps

Reading Steps

  • Pre-Reading
  • While-Reading
  • Post-Reading

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Slide 6: Sample Reading Lesson

Sample Reading Lesson

  • Using text from English for You 1
  • Headway-like reading lesson
  • No photocopier necessary
  • No supplementary materials necessary
  • Reusable exercises
  • No students need to leave their seats
  • Discipline can be maintained easily (for most of the lesson)
  • Students of all levels can learn something

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Slide 7: Blackboard Exercise 1

Blackboard Exercise 1

PeopleComputersGood/Bad

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Slide 8: Blackboard Exercise 2

Blackboard Exercise 2

  • Paragraph 2:
    • a) People are great;
    • b) Why are people unique?;
    • c) Why are computers bad?
  • Paragraph 5:
    • 1. Some people are afraid that computers will replace people.
    • 2. In the future, doctors and journalists will use computers a lot.
    • 3. Computers will replace doctors and journalists.

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Slide 9: Lesson Debriefing

Lesson Debriefing

  • Aims of the lesson
  • Steps of the lesson
  • How can this activity be modified for different levels, students, texts

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Slide 10: Lesson Aims

Lesson Aims

  • Language skills: vocabulary
  • Reading skills: summarizing, searching for specific information
  • Other skills: critical thinking (predictions, personalization, preferences)

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Slide 11: Step 1: Warm up

Step 1: Warm up

  • Activity:
    • Ask students about computers
  • Purpose:
    • Engage students’ interest
    • Activate appropriate vocabulary
  • Alternatives: Have this discussion in Albanian; Review homework with relevant materials; Teach computer-related vocabulary; Do a vocab game

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Slide 12: Step 2: Text prep

Step 2: Text prep

  • Activity:
    • Number paragraphs
  • Purpose:
    • Make text easier to refer to for all students
    • Give students their first encounter with the text in an easy task
  • Notes: Use pencil if necessary

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Slide 13: Step 3: Getting to gist through prediction

Step 3: Getting to gist through prediction

  • Activity:
    • Guess what text is about from title
    • Search for the number of words used to refer to computers and people; write down things said about people and computers in a chart
  • Purpose:
    • Summarize the text
    • Show Ss a strategy for discovering gist
  • Alternatives: Ask Ss (if more advanced) to write a subtitle to the text; Ask Ss to predict what the text will say based on certain key words; If resources allow – use scrambled text

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Slide 14: Step 4: New vocabulary

Step 4: New vocabulary

  • Activity:
    • Find one new word in each of the selected paragraphs
  • Purpose:
    • Make it easier for Ss to do the upcoming exercises
    • Allow lower level Ss to do different activity than higher level Ss
  • Alternatives: Teach selected new words (based on what you know about Ss) and have Ss find them in text

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Slide 15: Step 5: Summarizing the text

Step 5: Summarizing the text

  • Activity:
    • Summarize paragraphs 2-5 in different ways
  • Purpose:
    • Help Ss understand the main idea of the text
    • Show Ss different strategies for summarizing
  • Alternatives: With different texts or more advanced Ss: Ask Ss to break text into sections with subtitles, draw a chart of the argument, or plot and characters for stories

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Slide 16: Step 6: More vocabulary

Step 6: More vocabulary

  • Activity:
    • Play a game with synonyms
  • Purpose:
    • Engage Ss with text some more and give them a fun activity to do
    • Teach Ss new words
    • Prepare Ss for difficult exercise on p. 91 (homework)

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Slide 17: Step 7: Making connections

Step 7: Making connections

  • Activity:
    • Talk about the context of the text and the Ss views on the subject matter
  • Purpose:
    • Help Ss understand the author and his or her intentions
    • Allow Ss to express personal opinions on the text
    • Help Ss discover statements made by texts
  • Alternatives: Use more questions from page 90.

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Slide 18: Step 8: Post-reading activities

Step 8: Post-reading activities

  • Activity:
    • Have Ss write a story about a part of the text
  • Purpose:
    • Employ additional language not in the text
    • Show Ss understanding of the contents of the text
    • Allow different level students to do an activity at their own level
  • Alternatives: Write about Ss own experiences with computers (e.g. some questions on p. 90)

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Slide 19: Summary through questions

Summary through questions

  • Why reading skills?
  • Why not reading out loud?
  • Why not read the whole text at once (or why not at all)?
  • Why/when/how (not) translation?
  • Where else could these types of exercises be used?
  • What should have come before and what comes next?

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Slide 20: Contact

Contact

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