How to effectively teach reading skills to college students

1. How to effectively teach reading skills to college students Some practical suggestions Seminar: 순천향대학교 June 30, 2009 Dr. Andrew Finch, 경북대학교, 사범대학, 영어교육과

2. What is reading?

3. What is reading?

4. What is reading?

5. What is reading?

6. Why do we read? • Information • Information/pleasure • Pure pleasure • Exams !!!

7. What do we read? • Books • Newspapers, Magazines • Photocopies, articles • Notices • Correspondence • Forms, Signs • Handheld media devices • Computer screens • Multi-media carriers

8. What is the content? • Fiction (long and short) • Songs • Plays • Current events, feature articles and essays • Academic articles, reports, reviews • Warnings, directions • Letters, postcards and notes • Business letters, solicitations • T-shirt messages, bumper stickers • Raw data

9. What is the content? • Poetry • (Auto)biography • Schedules • Maps • Menus • Advertisements • Announcements • Comics • Workbook exercises • Bibliographic information

10. What is the text structure? • Charts, graphs, illustrations • Isolated lines of text • Free form • Interlinear notes • Point and click images • Expository • Narrative • Headings, subheadings

11. What skills do we use? • Skimming • Scanning • Extraction of specific information • In-depth (extensive) reading • Metacognition (Hudson, 2007, p. 27)

12. Comprehension skills • Recalling word meanings • Drawing inferences about a meaning of a word from context • Finding answers to questions answered explicitly or merely in paraphrase • Weaving together ideas from content • Drawing inferences from content • Recognizing a writer’s purpose, attitude, tone, and mood • Identifying a writer’s technique • Following the structure of a passage. (Davis, 1968)

13. 1: Extensive reading • Extensive reading foundation: www.erfoundation.org/index.html/ • Extensive reading pages: www.extensivereading.net/er/er.html • Video of Dr. R. Day’s talk about ER/IR:www.sendspace.com/file/nq6ydr • Rocky Nelson’s resources • http://nelson.myfastmail.com/Extensive Reading/ • http://nelson.myfastmail.com/Intensive Reading – Content Based/

14. Class library

15. 2: Graded readers

16. The aim of graded reading • To recycle important and useful wordsand grammar and to aid acquisition • To provide continuousreading practice • To build reading speed • To be enjoyable • To encourage reading for pleasure • To build DEPTH of knowledge

17. Fiction

18. Movies

19. Non-fiction

20. Reading at the right level Students MUST read at their comfortable reading level so they: • can read quickly • can read fluently • can read a lot • can read with very high levels of understanding • can enjoy the reading • can get the reading habit. If students read something too difficult: • the reading becomes slow • they can’t read much • the students get tired easily • it becomes a form of ‘study’

21. Reading comics and cartoons

22. Comics and cartoons

23. Comics and cartoons

24. Comics and cartoons

25. Cartoons: Tintin

26. Using literature: Novels • Charles Dickens: A Christmas Carol • http://www.literature.org/authors/dickens-charles/christmas-carol/ • http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/DicChri.html • http://www.asksam.com/ebooks/Dickens/Christmas_Carol.asp • http://www.online-literature.com/dickens/christmascarol/ • http://www.longmankorea.com/detail.aspx?ISBN=0582421209 (graded reader) • http://books.mirror.org/gb.dickens.html • http://wiredforbooks.org/carol/content.htm (audio) • http://welchwrite.com/blog/audio/2008/christmas-carol-2008.mp3 (audio) • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hA5T1G7rxg (YouTube video) • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwii8AMfgkA&feature=related (YouTube, part 2) • http://www.teachers.tv/video/30574 (Dickens’ Museum)

27. Using literature: Drama Henrik Ibsen: A Doll’s House • http://books.google.co.kr/ • http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/dollhouse/ • http://www.gradesaver.com/a-dolls-house/ • http://www.enotes.com/dollshouse • http://www.bibliomania.com/0/6/322/2393/frameset.html Video • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qssF73w6thw

28. E-books (Handout)

29. Online reading (Handout) • English Lit: http://www.english-literature.org/resources/ • Fictionwise: http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/freebooks.htm • Free Books: http://www.e-book.com.au/freebooks.htm • Free online books: http://www.freeonlinebooks.org/ • Litrix: http://www.litrix.com/authors.htm • Manybooks: http://manybooks.net/ • Memoware: http://www.memoware.com/ • Microsoft: http://www.mslit.com/default.asp?src...inia+Libr ary • Microsoft reader: http://www.microsoft.com/Reader/ • O'Reilly Open Book: http://www.oreilly.com/openbook/ • Online Book Page: http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/ • Page by page books: http://www.pagebypagebooks.com/ • Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page

30. Integrated reading • Holistic approach • All four skills • Pre-reading, while-reading, post-reading • Graded tasks • Critical thinking • Problem-solving • Online follow up • Active English Discussion

31. Online newspapers

32. Online newspapers

33. Online newspapers

34. Foreign newspapers

35. Online print media

36. Blogs

37. More blogs

38. Blogs The spread of information in the blogosphere. First blog writes a post and then other blogs refer to it. The behavior (information) spreads (cascades) through the network of blogs.

39. Finally … • Email: aef@knu.ac.kr • Courses: www.finchpark.com/courses • Articles: www.finchpark.com/arts • PhD Thesis: www.finchpark.com/afe • Books: www.finchpark.com/books