TEACHING READING SKILLS

READING LESSON CLASS

In this reading activity I tried first to increase my students’ motivation towards reading giving them choices. I wanted them to practice past tense and to see this structure in context. So, I decided to work with biographies of interesting people in history. I took them from the book ‘’What a Life’’ Stories of amazing people by Milanda Broukal. Longman. This is a graded book for beginner students, as I mentioned in my previous tasks my students are beginners, just a few of them has reach the intermediate level.

By giving them choices to read I think they will be more willing to carry the activities. I chose six people for the choices: William Shakespeare, Louis XIV, Albert Einstein, Pablo Picasso, Pele and Princess Diana. I gave these choices to six groups that are in the same level, the opinions were divided, one chose William Shakespeare, one Albert Einstein, two chose Pele and the other two chose Princess Diana.

‘’Sequence of a reading lesson plan’’

Facilitator: Erika Narez Melgoza Level: Beginner
Topic: Pele’s biography Grammar: Simple Past Tense
AIM	STAGE PROCEDURE	ORGANIZATION	TIME	STRATEGIES OR TECHNIQUES USED	MATERIAL
To get the students ready for the reading part by previewing the language brainstorming ideas related to this person or to soccer.	PRE-READING T asks Ss what they already know about this person, and about soccer. Then students pass to the board and brainstorm words related. Ss look at a poster of Pele and say what they think about him.	Whole class	10 min	Previewing, predicting.	Poster of Pele or it can be projected in an OHP.
To make use of bottom up processing by recognizing verbs in past. To process the information just read to report it in a response to the teacher’s questions.	WHILE READING Students start reading aloud taking turns, at the end of each paragraph the teacher asks comprehension questions to check understanding, as well as any doubts about vocabulary. It can be easy questions to prove the students that they don’t necessary need to understand every single word. E.g. Did he finish High School? They are also asked to circle any verbs in past tense as well as the negative form. For example: ‘’He didn’t play the first games’’	Whole class taking turns Individual work when they answer questions orally and circle or underline past structures.	20 min	Retrieve information read and report it. Bottom up processing Distinguish between language functions.	One photocopy of the biography of Pele for each student.
To make use of the top down processing	POST READING When they finish reading, they will write a description of Pele, this description needs to be not only physically or about what they read; it needs to be about his personality, information that is not explicit in the reading.	Individually	15 min	Top down processing.	Pieces of paper and pencils.

As I expected, students were willing to carry the activities, I felt enthusiastic about their reactions. I applied this plan with a group of 22 students, all of them males. They are in the electronics major, so normally there are no girls there.

When I first showed the first picture and asked about him, they started to participate, almost everyone said the same but I felt pleased to hear them participating like that. Then we continue with the reading part, here some of them told me to continue asking questions instead of reading, so I asked two more and went through the next stage. In this part, I saw they understood the majority of the material, they asked me some questions about vocabulary as injury, scored and some others. They answered the questions correctly.

Finally in the last stage, they wrote the description of Pele, they did it pretty well. Some of them started writing about soccer and how it is the best and most popular sport in many countries; even though the activity was not exactly that, they were happy writing this information, so I accepted it.

CONCLUSION

I am sure this activity went well mainly because they were engaged with the topic. They chose to read it and the language were graded to their level, most of these students practice soccer and for many of them Pele is an idol.

I will apply the same activity with another group where there is a mix of girls and boys; I am not sure what will be the reaction. However, I will do some adjustments in the post stage and maybe I will use more time in the pre reading if they are engaged with this. Besides, I will try to manage better the participation because there were some students who participated less. So, I will take care of these details.

I think what I achieve best with this activity was to change my students’ opinion towards reading, I wanted them to succeed in this activity to build their confidence; that is why I designed it as simple as possible trying to use the strategies and techniques I considered best for the situation.

REFERENCES:

· Christine Nutall. Teaching Reading skills in a Foreign Language. 2000. Heinle & Heinle Pgs. 1-19.

· Farrel, Thomas. Teaching Reading to English Language Learners. A reflective guide. Corwin. 2009. pgs. 13-33.

· Franҫoise Grellet. Developing Reading Skills. Cambridge Language Teaching Library. 1996. pgs. 3-12.

· H. Douglas Brown. Teaching by Principles. An interactive approach to Language Pedagogy. 2^nd Edition. Longman. 2001. pgs. 298-316.

· Milada Broukal. What a Life! Stories of amazing people. Longman. 2001. Pgs. 77-78.

· Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition. Retrieved: September 24th, 2010. http://www.sdkrashen.com/Principles_and_Practice/index.html

· Wallace. Language Teaching. A scheme for teacher education. Oxford. 1992. pgs. 3-6, 14-18.

· http://www.seduca2.uaemex.mx/sistemas/Foro/arbol_foro2.php?iCveForo=58379&iForPdr=58379&iCveAct=23783&iTpoAct=4&sNav=Exp&sesComunidad=4584&equip=0