How to teach reading

How to teach reading

As an English teacher, we must know how to teach four skills ( Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing) in English. First, we will discuss about how to teach reading. But before that, we must know the reason why teach reading.

There are many reasons why getting students to read English texts is an important part of the teacher’s job. In the first place, many of them want to be able to read texts in English either for their careers, for study purposes or simply for pleasure. Anything we can do to make reading easier for them must be a good idea.

Reading is useful for other purposes too: any exposure to English (provided students understand it more or less) is a good thing for language students. At the very least, some of the language sticks in their minds as part of the process of language acquisition, and, if the reading text is especially interesting and engaging, acquisition is likely to be even more successful.

Reading texts also provide good models for English writing. When we teach the skill of writing, we will need to show students models of what we are encouraging them to do.

Reading texts also provide opportunities to study language: vocabulary, grammar, punctuation, and the way we construct sentences, paragraphs, and texts. Lastly, good reading texts can introduce interesting topics, stimulate discussion, excite imaginative responses and be the springboard for well-rounded, fascinating lessons.

What kind of reading should students do?

There has been frequent discussion about what kinds of reading texts are suitable for English language students. The greatest controversy has centred on whether the texts should be ‘authentic’ or not. That is because people have worried about more traditional language-teaching materials which tended to look artificial and to use over-simplified language which any native speaker would find comical and untypical.

However, if you give low-level students a copy of The Times or The Guardian (which are certainly authentic for native-speakers), they will probably not be able to understan them at all. There will be far too many words they have never seen before, the grammar will be (for them) convoluted and the style will finish them off.

A balance has to be struck between real English on the hand and the students’ capabilities and interests on the other. There is some authentic written material which beginner students can understand to some degree: menus, timetables, signs and basic instructions, for example, and, where appropriate, we can use these. But for longer prose, we may want to offer our students texts which, while being like English, are nevertheless written or adapted especially for their level. The important thing is that such texts are as much like real English as possible.

The topics and types of reading text are worth considering too. Should our students always read factual encyclopedia-type texts or should we expose them to novels and short stories? Should they only read timetables and menus or can we offer them business letters and newspaper articles?

 

Reference :

Harmer, jeremy. 1998.How To Teach English.England: Pearson education limited