After Reading the High School Step Team

After Reading Activities

I of the skills to teach in the foreign language classroom is Reading. With the development of engineering and with the changing interests of people information technology can be quite a challenge to make the conquering of this skill interesting, fun, motivational and educational at the same time.

Students more often than not prefer video watching, talking, even listening, hence, Reading and Writing are getting less and less attention in our classrooms. This brings us to the signal of students not having enough practice in the mentioned skills and defective the experience when faced with situations they need to use it ( school exams, international exams, academic tasks, etc. )

Today we will talk about some mail reading activities that can ease the 'pain' of reading and keep students motivated and interested while doing and then.

Comprehension questions

All strange language textbooks, the Net, or any possible resource you can find that suggests a text for  a strange language learner is rich in activities like this.

There are basically two types of comprehension questions — True and Simulated (T/F) and open ended . If yous ask me, this is an effective manner of checking understanding, it helps the students to form skills necessary to pass international English language exams ( IELTS, Toefl, etc. ) by cartoon the reply from the text. Notwithstanding, it is not fun at all to respond a list of questions the answers to which you can find just past identifying some key words in the questions and looking for them in the text, non to mention the fact, that some students directly copy and paste the answers form the text without paraphrasing and/or analysing the context.

What can we exercise instead?

1. If you make up one's mind to choose T/F types of questions, brand sure the students support their answers by facts from the texts. They will need to tell you why the answer is truthful, what makes them remember then, which data from the text supports their answer. The primal here, is to tell them non to use the exact wording of the text, simply to paraphrase the answer using their active vocabulary. This will help them pick the primal words from the text and put it in a more natural, self-generated context.
2. If you want to stick to the comprehension questions, try to create an appropriate corporeality of challenge for the students. Avoid super piece of cake questions (because the level of student language competency of class) like " When did he finish the volume? " (LAST Calendar week). Instead, try to create questions that volition make the students await deeper in the text, not just for names and dates. E.chiliad. "How did he feel afterwards finishing the story and why? ". In this case students tin can notice the 'how' in the text and use their ain language to explain the why. Basically, what you lot need to do is to get the students to think about the text and try to analyze information technology.
3. Another interesting type of action is to inquire the students to finish the sentences subsequently reading a text. If your text was about due east.g. John's terminal vacation , you lot can use a question like this: " When John bought the tickets he suddenly realized… ". What you lot practise here, is to manipulate the text and encourage the students to paraphrase the story using their own words/language. You can brand this more challenging, by dividing the students into 2 or iii groups and tell them that they will need to come up up with the closest possible diction to the text when continuing the sentence without really looking back at the text. This exercises students' retentiveness, gets them use the key words from the text and triggers their competitiveness. We all know that contest can bring the silent classroom to life 🙂
4. Some other interesting competitive game can be "Who wants to be a Millionaire" . Here the students will need to play in two teams. I member from each team will sit down next to the teacher and take turns to answer the questions about the text. The one who answers correctly scores points for the squad and can earn a prize at the discretion of the teacher. You tin even identify a buzzer/a bong for them on the table to hitting if they think they know the answer to the question.
5. Another nice idea is to ask the students to create questions well-nigh the text themselves. To do this, you volition need to divide the students into groups of two or 3 and time them to generate every bit many comprehension questions every bit possible. Next yous tin gather the questions, regroup the students and distribute the questions back for them to comment on. After you lot can cull some really expert questions the students had come up upward with and inquire for open grade feedback (OCFB) to summarize the text.
6. Students put paragraphs, pictures connected to the story, events in the right society. Students might too match pictures and sentences from the text or characters and their statements.

Retelling the text

A really absurd activity I have been using for a very long time is retelling the text on behalf of the characters involved. This makes the reading process more than fun, as the students need to remember and filter the information they are going to share. When the students are washed reading, assign a character grade the text to them and ask them to tell the story in open up class/in groups (depending on your class size) from the bespeak of view of that grapheme. This works very efficiently in all age groups. For immature learners you tin can cull fairy tales/stories. My personal favourite is the " Petty Red Riding Hood ". Students take major fun in retelling the story from the perspective of the wolf, the grandmother, the hunter, etc. Same can exist done for book reading sessions. I have been using " The Boy in the Striped Pajamas " recently and information technology is working merely fine. For adult learners it tin can exist whatsoever Business related text.

Acting out

A like action to the higher up mentioned i is the interim out of the story. When the students finish reading a passage, a story, or a book inquire them to pretend to exist the characters from the text and deed out a further dialogue, let's say a meeting afterwards 10 years in the aforementioned spot. This can get very creative and fun in all age groups.

Changing the Story

Some other really artistic thing you can do is asking the students to read the story, summarize it in open grade (what the story was about) and change the ending of the story. To practice this, you volition demand to put the students in pairs, fourth dimension them for 10-12 minutes and ask them to change the ending of the story in as much creative way equally they tin. You can challenge them more and assign different tasks to dissimilar pairs; Pair 1 will need to create a happy ending, Pair 2 — a pitiful 1.

Well, here were some ideas that you lot can definitely try and see how they boost the motivation and interest towards the reading slot of the grade. The students get really excited to see what you accept decided to pull out that day.

Anyway, whatever you do, brand sure though that the target vocabulary from the text is being used by the students and that they have learnt some new phrases and words past the stop of the slot.

ESL senior trainer with viii+ years of teaching experience, specializing in ESP (Medical, IT, Financial, Business English), course content creator, CELTA certified trainer, PTE examiner

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Source: https://skyteach.ru/2020/03/12/after-reading-activities/

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