English Language

Teaching Methodology
Week 5
Instructor: M.Ed. Bui Viet Vuong
Teaching
Reading
”Our brains were not designed to be reading brains… Skilled
reading must be culturally transmitted from one generation
to next.”
(Grabe, 2016)
 What is “reading”?
• Reading means “reading and understand” (Ur, 1996,
2009)
‘I can read the words but I don't know what they
mean’
⇒ This is decoding – translating written symbols into
corresponding sounds, not reading
• Reading is about understanding written texts. It is a
complex activity that involves both perception and
thought (word recognition and comprehension)
(Pang et al., 2003)
 Learners have to read different types of texts in real
situations outside of classroom (study, job…)

Reading provides exposure to English => useful

language acquisition

Why teach
Reading provides good models for English writing
reading?
Reading texts also provide opportunities to study
language: vocabulary, grammar, punctuation, and the
way we construct sentences, paragraphs, texts.

Reading texts can interesting topics, stimulate

discussion, excite imaginative responses…
 Extensive vs.
Intensive
Types of
reading Transactional vs.
Interactional
 "I don't know enough vocabulary."

"I need the dictionary all the time."

What are your
own main "It's very slow - it takes ages just to get
problems when through a few sentences."
trying to read a "I often get to the stage where I understand all
text in a language the individual words, but the whole thing
that you don't eludes me completely."
know very well?
"Because it's slow, the pleasure or interest in
the subject matter is soon lost."
What does “reading comprehension”
involve?
Rapid and efficient word recognition

Development and utilization of a large recognition vocabulary

Sentence processing to build comprehension

Engagement of strategic processes and underlying cognitive skills

• Setting goals
• Changing goals flexibly
• Monitoring comprehension

Interpretation of meaning in relation to background knowledge

Evaluation of texts in line with reader goals and purposes

Fluent processing of texts over an extended period of time

(Grabe, 2016)
Teaching reading principles (Harmer, 2007)
Principle 3: Encourage
students to respond to the
Principle 1: Encourage Principle 2: Students need to
content of a text (and
students to read as often be engaged with what they
explore their feelings about
and as much as possible. are reading.
it), not just concentrate on
its construction.

Principle 5: Match the task Principle 6: Good teachers

Principle 4: Prediction is a
to the topic when using exploit reading texts to the
major factor in reading.
intensive reading texts. full.
Teaching
principles
•Read the booklet
•Summarise the principles
•Briefly explains the principles
to the whole class, and give
practical teaching activities
 Early progress in reading depends on oral language development.

Phonological and phonemic awareness are closely associated with reading ability.

Fluent readers read with accuracy, ease and understanding.

Vocabulary is crucial to reading comprehension.

Teaching Readers use prior knowledge to understand texts.
Principles Comprehension is an active process in the construction of meaning.
(Pang et al., There are many different purposes for reading.

2003) Reinforce the connection between reading and writing.

Choose texts of the right difficulty and interest level.

Use assessment to provide feedback and measure progress.

Cultural knowledge affects reading comprehension.

Readers make progress by reading more.

 Key words to mull over

Lower-level processing and

Top-down and bottom-up Genre
higher-level processing

Authentic vs
Comprehensible input Reading (sub)skills
adapted/simplified/graded
 Review: Teaching principles (Harmer, 2007)

Read the scenarios and decide what principle(s) the teacher does not follow in each situation.
1. The teacher summarises the entire story to the whole class, and then tell them to read the story
aloud.
2. After reading a chapter from a novel, the teacher moves on to the next one right away, and the
chapter never gets mentioned again.
3. The teacher assigns only one short story for the entire semester and tells students they don't need to
read anything else for his class.
4. During the lesson, the teacher only directs students’ attention to the use of second conditionals used
in the reading text.
5. In a reading lesson for 6th graders, the teacher selects a reading text about Brexit and asks students to
answer questions about the political atmosphere in the UK.
6. The teacher selects a reading text about Taylor Swift to teach a class full of her fans. He asks them to
read it and find all of the names of her songs in the text. Then, they answer some MCQ questions and
move on.
 Early progress in reading depends on oral language development.

Phonological and phonemic awareness are closely associated with reading ability.

Fluent readers read with accuracy, ease and understanding.

Vocabulary is crucial to reading comprehension.

Teaching Readers use prior knowledge to understand texts.
Principles Comprehension is an active process in the construction of meaning.
(Pang et al., There are many different purposes for reading.

2003) Reinforce the connection between reading and writing.

Choose texts of the right difficulty and interest level.

Use assessment to provide feedback and measure progress.

Cultural knowledge affects reading comprehension.

Readers make progress by reading more.

Reading
comprehension
Discuss the following questions
• Is the learners background knowledge important in teaching reading? Why /why not?

• What should the teacher do if the students meet new words in their process of reading a
text?

• What should the teacher do to help the students understand the text?

• Is it necessary to teach the students reading strategies? Why/ why not?

• What is the difference between "strategies" and "skills"?

• What are some criteria used to select reading texts?

Teaching reading: Do’s
1. Exploit the student’s background
knowledge
2. Build a strong vocabulary base
3. Teach for comprehension
4. Work on increasing reading rates
5. Teach reading strategies
6. Encourage students to transform
strategies into skills
7. Build assessment and evaluation into
your teaching
8. Strive for continuous improvement as
a reading teacher.
(Anderson, 2003)
 • A reader’s background knowledge can influence reading
comprehension (Carrell, 1983, Carrell and Connor, 1991)

• Background knowledge includes all of the experiences

that a reader brings to a text:

life experiences, educational experiences

knowledge of how texts can be organized rhetorically

knowledge of how one’s first language works

knowledge of how the second language works

Exploit the cultural background and knowledge.

reader’s • Reading comprehension can be significantly enhanced if

background background knowledge can be activated by setting goals,

asking questions, making predictions, teaching text
knowledge. structure,…

• Incorrect background knowledge can hinder

comprehension => teacher should be aware during the
activation stage
Build a strong vocabulary base

Less frequent
vocabulary: skills to use
Basic vocabulary: should
context to effectively
be explicitly taught
make out the meaning
should be taught
 • Beside testing comprehension, it is necessary to teach
Teach for students how to comprehend and to monitor
comprehension.
comprehension • Cognition vs. metacognition
• Technique: “Questioning the author”
Work on increasing reading rate

The teacher must work towards finding a balance between assisting students to improve
their reading rate and developing reading comprehension skills.

Teach readers to reduce their dependence on a dictionary. Skills such as scanning,

skimming, predicting, and identifying main ideas get students to approach reading in
different ways.
Teach reading strategies

Strategies are “the tools for active, self-directed involvement that is necessary
for developing communicative ability. Strategies are not a single event, but
rather a creative sequence of events that learners actively use” (Oxford, 1996).

To achieve the desired results, students need to learn how to use a range of
reading strategies that match their purposes for reading.
 Encourage readers to
transform strategies
into skills.
• Strategies = conscious actions that
learners take to achieve desired
goals or objectives; => Create chances for practice
reader-oriented
• Skill = a strategy that has become
automatic; a cognitive ability a
person is able to use when
interacting with written texts;
text-oriented
Reading subskills

Predicting Skimming Scanning

Deducing
Reading for gist,
meaning/Guessing
global Reading for detail
vocabulary from
understanding
context

Making inference
Note-taking (about attitudes,
feelings, moods…)
Build assessment and
Quantitative assessment will include information from
reading comprehension tests as well as reading rate data.

evaluation into your Qualitative information can include reading journal

teaching responses, reading interest surveys, and responses to reading

strategy checklists.
Teaching processes
• Bottom-up process: extract information from the linguistic
elements in a written or spoken text to construct meaning.
Include word recognition (and the subprocesses this implies),
lexico-syntactic processing (e.g. processing affixes/ stems,
phrases and clauses) and semantic processing (e.g.
assembling propositions)…

• Top-down process: Draw meaning from around or outside the

text (e.g. from topic-related background knowledge and
experience) to help make sense of it.
Sample:
Top-down
process
route map
20 questions: Guess the person!
Taylor Swift: The
Trailblazer of the Era
Taylor Swift became a country singer in 2006. Since then, she has
experimented with many music styles. She has sold over 200
million records. Ms. Swift made history with her album
"Midnights", becoming the first singer to win best album at the
Grammys four times. She is also a big influencer. Forbes magazine
called her one of the world's 100 most powerful women. In her
speech, she said, "I would love to tell you that this is the best
moment of my life, but I also feel this happy when I finish a
song… or… rehearse." She said music makes her "so happy".
Stages of teaching reading

Pre-reading: While-reading: Post-reading:

(1) activate or build the students’ Help the students to understand (1) Review the content
knowledge of the subject the specific content and to (2) Work on bottom-up concerns
(2) get the learners become become aware of the rhetorical such as grammar, vocabulary,
familiar with some of the structure of the text discourse features…
language needed in coping with (3) Consolidate what has been
the stage read, relate the information from
(3) motivate the students to read the text to the students’
knowledge, interests and opinions
Pre-reading activities
• Prediction: open prediction,
true/false prediction
• Using questions
• Brainstorming and listing ideas
• Ordering pictures
• Vocabulary games
• Reading knowledge chart, KWL charts
 • Match the following while-reading techniques
While-reading activities with their description
a. The teacher (T) prepares questions about the ideas in the text. For each question,
there are three or four options for students (ss) to choose from.
b. T writes the main ideas of paragraphs from the reading text on the board. ss read
1. Ordering pictures the text and match these main ideas with the number of the paragraph.
c. T writes some true and some deliberately false statements about the story on the
2. Multiple choice
blackboard. Then ss check the text to find out which are correct.
3. Gap-fill d. These are the questions related to the main ideas of a reading text to check
students' comprehension. ss work individually or in pairs to answer questions from T
4. Ordering statements/ events or from the textbook.
e. T prepares some simple pictures to describe a story or a text and sticks them on the
5. Grids
board randomly. ss read the text and arrange the pictures in the correct order.
6. Matching f. T writes about 6 to 8 statements on the main points of a reading text but the
statements are jumbled. ss read the text to find out the order of the statements.
7. Finding the heading for each paragraph g. T writes a short paragraph with several blanks in it. The blanks can be lexical or
grammatical items or both. ss are required to work in pairs, and then compare their
8. True/false statements
answers.
9. Comprehension questions h. ss read the text and choose an appropriate heading for each of the paragraph. The
headings may be provided in the book or by T.
i. T draws a grid on the board. This grid will contain the main information of the
reading text. ss are asked to read the text and fill in the gaps with information taken
from the text. Then they are asked to write the information in the grid
 Jigsaw Reading:
• Students read a short text setting up a problem.
• In different groups, they read different texts on the
same topic (e.g., different aspects of behavior).
• Each group shares and recaps their part of the content
with others.

Reading Puzzles:
• Texts are chopped into paragraphs on separate pieces of
paper.
• Students reassemble the text by putting the paragraphs
in the correct order.
Other reading Word/Sentence Detectives:

activities • Definitions are on the board without corresponding

words.
• Students find words with those meanings in the reading
text.
• Can progress to identifying whole sentences or
paragraphs.

Reading with Half the Words:

• Half of the words in a text are removed or covered.
• Students try to guess or anticipate the content with only
half of the words visible.
• Encourages inference and understanding through
limited information.
Post-reading activities
• Role-play

• Discussion

• Writing tasks (creative,

argumentative…)

• Retelling the story

• Re-presentation of content: draw a

picture, make a diagram/mindmap…
Here are some
activity ideas.
Which activities
would you use
for each stage?