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Pre-reading

The role of pre-reading tasks is to:

—    activate schemata - pre-existing background knowledge to facilitate understanding,

—    to help students to make predictions about text content,

—    to give students a reason for reading the text;

—    to create interest in the topie,

—    to make it easier to read the text.

Pre-reading tasks play an important role when it comes to motivating students to read. To be successfiil, pre-reading tasks should:

—    relate the text to students to their own experience / knowledge,

—    be leamer-centred - not a lecture from the teacher on the topie,

—    encourage students to make plausible predictions about text content,

—    pre-teach or help students recall relevant vocabulary.

While-reading tasks

These are the most reading-skills focused tasks. Their purpose is:

—    to encourage students to read the text in a certain way, i.e., using certain skills or a combination of skills,

—    to guide students towards a better understanding of the most important parts of the text by giving clues as to text organisation, the meaning of unfamiliar items, cultural references, etc.

—    the purpose of these activities is not to test students (‘check how much they have understood’), but they may help students to self-ęyaluate.

A successful reading task should: be realistic, or at least appropriate to the text,

—    have a elear leaming purpose - students should know what skills they are practising,

—    be given to students before they read the text, so that they read the text with a purpose,

—    be done while students read the text - the purpose is to help students read the text in a certain way, not to test memory,

—    be stimulating, challenging, but at an appropriate level for the students,

—    they should not test students’ memory,

—    it ought to be timed, particularly skimming or scanning tasks, to discourage students from spending too much time on unnecessary details.

12.3.6.2.3. Post-reading tasks

Post-reading tasks should give students the chance to investigate the text in morę depth, integrate reading with other skills or relate the content of the text to their own experience.

12.3.6.3. Feedback

Although tasks are not tests, it is important for the teacher to get feedback on students’ answers. Teachers should remember that what they are interested in is the process by which students read, not the product - the right answer. If students have arrived at the ‘wrong’ answers through a reasonable process, then the teacher should reward the use of appropriate skills rather than focusing on the actual answer. It has to be remembered that, particularly at advanced levels, many tasks or ąuestions are open-ended, and it is the discussion of answers that matters most.

Teachers should consider varying ways of giving feedback in order not to be too teacher-centred, e.g.:

—    letting students self-correct in pairs or groups, and then presenting

the answers on the board/OHP and asking if there are any problems,

—    asking students for answers and encouraging class discussion before giving the ‘finał’ answer,

—    giving each students/group an answer sheet for self-correction,

—    letting one students play ‘teacher’ and check others’ answers.

Teachers must remember to respond to correct answers as well as wrong ones.

12.3.7. Various ways of using texts in the classroom

There are various reasons for using texts in the classroom, the most important of which seem to be:

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