READING SKILLS - SESSION 1
Steve Banfield

Pre-session tasks
Before you come to the session, please make notes and be ready to talk about the following topics (tasks 1 and 2 below).

TASK 1
A.
What do we read (as native speakers)? (tick)
What do our students read (in reality)? (cross)
What should we encourage our students to read? (double cross)

B. Rank-order the categories.
Which ones are most important for our students to be exposed to and /or practise?

· Novels, plays
· Poetry
· Letters (postcards, emails, telegrams etc)
· Newspapers, magazines (different articles and features)
· Reports, scientific & technical articles, academic essays
· Handbooks, textbooks, guidebooks
· Recipes
· Adverts, brochures, catalogues
· Telephone directories, dictionaries, grammars
· Notices, signs, labels (instructions (i.e. how to use…), warnings (i.e. Keep off the grass), rules/regulations, forms, price lists, menus, food and drink labels)
· Comic strips, cartoons, horoscopes
· Statistics, diagrams, charts, tables, maps
· Other???

TASK 2
For what reasons do we read?
Put the categories from task 1 into the appropriate column.
Do any of the text-types not fit in any of the columns?
Where would you put them?

The session
If you missed the session, write the following essay:
'Describe the reading practices of a group of students you know well.
What sorts of text do they read in class?
What sorts of text do they read outside class?
What does this tell you about the sorts of reading texts your students need to be encouraged to read?
How would you encourage them to read more?
(700 words)
Then, use this link to complete the material covered.

Post Reading
Before the next session on Reading, make sure you have read:
Nuttal C - Teaching Reading Skills in a Foreign Language, Heinemann (1982)
It's more than worth the effort.