keeping reading class interesting...

Funk · Post by **Funk** » Mon Apr 07, 2003 5:13 am

Can anyone give me some practical advice on the following subject?

What can I, as an English teacher, do to improve the reading comprehension skills of my Chinese freshmen? The topics covered are:
- text structure
- paragraph functions/styles (intro, supporting, transitional, concluding)
- paragraph structure (topic sentence, etc...)
- how to screening texts quickly (find answers, grasp general meaning without reading whole text)

I feel like my possibilities for helpful input are limited. All (I think) there's left to do for us teachers is to give them homework (practice, practice) and discuss the articles, but not much new comes from these sessions and these classes tend to get dull.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to keep reading comprehesion classes interesting? How can we help the students more to improve their skills?

jly_eslcafe · Post by **jly_eslcafe** » Mon Apr 07, 2003 8:29 am

Funk,

Yes it is important to get students to practise reading for gist (ie getting to know the general idea of the text). One idea is - before they read the text, get the students thinking and talking about the topic. This will help them focus on the topic and give them some of the necessary vocabulary. And then just before they read the text for the first time, you set up a few (2 or three) general and easy question on the board. This will give them something to look out for when reading the text.
This method is what is taught in the CELTA course. Hope that helps.

~ Jennifer