ING-Unit-5.

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Enseñanza y aprendizaje de la Especialidad Lengua Extranjera

(Inglés) I
1º Máster en Formación del Profesorado de Educación
Secundaria

Facultad de Ciencias de la Salud y de la Educación

Universidad a Distancia de Madrid

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 Enseñanza y aprendizaje de la especialidad de lengua extranjera I

UNIT 5. READING IN THE EFL CLASSROOM

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1. INTRODUCTION

Reading is one of the four items implied in the process of language learning and, in a
way, one of the most traditionally used by EFL teachers. The approach taken when
reading a short,informative text must vary from the one taken when addressing a longer,
argumentative one. Therefore, teachers should use different skills and strategies when
facing both typeswhich, in turn, help students activate different mental schemata and
obtain the desired result: the full comprehension of the text.
2. TYPES OF READING AND THEIR USES IN THE EFL CLASSROOM

2.1. INTENSIVE READING

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Sometimes criticized as being ‘not reading at all, intensive reading has been misused in
the EFL classroom only as thestarting point of a lesson focused on linguistic output, with
long lists of vocabulary and language exercises. However, the correct use of intensive
reading is to make students develop skills and strategies which could help them understand
the whole dimension of texts, including contextual information and pragmatic and
sociolinguistic content.

Characteristics:
• The reader is intensely involved in looking inside the text.
• Students focus on linguistic or semantic details of a reading.
• Students focus on surface structure details such as grammar and discourse markers.
• Students identify key vocabulary.
• Texts are read carefully and thoroughly, again and again.
• The aim is to build more language knowledge rather than simply practice reading.
• It is seen more commonly than extensive reading in classrooms.

Main implications of intensive reading:

• It is a slow, careful reading procedure that is appropriate for a very difficulttext.
• It is really more of a language study method than a form of reading.
• It is useful for study purposes because its slow speed allows students to stopand look new
words up in the dictionary; it also allows students to pause and study long difficult
sentences carefully to get a better understanding oftheir grammar.
• Intensive reading alone will not make students good readers.

Main characteristics of extensive reading programmes:

• Students read as much as possible.
• A variety of materials on a range of topics is available.
• Students select what they want to read.

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• The purposes are usually related to pleasure, information, and general understanding.
• Reading is its own reward.
• Reading materials are well within the linguistic competence of the studentsin terms of
vocabulary and grammar.
• Reading is individual and silent.
• Reading speed is usually faster than slower.
• Teachers orient students to the goals of the program.

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• The teacher is a role model of a reader for the students.
McLaren et al. (2005) define the implications of extensive reading by stressing the large
quantities of material or long texts that students must face. Reading is practiced with an
objective of global understanding. Intensive reading should only be practiced in the EFL
classroom with short texts whose content is very precise, that is, short informative texts
which provide specific information (leaflets, short notices, etc.).The basic aim is to extract
that information as it responds to a necessity.

3. READING IN THE EFL CLASSROOM: SKILLS AND STRATEGIES

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Sort of confusion between reading skills and reading strategies. They stress the
difference between skills and strategies by focusing on intentionality and the necessity
of using both when teaching reading: “opting or shifting between them, when
interacting with written texts, depending on text difficulty and the (readers')
knowledge”.
STRATEGIES:
- Deliberate - Teach, explain, model through think
- Conscious aloud, guided application-gradual
- Mindful/effortful release of responsibility-independent
- Goal/problem-oriented practice
- Reader-oriented
SKILLS:
- Automatic - Text-oriented
- Unconscious - Teach, practice to mastery, assess, reteach, if
- Effortless necessary
- Goal/Problem free
3.1. READING STRATEGIES
As reading strategies are more concerned with the effective act of teaching reading,we
are focusing our attention on them by highlighting, among the various approaches to
them, the one developed by Cunningham and Allington who describe five key strategies:
- Use of background knowledge. Background knowledge is an essential pre- requisite for
reading and can be determinant of the level of understanding atext by trying to construct
its meaning. A good basic knowledge will imply astronger ability to use key information
when interpreting reading materials.Teachers must encourage their students to use this
background knowledge, for example, by helping them create mental images.
2

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- Predicting. Prediction activities go together with background knowledge. By using it,

they predict what is going to happen next in the text. They canalso generate predictions
before reading, activating their previous knowledge.
- Self-monitoring and self-correcting. Proving an ability to recognise whether what they
are reading is making sense and applying various strategies in case it is not. These are also
called “fix-up strategies”. Similar to when applying predicting skills, whenreaders apply
self-monitoring strategies, they are constantly asking them- selves whether or not what
they are reading makes sense to them. During this monitoring process, if they find that
a word or an idea does not quite fit with what they already know they will apply their

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self-correct skills in order to fix the problem.
- Identifying main ideas and summarizing. Good readers have no difficulty in identifying the
main events or ideas of a text. They are generally engagedin a process of pulling out ideas
from the text and determining, at the sametime, the main points in each part. Moreover,
they have an ability to recognize and discuss main events in a story, select the
information needed andtherefore, understand the whole passage. At the same time,
they develop the ability of discarding information which is not important. Summarizing
is closely related with the identification of essential ideas, and it requires other
strategies in order to obtain a clear understanding of the text.
- Making inferences and questioning. Questioning is generally considered as tedious by
students as usually they are often used to their teacher giving them the questions to

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work with, which is not beneficial at all for the students who are not becoming strategic
readers this way. They must learn how to ask themselves questions at the same time
they read. By engaging students in this activity, they learn how to think at a deeper level
about the text and the author's intentions.

3.1.1. DEVELOPING READING STRAGIES

- Procedural prompts. Procedural prompts can be used to help students askquestions and
improve their ability to summarize. They are useful to stressthe main components of the
students' background knowledge and provide a starting point for them to build the
effective understanding of the readingin which they are engaged.
– What is the setting?
– What attempts were made to resolve
– Who are the main characters? the problem?
– What problem did the main character – How was the problem finally resolved?
face?
– What is the theme of the story?

- K-W-L method (Know-Wonder-Learn). Three-step procedure for helping students

access the appropriate background knowledge when they are reading informational
text. The students are first asked about theirknowledge of a given topic, to access prior
knowledge. As the students are brainstorming the teacher can record them. Next, they
are asked what they want to learn about a topic. At the end of the activity students
write down what they have learned, and checkto see whether all of their questions have
been answered or what they have learned and if further reading is needed.

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- Intra-act procedure. To instruct students in the use of strategies such as accessing their

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background knowledge the teacher may need to use activities such as discussion to
encourage students to link the topic to their own experience, helping them, in turn, to
infer meaning using their own knowledge. The procedure is as follows:

– Individual students silently read a text selection.

– They are given four statements relevant to the reading selection which are possibly
controversial.
– They are then asked to write how they think other group members will respond.
– Students are regrouped to compare predictions and are encouraged to challenge and
support each other's responses with arguments using textual information and prior
knowledge.

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This way, not only are the students learning to access their background knowledge, they
are also being introduced to new vocabulary and concepts.
- 5 W's and H (Who, What, When, Where, Why and How). In order to teach students
how to generate questions or make predictions, Tarasoff (1993) suggests this. The
teacher asks the students questions before reading a passage. The students are required
to read the passage looking for answers.Following this, students are put into and are
asked to make up their own questions, which they will later share with the class.
4. SKIMMING AND SCANNING

Skimming and scanning are defined on some occasions as types of reading and
sometimes as skills. However, we consider them to be reading techniques. Skimming
implies achieving an overall impression of the text in question in order to obtain a global
idea. By having a complete overview of a text students are able to prove the development
of their reading competence. On the contrary, scanning means to pay greater attention
to the text as some specific information is searched for, therefore, the reader has some
previous questions in mind to which he is seeking to respond. This information is
considered, therefore, important for a specific purpose. Often both techniques are
performed together when reading a text (generally speaking). For example, the reader
may skim through first to see if it is worth reading, then read it more carefully and scan
for a specific piece of information to note. Students should be able to adapttheir reading
and techniques to the purpose of the reading.
By practicing skimming and scanning, students develop their ability to read and select
specific information without focusing on data and superficial elements that are no
essential for meaning. Both can be applied to the same type of texts if necessary.
Skimming is useful when pre-reading, as it can offer a more accurate idea of the text to
be read later, when reviewing the text once read and for reading materials which do not
require detailed attention. Scanning rapidly covers a great deal of material in order to
locate a specific fact or piece of information. It is useful for finding a specific name, date,
statistic, or fact without reading the entire text.

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When skimming the article, the reader may:

• Read the title as it offers the shortest summary of the whole content.
• Read the introduction or lead-in paragraph.
• Read the first paragraph completely.
• If there are subheadings, read each one, trying to find out the connectionsamong them.
• Read the first sentence of each remaining paragraph:

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– The main idea of most paragraphs appears in the first sentence.
– If the author’s pattern is to begin with a question or anecdote, the lastsentence would be
more valuable.

• Dip into the text looking for:

– Clue words that answer who, what, when, why, how.

– Proper nouns.
– Unusual words, especially if capitalized.

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– Enumerations.
– Qualifying adjectives (best, worst, most, etc.).
– Typographical cues: italics, boldface, underlining, asterisks, etc.
– Read the final paragraph completely.

When scanning the article, the reader must:

• Hold the image of the word or idea clearly in mind, it is likely to appearmore clearly
than the surrounding words.
• Anticipate in what form the information is likely to appear numbers, proper nouns…
• Analyse the organization of the content before starting to scan:

– If material is familiar or fairly brief, you may be able to scan the entire article in a single
search.
– If the material is lengthy or difficult, a preliminary skimming may be necessary to
determine which part of the article to scan.
– Once found the sentence that has the sought information, read theentire sentence.
– In scanning, the reader must be willing to skip over large sections oftext without reading
or understanding them.

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5. ASSESSMENT OF READING

If assessment in general is of greater importance in the teaching process, the specific

assessment of reading is essential, and teachers must be aware of the impact of theirs.
According to Grabe, reading assessment covers five main areas:

• Reading proficiency. Assessment is a way to check students' overall rea-ding ability and
consider if they are ready to advance in the learning process.This type of assessment is
referred to as standardized testing. On many occasions it is used for students placement,

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policy decisions, curriculum changes or teacher training programmes.
• Classroom learning. Assessment implies the measurement of the skills and knowledge
acquired over a period of time. It is commonly termed as summative or achievement
testing. The materials used for this type of testing are very similar to those used in the
usual everyday lessons and therefore,the readings to use should be of the same kind.
• Support of students' learning. This type of assessment (generally called assessment for
learning) is quite innovative as it is not based on the evaluation of the students'
performance and the record of their outcomes. The aim is to provide immediate
feedback on every task and to engagestudents in more effective learning.
• Curricular effectiveness. The assessment of this element is not specifically applied to

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reading but it can influence for better or worse the development of the reading
curriculum. To this respect, some useful assessment outcomes are, among others,
standardized testing or long-term records which reflect the evolution of the students.
• Research purposes. The analysis of data obtained from the actual class- rooms reading
practices and results may help curricula designers to developsome policies which address
the different needs observed in the everyday practice.
As we have seen, some of these areas concern the specific practice of reading in the
learning contexts whereas others refer to education policies, thus range from the
individual to the global. Teachers wait for 3-5 seconds after asking a question, without
answering the question when students are silent, or without switching to a stronger
student for the answer. Teachers ask students to generate good questions about reading
texts that could be included on a test of some sort. Students learn how to formulate
good questions about the texts they read, and their questions then appear on quizzes
and comprehension checks. Teachers move from more traditional question-and-answer
sequences aboutreading passages to question that begins a discussion with students
about their understanding of the text. Teachers deal with wrong answers or
performance difficulties in ways that engage students in finding good answers and
achieving task success. Teachers engage in “why” questions and “why” following-up
questions togenerate discussion about an answer. Students engage in self-assessment,
monitoring their comprehension and their levels of success in carrying out during
reading and post-reading activities.

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6. READING AND ICTs

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These days the concept of reading is undergoing a process of redefinition mainly due to
the use of the Internet and other ITC tools, leading to the so-called “new literacies”.
Generally speaking, teachers are more used to working with traditional formats of
reading and sometimes find difficulties in helping the students with the availability of
information and multiplication of sources that studentsare familiar with outside school
contexts. On many occasions, teachers approach the text available in these new
supports with the same stance as the one used to workwith traditional texts.

• Advantages:
– Gaining students' interest in presenting their ideas and responding totheir classmates'
ideas, allowing effective peer feedback.
– Giving positive interactivity within the teaching and learning.

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– Motivating students to apply knowledge in any content area to a writing task, engaging
students in different projects.
– Increasing student engagement with the language.
– Allowing the utilization of new technology to communicate and collaborate in an
educational context.
– Providing a platform for active and meaningful learning to occur.
– Developing independent work habits.
– Improving learners' vocabulary knowledge.
– Allowing user collaboration and the publishing of work (such aswritings based on the
readings or locutions of scenes, for example).

• Disadvantages:
– Lackadaisical attitude on the part of the students.
– The possibility of students not taking the work seriously and not using what they have
learned.
– The reading, as practiced on screen and by using the computer scroll,may be superficial,
accelerated and in some cases, inaccurate, there-fore leading to misunderstanding of
the texts.
– Teachers must have a wider knowledge of the technologies involvedin order to control
the learning process.
Teachers must consider individually if they should use ICTs in their EFL classroom taking
all these things into account. On many occasions, students are more familiar with
technology than teachers and the use of it can be a challenge for some professionals.
However, the advantages outnumber the disadvantages. A proper use of traditional
paper-based texts combined with the use of ICTs in the classroom would be the best
option.

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7. WORKING WITH READING ACTIVITIES

Teachers must reflect on aseries of previous considerations and take several decisions on:
- Whether the students will practice an exercise of extensive or intensivereading.
- Which reading strategies are to be used.
- The instructional methods to be used.
- Whether the students will skim or scan the text.

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- The abilities to be assessed.

8. BASIC CONCEPTS

Achievement testing. Type of reading assessment which measures the stu- dents'
performance over a period of time by using materials similar to thoseused in the everyday
lessons.
Assessment for learning. Type of reading assessment consisting of keepingthe record of
students' performance and providing immediate feedback on every reading task with an
effective engagement of students in their own learning process.

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Extensive reading. Type of reading process usually applied when facing longer texts or
bigger quantities of materials. The reading implies the ex- traction of a global
understanding of the information provided.
Intensive reading. Type of reading process most effectively applied when facing short
texts in order to extract as much detailed information as possible.
Intra-act procedure. A four-step procedure to be followed in order to link individual
reading with group performance and reaction to a given text.
K-W-L method. “Know-Wonder-Learn” method, a procedure to help students discover
about their background knowledge on a given topic.
New Literacies. New ways of reading developed thanks to the implementation of ICTs.
Procedural prompt. Prompt used to help students improve their ability tosummarize the
information obtained from a text.
Reading skills: Cognitive abilities developed by a person when facing a written text. They
are automatic and unconscious.
Reading strategies. Acquired abilities developed by a person when facinga written text.
They are deliberate and conscious.
Scan. Reading technique applied in order to obtain specific information from a text.
Skim. Reading technique applied in order to obtain an overall impression of a text.
Standardized testing. Type of reading assessment consisting of checking the overall
students' reading ability. Mainly used for student placement, teacher training and reading
policies design.

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