Teaching Reading
in the EFL Classroom
Basic Concepts:
Teaching
reading in EFL is a bit different than the way native
speakers are taught to read. While vocabulary is an
important part of reading - teaching the reading skills
of surveying, skimming, scanning, inference, predicting,
and guessing are just as important.
Research tends to indicate that a student's reading
comprehension can be improved by focusing on teaching
students skills in the following areas:
Vocabulary
Many
languages do not have the word building concepts that
English does. In teaching vocabulary, the idea of "root"
words, and prefixes and suffixes - helps students build
a larger vocabulary quickly. Affixes (prefixes and
suffixes) help us create a variety of words from one
base word. many EFL students won't recognize that
contain is the root word of container and
containment; or that desire is the root word
of undesirable and desirability. When
teaching new vocabulary it is important to point out
these connections and we can quickly help students
expand their vocabulary - with the base words they
already know. Teaching affixes is only one of several
strategies for teaching vocabulary. See the links below
for more.
Surveying,
Scanning, Skimming
In
an academic setting we rarely ready an entire text word
for word. More typical is that we look at the contents
of a book, the chapters, headings, subheadings,
sidebars, pictures, illustrations, words in italics and
bold type - and dive in to find the information we need.
These are the concepts of surveying, scanning and
skimming - moving from the big ideas of a reading down
to the specific details. These are skills that EFL
students don't usually have and must be taught. The
linked readings below will give you more specifics on
these skills.
Guessing and
Predicting from Context
Students also need to be taught to guess the meanings of
words based on the context of the reading and to draw
from the reading an ability to predict what might happen
in the next paragraph. Links below will lead to more
information on these skills.
Expanded
Concepts:
Teaching Reading - read the entire section and
subsections
Teaching Reading Skills - download this PDF file
Skimming and Scanning
Scanning Exercise
Skimming, Scanning,
and SQ3R
British Council:
17 Excellent Articles on Vocabulary Acquisition
When you finish these readings, proceed to the section
on
Teaching Writing.
