Page 172 - Teaching English as a Foreign Language for Dummies 2009

Chapter 10: Taken as Read: Teaching Reading Lessons
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Some authentic pieces of writing you can use in the classroom include:
✓ Classifiedads:Studentscandiscussthings they’d like to sell or buy – a bike or a piece of furniture, for example. First, talk about ways of buying and selling unwanted items. Then, use a page full of classified ads to practise scanning for particular purchases. Give the students a budget and certain specifica- tions to match the ads with. Finally, as a follow on, students can write their ads and make a notice board in class. Lonely hearts columns are great fun.
✓ Problem pages: Tell students about a prob- lem you have and ask for some advice. Find out if they know what an agony aunt is and if they’re common in their own country. Following that, read letters from a problem page and predict what the advice will be. Read the professional advice on the page and get students’ opinions on it. Role-play talking about various problems and giving advice.
✓ Tourist information: Collect or download leaflets on various tourist attractions in an English-speaking country. Find out what students already know about these places or whether they’ve visited them. Ask stu- dents to write questions they’d like to ask a tour guide and then have them read the leaflets to see whether their questions have been answered. They can read differ- ent leaflets and pool their answers. They can write their own tourist information to follow up.
✓ Filmblurbs:Examinetheblurb(theinforma- tion on the back cover) of a DVD. Skim by looking at the length of the film, the actors and director but scan by reading about the plot. Find out whether students would be likely to watch the film and ask why. A fol- low-up listening lesson can involve watch- ing a clip or two.
Notice that in each reading source, you can do a follow-up activity that involves a different skill (not reading).
Ideas for reading lessons
Before long, students can start performing short dialogues from a script using the phrases from a recent lesson. The following is an extract from a beginners’ text. Ask the class to tell you what people say when they meet and put their ideas on the board. Students can then compare their suggestions with the text.
En: Hello! I’m a new student and my name’s En. What’s your name?
Alejandro: I’m Alejandro and I’m from Venezuela. Pleased to meet you En! Are you from Malaysia?
En: No, I’m not from Malaysia. I’m Chinese. Alejandro: Oh, you’re Chinese! Sorry! Fabio:
En:
Alejandro: