Listening and Reading

Lesson 1

Teacher:

OK, class. Thank you for telling me about your pets and your favourite animals. You have some very clever pets.

Now we are going to read about a very special pet that was in the newspaper because it saved some people’s lives.

On the board I am going to put some words from the article.

In pairs, I want you to discuss what you think the story is about and how the animal helped the people.

SMOKE BANGING FAMILY 10 3rd FLOOR

JUMPED RABBIT

Then think about 3 questions you would like to find out from the newspaper article and write them down.

Q: What could happen next in the lesson and why?

Lesson 2

Teacher: Today class we are going to find out about someone called Smokey.

He is very famous because he did something special.

Here is the title of the newspaper article:

SMOKEY SAVES 10 IN FIRE

When we write a newspaper article we need to tell the reader:

Where it happened

What happened

When it happened

Who it happened to.

And maybe:

Why it happened

Read through the article quickly - you have about two minutes.

See if you can find out WHAT, WHERE, WHEN, WHO and WHY

Q: What skills will the students practice in this lesson?

Lesson 3

Teacher:

OK, class. We have heard interesting stories about brave animals on the recording. Now we are going to read about an animal that saved some people. Let’s think about what happens if there is a fire in a house.

Noriko: Gets hot a lot of sm…sm….

Keiko: Smoke.

Teacher: Good. What about the people in the house?

Jun: can’t go out Keiko: Jump out window Noriko: Escape

Teacher: Yes. In this story some people escaped and some people jumped. Some people couldn’t get out - they were trapped

But also somebody screamed, somebody smelt something somebody pounded (made a noise) and somebody picked up something. (Writes all words in bold on board and mimes some of them.)

Write these verbs down in your book. Then read through the article to find out who did each of these things. Write the name of the person next to the verb.

Q: How is this introduction different from the other two lessons? How is it the same?

COMMENT ON THE THREE QUESTIONS

Lesson 1

Q: What could happen next in the lesson and why?

This teacher has been encouraging the students to predict what is in the article and to make questions for themselves. The most natural thing for them is to read the article to see if they can find an answer to their questions. This would be a useful exercise as they will be looking for information and words that they recognise, and trying to work out the overall meaning of the article.

Lesson 2

Q: What skills will the students practise in this lesson?

This teacher is encouraging them to read quickly through a text and pick out the most important points - so they will be scanning the text.

She also introduces them to the idea that texts have a form - ‘newspaper articles usually tell us’……. They are also helping each other and sharing information - important when you are reading.

Lesson 3

Q: How is this introduction different from the other two lessons? How is it the same?

This lesson is different because it concentrates straight away on language in the article and especially on verbs.

It is the same because it encourages the class to think about the topic before they read.

It is also a useful exercise, like 1 and 2. If the students find out the information they will understand the main story of the article. The teacher could do a further exercise with students giving reasons for the actions.

Why did he pound on the door? Why were they trapped?

Note: the teacher needs to be careful with ‘trapped’ as the verb is in the passive.

TYPES OF TEXTS

There are different ways to use the same texts. Teachers also need to consider the types of texts to introduce as there are so many different types of texts you can use for reading. Textbooks are improving their selection of interesting and relevant materials but you can always add your own. These days it is easy to get texts from the Internet on any and every topic, so choose something your students are interested in. An interview with a celebrity? A review of a new computer game? Ask your students to look themselves for interesting articles and bring them in. Tell them to find English on packets in the kitchen and signs in the street. Even if they are not living in an English speaking country they will still be able to find examples of English. Bringing into lessons material that they have found will encourage them to read outside class.

Once you have chosen a text, think about your exercises. Choose a few short texts on the same theme and ask students to write True/False questions for their classmates to answer - reading for information. Cut up a catalogue or web page and ask students to match the product picture with the description. (skim reading and scanning for information) Cut up a long text such as a story and ask students to put the sections in the right order. (how a text fits together) Ask students to read part of a story in groups and then finish the story in a logical way. (prediction, style).

SELF-CHECK 3:2 6

Here are 5 texts and 5 activities. Match an activity to each text.

• Find the adjectives that make the car sound attractive.
• Give each group a different topic and ask them to design a diagram or picture.
• Cut this half way through and ask them to guess the end.
• Each group should read and write a reply
• Read and mark places on a map

EXPLOITING TEXTS

The type of activity you do with a text should be a natural one. Read through this six page report on global warming and ‘pick out the adjectives’ is a rather pointless activity, but finding adjectives in a car advertisement helps to highlight how adverts persuade us.

Planning how to use a text involves thinking about two things:

• the focus of the reading exercises
• how the text will fit into a lesson or series of lessons you are doing and link with other skills work.

There are three main focus areas to think about:

The information in the text

The structure and style of the text

The vocabulary and grammar used in the text.

We have discussed these above but it is very important that you as a teacher devise exercises that are clearly focused and that will lead on from and in to other activities.

Here is an example of a confused teacher’s set of reading comprehension questions going nowhere:

TEXT

The Rise of Yellowstone

Yellowstone National Park is an active place - both above ground and underneath it. The park contains more than 10,000 geysers, hot springs, and steaming volcanic vents.

Underground heat fuels this geologic activity in the park's central basin, says Wu-Lung Chang, a geophysicist at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. And that heat comes from melted rock that seeps up from deep inside the Earth.

Now Chang and colleagues have made a new discovery about the mysteries beneath the park. From mid-2004 through 2006, parts of the land in Yellowstone rose as much as 7 centimeters (2.8 inches) per year. That rise is about three times as fast as any change previously measured in the area.

TEACHER’S QUESTIONS

True or False?

1. The park contains more than 10,000 geysers, hot springs and vents.
2. The land is dangerously unstable.

Answer in full sentences

What are the mysteries beneath the park?

What does ‘that rise’ refer to?

What happened from mid-2004 through 2006?

Who is Wu-Lung Chang?

What is Yellowstone?

PROBLEMS

The teacher is asking all sorts of different questions here - about pieces of information, about text referencing, about inferring information from the text. The students will read in different ways to answer the different questions and at the end of it will not have a clear idea of what the text is about or a useful set of information. How did they arrive at this text? There is no lead in question or clue as to how the text links with previous work. Where are they going? There is no clear focus.

SELF-CHECK 3:2 7

Here are some texts and examples of a range of much more focussed exercises that could be used with the texts to improve students' reading skills.

Study them carefully and make notes on:

what is being taught: in each of the set of exercises - extensive or intensive reading skills?

who each text is suitable for

what areas of language the exercises are focussing on

Then suggest a way in which the lesson could continue from these texts into a speaking, listening or writing exercise.

TEXT 1

(The student would have a diagram to go with this text)

THE TYPICAL ENGLISH HOUSE

Read through the description then complete the exercises which follow.

A detached house stands on its own. A semi-detached house is joined to the house next door along the central wall. The ‘semi’ is the most typical kind of English house. It has front and back gardens and often a garage at the side.

The outline on the next page shows the ground floor of a typical ‘left-hand’ semi. It has a lot of rooms, but if you look at the rooms you will see that they are all quite small. People often ‘live’ in the dining room, keeping the lounge for visitors. This means that they spend most of their time in a room only about 11' 6" x 10' 6". The dining room in this house is connected to the lounge by a room divider, and the kitchen is connected to the dining room by a hatch in the wall. Both the lounge and the dining room have open fireplaces. The kitchen has a sink unit on the back wall of the house and the back door is on the left. The front door opens into the hall. There is one other way in and out of the house and this is through French windows which open onto the garden to the rear of the dining room. The house from front to back measures 24' 6", the lounge being 13' in length.

Exercise 1

Answer the following questions about the house.

1. Put in the dimensions which you know.
2. Mark with a cross the location of the attached "semi".
3. ? - which room is this?

Exercise 2

Fill in the blanks.

1. The figure 1 marks the position of a ..........
2. The figure 2 marks the position of a ..........
3. The figure 3 marks the position of a ..........
4. The two figure 4's mark the position of the ..........
5. The figure 5 marks the position of the ..........
6. The figure 6 marks the position of the ..........
7. The figure 7 marks the position of the ..........

TEXT 2

THE BEGINNINGS OF SCIENCE

Pre text questions.

The title of this article is ‘The beginnings of science’. Can you make a few suggestions about what information might be in it?

How do these key words relate to the topic?

civilisation

the moon

metallurgy

research

Exercise 1

Read the following text and choose the correct ending for the sentences from the distractors given.

Man has always tried to understand the world in which he lives. He is distinguished from the rest of the animal kingdom by his understanding of the relationship between causes and

a. its effects - which form the basis of science

b. their effects - which form the basis of science

c. an effect - which forms the basis of science

The evidence provided by the tools and weapons of Stone Age hunters shows that primitive science was already being used by man in

a. his fight for survival, even before the dawn of civilisation

b. fighting before the dawn of civilisation

c. a fight which was being carried out before the survival of man

Civilisation began with farming. The cultivation and storing of food was one of the greatest resolutions in man's history. From

a. a farm a man could get all his food

b. history one can learn about farms

c. then one man had to learn to live in settled communities

He also had to invent digging sticks, flint sickles, querns for grinding corn and a means of bringing water to the crops. Because farming depends on the changing seasons, a way had to be found to mark the passing of time. The first farmers calculated it by the waxing and waning of the moon,

a. while earlier ones counted the days in a solar year

b. and then they counted the days in a solar year

c. at the same time as counting the days and nights

This marked the beginnings of mathematics and astronomy. The more man came to rely on his tools and weapons, the greater became the need for a material stronger than wood and more easily worked than stone. He probably first discovered iron in the form of meteorites. But before he found out how to make iron from its ore he

a. discovered iron could be made from meteorites

b. continued the experiment and made copper

c. discovered that copper could be made by burning certain greenish rocks

When he learned, some five thousand years ago, to mix copper with tin, the Bronze Age - and the science of metallurgy - had begun.

Each succeeding generation advanced in scientific knowledge,

a. and wisdom

b. adding to man's growing store

c. and other kinds of knowledge

He used this knowledge to better himself by making his environment work for him.

By the 18th century what we now know as science was called natural philosophy. The terms science and scientist were not used until about one hundred years ago. Today, however, our ever-growing store of knowledge is so vast that it must be broken up into order parts. That is why there are separate branches of science such as chemistry, physics, zoology and botany. Modern science is not simply a boring collection of facts and figures. Scientific research is just as creative as composing a piece of music or making a film. But it is important to have some idea of what science is all about in order to appreciate its beauty and excitement.

Exercise 2

Read the full text and see if you were correct.

Exercise 3

Are the following statements true or false?

1. Some green coloured rocks when burned form copper.
2. The beginning of mathematics and astronomy was calculated by the first farmers.
3. Man used scientific knowledge to make his surroundings work for him.
4. Approximately a century ago people began to use the words science and scientist
5. Iron was probably first discovered in the form of ore.

Exercise 4

Complete these sentences

1. The science of metallurgy began when ...............................................
2. Natural philosophy is what we .............................................................
3. Today there are separate branches of science because .....................
4. To enable us to appreciate the beauty and excitement of science ………………………………………………………………………………

Exercise 5

Explain what is meant by the following words ie what the author is referring to.

1. then - line 7
2. it - line 10
3. This - line 11
4. its - line 15
5. he - line 16
6. it - line 22
7. its - line 26

Exercise 6

Now write a short summary of the text.

ENDNOTE

What about the ‘grizzas’ earlier in the module?

Well, as you may have guessed, there is no such thing as a grizza. Any deductions you made were based on your understanding of how text and grammar work. You also brought to bear the idea of how informational texts work so you expected the text to have meaning and it looked like a text to do with animal behaviour so you started making assumptions. If anyone ever discovers a ‘grizza’, please contact INTESOL immediately and we will rewrite the module…..