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[DosEquisX]

I am teaching 90 minute classes to 55 college students and I am having a hard time engaging the students for the full time. Student feedback has induced me to use some current affairs articles for reading material rather than the dry, stuffy, out-of-their-league textbook I was given. Apparently, that's relevant information found on the IELTS. Normally, we read through an article I pick off of BBC or some place like that. I give some questions (some objective, some not) and go over it as a class. I'll have a brief discussion question about the article or some offshoot of it.

This style is growing stale and students are getting bored. Thankfully, the students are nice enough to stay home if they don't give a shit about my class. But again, I'd like to get the students a bit more interested and motivated for this subject. It's just that reading is *boring*. Even I find the class dreadfully boring to teach.

Any tips or advice to make my class not yawn-inducing?

[slareth]

I have the same problem with my reading classes. Listening also.

For reading, I try and use the text but also find something slightly related that they can *hopefully* form an opinion on and discuss. This usually falls flat and winds up being TTT. The students in my reading classes would be unable to comprehend most news articles so I can't use them. The textbook we use is quite basic. It explains any new vocabulary within each story, the students just have to actually "read" it instead of just looking at each word singly.

I am very interested to hear the ideas of others on this.

[daCabbie]

I find that I have to create lessons for a full range of students. From beginner to the 'on level' advanced students. Having reading articles in both Chinese and English or at least the keywords defined in Chinese can help.

You can get China Daily on your mobile, 5rmb a month, the articles are in Chinese and English. The BBC also has some good material in Chinese and English. Search around and you can find them.

Most of all, don't be too hard on yourself. Not everyone is gonna come around. You are not going to reverse the 19 years of conditioning the student has received before you got them. Do the best you can. Be positive and patient.

Don't forget to go home at night and let it go. I will think myself to death if given the opportunity. One beer combined with a great dinner is the best medicine.

[7969]

news articles may be too difficult for your students if you just take them straight from the source and present them like that.

so, you edit them. How you do that is up to each individual, but I simply cut out anything I think is irrelevant (brevity), and I simplify some of the vocabulary.

Voila. The article can now be read and basically understood.

[Insubordination]

Basically, I think reading a text has to have a purpose or why do it? Answering comprehension questions is not a very motivating purpose after a while. Let the students vote on the topic of the reading from a list of options the lesson before. This gives them some measure of control over what they read.

I don't know the level/s of your students, but you could try a 'Jigsaw' reading. I have only done this task in a class or 25 or so but I've tried tinker with it for you by imagining that I have 55 students (ouch!)

Your main task will be organising the class to move around. There would be very little teaching, as it student-centered. It's hard to explain on an internet post, but quite easy to do. If you could see a teacher carry out this task, you would be sold on it. I also think the students learn a lot.

Find three articles; it is better if the topic is similar (e.g. Technology), but it doesn't matter if the articles are varying lengths/text types/levels of difficulty. Try 'Breaking News English' for a source of articles (though it's int or upper int). One of them can be from a textbook I guess.

The idea of this activity is that the class is split into three groups. Each group reads a different article. They start by reading individually and answering some written questions. Then they form a group of about 6 (ideally with people sitting right near them who have read the same article) and share their answers.

Now comes the part where they go into a different group and explain what they have read to the readers of the other articles. Ideally, there would be at least two readers of the same article in each group as it boosts confidence. Each student shares what his/her article was about with the group and everyone fills in the rest of their worksheet. It's an 'information gap'.

That sounds confusing when I read it. I will try to break it down a bit.

Make a handout. If you really want to ensure the class participates. Put a name field at the top and say that, while you are not going to read each sheet individually, you will mark down the names of each student who hands in the paper at the end of the lesson, and this will go towards the final participation mark.

Worksheet:

What is the title of your article?

What is your article about?

Where is it set?

Who are the people/organsations in the article?

Which is the most interesting sentence to you?

What type of people do you think would read this article? Males, females, teenagers, young, the elderly, business people

What is one new word that you have never seen before? What do you think it means?


Under these questions, you can write three columns. All these columns have to be completed by every student before the end of the lesson.

The topic of article A is...........

and an interesting point is .............

The topic of article B is...........

and an interesting point is........

The topic of article C is.......

and an interesting point is.......




Divide the class into groups A, B and C (front of the room 'A's, middle 'B's' and back of the room 'Cs' and give each group one of the three articles. Give them a set time to do the reading alone and write down the answers to the questions.

After the time is up, you need to put all the readers of article 'A' into groups of 5 or 6 and have them discuss their question paper for 10 minutes. It will be easy to form these groups as they are all sitting near each other. Explain to them they're going to share their ideas/answers and, after that, are to explain their article to the readers of 'B' and 'C'. They often find this first part easy because they have all read the same article and have the question paper to guide the discussion.


After the time is up, you need to assign each individual student a number and explain that this will be the number of the group they will be in. In a class of 55, I would suggest 10 small groups or the students won't be able to hear each other. You simply point at each 'Article A' student and number them from one to ten. When you reach '10', go back to '1' and start again until everyone has a number. You do the same numbering with group 'B' and group 'C'. It doesn't take long, but students sometimes forget their number if you do it too quickly.

You then tell them to stand up, and sit with the students with the same number as they have. In such a huge classroom, I would put 10 A4 signs with the number '1' to '10' and stick them on a desk in different geographical sections of the classroom. They all stand up and find their group number and sit down. This will only take a few minutes. There will be at least two readers of each article in each group. So group A must explain to the others what the article was about and an interesting point they found (obviously, at minimum, if they are reluctant talkers, they are going to help each other fill in the worksheets, so some communication will have to occur.

While they are doing this, the teacher can walk around and engage in each group's discussion or stimulate the silent groups. Again, assign a time limit to keep up the pace.

To lengthen the lesson, you could add headline prediction or vocabulary at the beginning or end or a peer presentation or a vote on the topic of next week's article.

I know it unwieldy to manage when you read it here, but I do it in a class of 25 all the time. Even the lazy students at least read their article and copy the answers from the others onto their worksheet. They learn in spite of themselves. It doesn't put anyone on the spot or at the risk of being 'wrong' and if the class can vote on the topic each week, it gives them a sense of autonomy and a lot of non-threatening peer participation is requires, so it is engaging and hard to fall asleep .

It's also very little work for the teacher, especially when the students have done this activity a few times and know how it works. I would vary it from week to week though, even the format and questions on the worksheets should change a bit. Keep them surprised and interested with the articles you choose (throw in some letters, advertising, blogs, fiction).

Read about this 'jigsaw' activity online for a million variations from the way I do it.

I just thought of an idea to make this more manageable, you could choose only two articles. That way the groups would be easier to organise, though it wouldn't take 90 minutes.

Anyway, let me know if you give it a go or if you come up with any other ideas that work. Reading can be interesting to teach. Unfortunately, most of the great teaching ideas just don't work in a class of 55 where everyone has a different level or vocabulary, interest, and reading speed.

Good luck!

[Dedicated]

Are you able to access the website www.onestopenglish.com because every week, they take an up-to-date topic, based on the Guardian newspaper, and produce some very useful lessons.

These lessons are at 3 levels : Elementary, Intermediate and Advanced, and have the reading passage, usually with a "warmer" first, then vocabulary (key words), followed by comprehension questions and a grammar focus (eg. collocations; phrasal verbs;prepositions etc) and a discussion at the end. They take the minimum of preparation for the teacher, and students I've had have enjoyed them.

[bythebookie]

Sure, relevancy, interest, and "fun" are sometimes integral into making students learn. HOWEVER - the point is to teach - making "fun" some sort of absolute necessity adds to the dancing monkey approach. Be a teacher first and add entertaining ingredients 10th.

Be a teacher.

Add the other factors only when 100% necessary. Fun it not a necessity to do your job all the time.

[randyj]

This is a great thread. I have never taught Reading per se, but if I ever do, I can rely on some of the ideas contained herein. At my schools, Reading has usually fallen within the purview of native Chinese teachers of English.

If I ever taught Reading, I would try to emphasize increasing the vocabulary of students. To my mind, weakness in English vocabulary presents the greatest obstacle to reading enjoyment. What about the idea of requiring students to keep a separate vocabulary journal consisting of new word entries? Teaching Greek and Latin roots to help students guess words? Stressing base words, prefixes and suffixes? Techniques for guessing words in context?

As far as "fun" in class is concerned, if someone objects to that idea, then think about an atmosphere conducive to learning a foreign language.

[the_otter]

Don't have experience of teaching reading, but I'd try to add some variety there. News articles are great, but there are many other genres you could use. Poetry, short stories, advertisements, riddles...

Could you choose a children's book with simple language and ask them to read a chapter per week? (Though I've no idea how you could get hold of enough copies for fifty-five students. Even if money wasn't a question, Chinese bookstores only seem to stock the safe and 'worthy' classics. Not the best choice for learners of English. )

Good thread. I'm making notes in case I ever get a reading class dropped on me.

[nickpellatt]

Im kinda curious at to the general purpose of the reading class? Is it just a standard EFL class ... but with reading as the main skill practised as opposed to speaking?

I have done some 'reading' classes this week with students in the UK (Intermediate German teens, classes up to 15 in size) and in my class reading is the MAIN skill, but not the only one practised. My material is sourced from The Guardian website. (UK newspaper, check the website, they have a specific TEFL section, with print and teach worksheets ... I tend to use ADVANCED level. These are taught to a fairly standard CELTA/trinity type methodology. May need adapting to class sizes, but at least I can share the strucure.

Before I give out any material, I issue a discussion question related to the topic. Students have 5 minutes to share ideas before class feedback.

Activity 1 from the sheet is normally '5 key verbs from the article. Match each verb to one of the 5 definitions listed. Students work in pairs of groups, to share their knowledge, teach other, and if they dont know the words, find them in the text and use context to determine the meaning'

Activity 2 - All of these sheets have a glossary with some other key words. I pre-teach these words by trying to elicit them first, and when we have done these words, I direct students to the glossary and ask them to read out each given definition.

Activity 3 - I dictate perhaps two very general questions about the text, and students have a short time to read for gist, to scan read the article to get a general idea of its meaning and answer my gist questions.

Activity 4 - The worksheets normally have a list of specific questions, the first set of questions are often 'finish the sentences' and these answers are to be found in paragraphs 1-5. Students complete these reading task, just looking for the specific information requested. Feedback, normally student nominating student for answers before we move on.

Activity 5 - The second set of specific questions may be true or false questions with the answers found in the second part of the text, paragraphs 6 - 10 or similar.

Again, student nominated feedback before we proceed.

These worksheets normally have a summary, which needs completing with different forms of words listed in brackets. Eg - the summary may include bracketed words that are nouns, and students need to turn these into adjectives, verbs, adverbs to complete the summary.

Final activity might be a discussion question based on the material 'Do you agree with the writers view on XXXX? Why/Why not?

If I was writing this up as a formal lesson plan, I would list the main aims as 'students will practise reading for gist and specific information from a set text'.

Secondary aims would be 'speaking: expressing opinions related to XXX, and vocabulary: learning lexical items relating to XXX'.

This is the kind of lesson I did on my teaching training, and it would be classed as a reading lesson, but this doesnt mean it has to be reading and reading only. Reading skills are the main aim, but that doesnt mean other skills arent also used.

[Happy Everyday]

@Insubordination
That was great. Thank you.

@Dedicated
Will check out that website.


I'm strongly in favor of making a class interesting. It's not a requirement. But it most certainly is not unprofessional. In fact, more and more modern educators are interesting and entertainment.

I've had the misfortune of having genius IQ classmates during my k - undergrad. It was sink or swim. You would be taunted by classmates and instructors if you needed lessons to be simplified. Imagine playing Chinese Chess the first time and being expected to remember the rules and the name of the peices. Want a written English translation on that game piece? You'll be socially ridiculed. Fortunately, my Chinese language teacher was cool. She knew how hard it is to learn and was excellent at breaking down words, sentences, and pronunciation. None of my teachers were dancing bears. But some of them were very lively and entertaining. There is nothing wrong about being madcapped in the classroom. I think most people struggle with learning difficult things. English is as hard for them as Chinese is for us. Learning in simple chunks and including some translations is OK.

[Happy Everyday]

@ OP

It depends on your student's reading level. Have you studied Chinese? It's tough. I suggest you glance through the structure of "New Practical Chinese Reader." It uses translations and definitions for new words. Older, repeated words are left untranslated. Students are constantly struggling to master the new words. There's no harm in helping them to remember with a few translations and explainations. In fact, a lot of the chinese owned EFL sites do that. New Oreintal CT do it in their classes. ChinaDaily does it on their EFL site. FT often forget the challenges of learning and also forget that it's nice when a teacher is interesting and the classroom material is interesting.

The suggestions here are awesome. Try to organize topics they'll enjoy. Celebrities, popular culture, and relationsips are excellent.

You can also try reading scenes from film, television, and radio. Read out an advertisement in a radio voice, then have them try. Read out a film scene with dramtic effect. Try reading from a popular cartoon or animated film. For example, be the silly voice of a character in Kung Fu Panda 2. Help them practice the readings. Then try reading the voices to the film the the volume turned off.

Listen, role playing and reading can be really dry, but it doesn't have to be. Choose some material they'll enjoy, get into the character reading, and have fun with it. It might not look serious. But it is. Most people stiffen up and can't sound natural. I practice it and work in it. The FT who think they've got to be serious all the time have never gone to art school. Pedagogical methods are seriuos, but their application and the material needn't come off as boring. If the students don't like it, give them articles from The Wall Street Journal to read

[wangdaning]

I think the problem with a reading class is that logically the students should read before class. Good luck making that happen, but reading it in class is just a waste of time. They should go over the reading on their own and come to class with any questions. You can give time for them to ask and clarify passages they didn't understand. Then spend the rest of the class discussing questions about the reading in groups.

You could vary the level of the reading. Maybe give them a really difficult one and go over it piece by piece. Then the next class have an easier one which doesn't require that. Makes the class have a bit of variation, maybe will help with the staleness of it.

[El Chupacabra]

Take them to the library's English books section. Help them find readings of personal interest. You can do this in a single class meeting. This can supplement the textbook readings, or completely replace them if you think the book is rubbish.

You also need to identify the students who have reading difficulties, which is tough here in China because cohorts are never separated. So you need to have some formal and informal assessments to find out what level your students are reading at, and who is more than one standard deviation away from the mean. Those are going to be either your struggling students or your advanced students. By helping them find appropriate materials you can get them to take a personal interest in the texts.

[nickpellatt]