b) skills-practice texts -used to practise reading skills; they are usually authentic, but if not, then teachers should use simplified authentic texts; most of the skills are practised on real, authentic texts especially the study of information not explicitly stated - deducing meaning and use of unfamiliar lexical items. English works through a system of repetitions and paraphrasing, so in a simplified text lots of difficult words are removed and certain skills cannot be practised on them (e.g. deducing meaning from context).
12.3.6.1. Principles of text selection
If a teacher is using an authentic text a number of things must be borne in mind:
Text difficulty
It is the task not the text that should be appropriate to the students’ level. However, there are certain features which tend to make some texts morę difficult for students than others, regardless of what the task is. The following can be included on the list:
JJ- unfamiliar topics, subjects,
— unfamiliar type of text (genre),
-— texts with a lot of infrequent vocabulary,
— long texts,
— non-contemporary texts (weird structures, declensions),
— texts with less explicit discourse structure (does not tell the leamer what it is presenting or doing),
— non-’grammatical’ texts (written in dialect, poetiy).
Topie
It is a burdensome task to predict what topics students want to read about because very often it is not simply the topie but rather pictures or pre-reading activities that motivate students to read a text. However, certain topics are clearly inappropriate such as sensitive religious, political or personal issues, or very childish topics for adults.
What makes texts interesting is:
-M^isurprise - a text which says something unexpected is morę interesting than a totally predictable one,
— teacher interest - if the teacher finds the text boring, students probably will as well,
— texts which relate to students own experience - texts about relating to other people, personality ąuizzes, real-life dilemmas/ /dramas, texts from abroad about their own country, etc.,
— texts leamers would read in the LI,
. |— texts suitable for a given age group.
Reading skills
It is very important to consider how an efficient reader would read the text - what skills would he or she use? If the skills are the ones that the students need to practise, then the teacher should use the text, if the students would have to use skills to understand the text which the teacher would normally teach at a morę advanced level then this teacher is likely to get into difficulties devising useful and appropriate tasks.
If a teacher has decided that his/her students need to practise a certain skill, then s/he needs to choose a text which an efficient reader would choose that skill to read; for example a native speaker would skim short news reports, descriptions, etc., a native speaker would scan job advertisements, railway timetables, etc. The skills a teacher trains through a text must be appropriate to that text.
Texts will probably be used to practise morę than one skill, e.g. skimming then scanning, scanning and deducing meaning from context, deducing meaning and reference skills. However interesting a text may be, if the teacher cannot use it to practise appropriate reading skills then it is not much use in the reading class.
12.3.6.2. Reading tasks
There are three different types of tasks:
— pre-reading,
— while-reading,
— post-reading.
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