Reading and Reading Skills
I have been teaching EFl to college age students in Israel since 1995. In my country children study English for about 8 years and have a matriculation examination at the end of 12th grade. Yet many students still have problems reading and comprehending even a simple text. Often when I ask my students for the topic of a text they have difficulties pointing it out, and they find it much more challenging to formulate the central idea of the text or to restate what the writer says about that topic.
Although some students have serious problems with the language, I feel that this is not the reason for their difficulties. I believe that my students are having problems reading a text in English because they do not read at all (in any language) and thus have no clue on how to approach a written text. The fact that books are not part of my students’ life has many unfortunate consequences for their future life but it also makes my job as their teacher more challenging. Since they do not read they know very little about the world; consequently when I assign an article I cannot presume that they would get references text that require a certain level of general knowledge. Also since reading is not part of their world when encountering an unfamiliar term or a name in the assigned reading they would not look it up as it requires more reading. Thus when assigning an article for homework I first have to find those terms and insist that they’d look them up and write down the definition.
We all know that reading sharpens the mind, it teaches the reader to distinguish between fact and opinion, to generalize, to pay attention to what is not stated in the text, to make assumptions about it--to infer, and to recognize different tones and purposes . My students are lacking those abilities and when they do read their level of comprehension remains basic and they do not grasp complex concepts.
My students are already grown-ups; I can no longer sit them down for a daily silent reading like the one the third graders in Ramona Kirby’s class do. What I could do is to motivate them by introducing interesting articles and to hope that the reading skills that we do teach them will compensate somehow for those abilities that they lack.
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About orna
I teach English as a second language at the College of Management Academic Studies in Israel. My area of research is the cultural scene of 1950s Britain. I am also interested in literary translation and translate Modern Hebrew poems into English.
Connections
orna’s Favorite Books
The Glass of Blessings
Middlemarch
Private Papers
The Good Husband
Sense and Sensibility
The Chronicles of Barsetshire
When We were Orphans
Great Expectations...
Reading Poetry
Some students might benefit from reading simple poetry. http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/ http://www.wisdomportal.com/Stanford/Poetry180.html I know from experience that I learned a lot from reading French poetry, many of which were rather challenging due to vocabulary and complex metaphors. But, once you look up the definitions, analysing poetry can be stimulating for the mind and it also gives you a sense of accomplishment when you see a file gradually grow into a portfolio of eighteen poems or so that you've analyzed in the course of a semester. In his essay Education by Poetry, Robert Frost said, "Unless you are educated in metaphor, you are not safe to be let loose in the world.” http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/podcast/Addendum_Parini.mp3
Thank you dear Kim for this
Thank you dear Kim for this good suggestion, I shall give it a try. I agre with Robert Frost, it seems that my students are not equipped with the right tools to be let loose in the world.
In the UK, too, fewer and
In the UK, too, fewer and fewer youngsters read. I also teach EFL and I find the problem is almost global.
Excellent piece.
How do we get them to read?
Dear Katherine, That is the
Dear Katherine,
That is the question:-)
Please let me know when you find the answer, I am still hopeful. Thank you for writing, It was a happy moment to find a fellow EFL teacher on Red Room.