Dear FLE 324 members,
You need to comment on the approach to teaching reading by Macalister (2011), which is uploaded on METUONLINE,the degree of its applicability in the Turkish context and the extent to which it can be applied to the Turkish context effectively, the potential challenges of this approach for the EFL learners and EFL teachers.
YOU NEED TO CHOOSE ONLY ONE OF THE OPTIONS (OPTION 1 OR OPTION 2).
the writer talks about a new approach to teaching reading to students. in this new approach, the process is dşfferent from the previous teaching reading practices. in the previous practices, teacher distributes the text, students read it and they answer comprehension questions and teacher checks the answers to evaluatethe learning.
ReplyDeletebut this approach is different from the previous ones. in this new approach, the writer mentions the four strands that should be considered while teaching language. those are meaning-focused input, languagefocused
learning, meaning-focused output, and fluency development. ıt says that teaching students how to read derives its root from the meaning focused input, rather than giving them practice at reading. the writer says that there are conditions for meaning focused input to be completed succesfully;
1) there should be a focus on meaning
2)the text or task should interest learners
3)there should be a new leearning item
4)the input should be understandable, activities should help understanding of the input
5)tasks should be stress free
those conditions should be met for succesful reeading task
and teachers should be able to explain the goal of the reading material, what it will add to students.
and there are certain goals like, language, ideas, skill and text. with the four strands, those goals should be combined, for example, if the goal of the reading activity is to
introduce learners to the structure of a newspaper article, then the new
learning is related to a Text goal. in other words, if the newspaper article
deals with an uninteresting or unknown topic and is written in difficult
language, the Text goal is unlikely to be achieved as other conditions
(Interest, Understanding, Stress-free) are not being met.
the most important aim should be meaning. Understanding
and applying the four-strands framework encourages teachers to consider
meaning. when the issue is the conveying meaning, the compreehension questions play an important role; comprehension questions have two functions; first one is the goal. if our goal is to draw attention to cause effect relationship, we should prepare WH questions, in other words, our questions should be in accordance with our aim. the second function of comprehension questions is monitoring. it assists teachers to evaluate students' understanding of the text.
for reading texts, we can also use other ways to evaluate understanding other than comprehension questions. we can ask students to transform language input into
a different form such as a diagram, plan, or table.
if our goal is to arrange a language focused learning, there are certain conditions that should be met.
1) we should make students notice or compare the way of the language form is used.
2) drawing attention to the way the form is used in the given input
3) producing new structures using the form.
for implementing the reading task succesfully, we should integrate it to the learners' lives to convey the meaning easily. the text should interest learners, when they look at the questions, it should be related to the text well and direct them in understanding the text. the reading text should help learners to understand the latter text succesfully. pre reading activities should assist understanding, through activating content schemata. everything related to the text should reduce stress for students. it should be learner centered, learners should understand the forms themselves. it should be meaningful and make sense for learners. it should enable students to notice the target form in deliberately chosen examples, it should enable comparing. there should be receptive retrieval, because the learners are seeing the formand retrieving
its meaning.
merve önder
I omit that blog assignment. With all my respects... :D
ReplyDeleteThe writer focuses on different types of teaching in reading. First one is meaning focused. This is explained with MINUS (meaning , interest, new learning, understanding, stress- free).There should be relevene with these conditions. Second one is Knowing the goal which is explained with mnomonics of LIST (Languae, ideas , skills, text)Goal should be reflected in new learning condition. After the first conditions are met, second ones should be reflected with the help of new text. Third one is attention to meaning.Writer says taht there should be a meaning in the text. We should not include some texts which are changed and became meaningless just to focus on one grammar structure. In this way our text become unnatural, and different from the language used by native speakers. In the meaning comprehension questions are mentioned.They are neededunderstand if our students really understood the text. But it is not so easy to make questions effective. Because of that writer recommends a different activity called information transfer. Input to a different from such as diagram or table is used according to this activity.The last one is language focused learning. Writer prefers teacher led discussions or student centered activities after the task- cycle to make students understand the topic better. All these are done in the class as a intensive reading activity. There are threetriking points about the article thatwant to mention. most of the time stress level of students who learn a new language is not thought by teachers. The activities mentioned in the article talks about this issue. Using materials which dcreasethe stress level of our students is really important. Second thing is finding meaningful texts. Sometimes some texts may nay be understood even by native speakers of that language, because some coursebooks focus so much on grammar that they just forget about the meaning to construct the sentences in thet way. The third one is that sometimes students may be get bored because of long comprehension questions, instead of that teachers can use some tables for students to fill in . In this way reading activities can become more fun
ReplyDeleteBecause reading is a skill and the skills are mostly inborn, teaching reading is an easy thing and can not occur in a short time, but actually when I read the article ‘teaching reading’ by Macalister I understand it is not very complicated to teach reading. When we teach a new language we always focus on two different parts; meaning and form. While teaching reading our focus is on meaning and the question we ask ourselves is that, as Macalister stated, ‘How does today’s teaching make tomorrow’s text easier’ I think this is the most important thing that we must think about while teaching reading. And Macalister clarify that In order to teach learners how to read, there needs to be a focus on developing skills and strategies that will assist future reading; recognizing conjunction relationships such as cause–effect, guessing the meaning of unfamiliar words from their context, and predicting likely content are examples of such foci. I think this is another important point because teaching reading must be different from practicing reading, which is also mentioned in the article. The conditions for meaning-focused input are stated in the article by Macalister like that:
ReplyDeleteThere is a focus on meaning
The texts and tasks interest the learners
There is new learning
For understanding; the input is understandable, activities help understanding
Tasks are stress-free or, at least, designed to reduce stress for the learners. According to my idea, those conditions are quite applicable in Turkish context too. Finally, maybe preparing comprehension questions to improve reading can be challenging because the questions must both play a monitoring role and help us to manage our goals.
In the article it is pointed out that what we do in our reading classes is to practice reading not to teach it. The children are assisted with new vocabulary and then expected to answer the comprehension questions. However in reading there should be a focus. The comprehension questions should be designed according to the goals. The goal may be teaching a new genre structure, or a grammar structure or the content. The students should be directed to focus on these specific goals in order reading to be effective and informative rather than just practicing a new reading passage, and in Turkish context these aims can be accomplished by clearly defined goals in the teachers mind. The comprehension questions can be prepared by the teacher or they can be used from textbooks. However they should be evaluated thoroughly whether or not they fit our aims. This may be a challenge since it requires a lot of time effort and skill. We should also be careful when choosing the reading passages. The texts should be meaningful and understandable to the children. I personally believe that apart from intensive reading there can also be a free voluntary reading session with the children which provide a lot of opportunities for children not only develop their reading skills but also their grammar skills, vocabulary and new information about different contents that they have chosen according to their interests. As the children will choose the reading themselves and they will read for the pleasure of reading they will have positive feelings about reading, and the outcomes will be effective.
ReplyDeletei agree with shero and choose another option...:)
ReplyDeleteThe author of the article says that we are trying to teach intensive reading by making students to feel stressed . language focused text are full of examples in grammar topic so sometimes some unrelated sentences is put on the text just for the sake of teaching grammar with reading passage. The author claims that stress free students can understand the passage with enough motivation. I agree with the author. The texts should take the attention of the students and it should not be beyond the level of the students. A text which is full of a lot of unknown words and difficult to understand should not be used in classroom. Bringing texts which are full of designed grammar points and not interested can not help teacher to teach reading. As teacher we just focus on reading in classroom and we do not give enough attention to teach extensive learning. The exercises done after the reading passage should also motivate the students. Generally after reading passages the teacher have long comprehension questions. These questions generally distress students. instead of long comprehension questions teachers can use tables or diagrams. According to the author using such activities can help students to learn how to read. So as prospective teacher we should not force our students to read the passages which are meaningless and not taking attention of them. We should teach how to read.
ReplyDeleteThe author of the article claims that the outdated methods should be put aside in teaching reading skills. According to the author the traditional practice for teaching reading is as such: teacher comes to the classrom, gives the students a text, some comprehension questions and support them with the potential unknown vocabulary in order to make them understand the text. But, he says, the comprehension questions are not efficient enough to teach the students “reading”. In such a way students do not learn to develop skills and strategies that will assist future reading; recognizing conjunction
ReplyDeleterelationships such as cause–effect, guessing the meaning of unfamiliar
words from their context, and predicting likely content. In other words, as Nation puts it, ‘The teacher should ask ‘‘How does today’s teaching make tomorrow’s text easier?’
According to Macalister a complete teaching of language should be consist of four new aspects, instead of the good, old, familiar skills that are reading, writing, listening, speaking- but which are meaning-focused input, language-focused learning, meaning-focused output, and fluency development. Besides, the teacher should always be able to explain the goal of the task, practice or activity. And should always focus on meaning.
Macalister offers an approach, which is originally belongs to Palmer (1982) instead of the comprehension questions, that is information transfer. He concludes that while comprehension questions do have a role to play in the teaching of reading, they are probably best used sparingly and in conjunction with other means of monitoring understanding. They should also be used with a clear learning goal in mind.
According to the author,teaching students how to read derives its root from the meaning focused input, rather than giving them practice at reading. the writer says that there are conditions for meaning focused input to be completed succesfully;
ReplyDelete1) there should be a focus on meaning
2)the text or task should interest learners
3)there should be a new leearning item
4)the input should be understandable, activities should help understanding of the input
5)tasks should be stress free
those conditions should be met for succesful reeading task
and teachers should be able to explain the goal of the reading material, what it will add to students.
and there are certain goals like, language, ideas, skill and text. with the four strands, those goals should be combined, for example, if the goal of the reading activity is to
introduce learners to the structure of a newspaper article, then the new
learning is related to a Text goal.
After the first conditions are met, second ones should be reflected with the help of new text. Third one is attention to meaning.Writer says taht there should be a meaning in the text. We should not include some texts which are changed and became meaningless just to focus on one grammar structure. In this way our text become unnatural, and different from the language used by native speakers. In the meaning comprehension questions are mentioned.They are neededunderstand if our students really understood the text.According to the author using such activities can help students to learn how to read. So as prospective teacher we should not force our students to read the passages which are meaningless and not taking attention of them. We should teach how to read.