A suggested sequence for teaching with a written text

 

This sequence is an extract from Breaking the Sound Barrier: Teaching Language Learners How to Listen (Conti and Smith, 2019). It's not a prescriptive list, but does suggest a logical approach which you could use or adapt, especially if you are a teacher in training or have little experience.

1.       Pre-reading activity of some sort. This could be linguistic, e.g. a vocabulary brainstorm from the topic area, or non-linguistic, e.g. some taster questions in L2 or even L1 to stimulate some interest in the subject matter. In general it is not a great idea to go into a text ‘cold’.

2.       Read aloud the text. This helps ensure the class reads along at the pace you read and gets to hear sound-spelling relationships. To make sure every student is reading, use a trick such as warning that you will pause randomly and select a student to say the next word. Or tell the class you will make some deliberate mistakes they have to spot. Your intonation will also help students decipher meaning.

3.       Try giving an immediate off-the-cuff translation into L1 of the text. This can work well particularly with a lower attaining group. Think of this as a sort of instant parallel translation.

4.       Do choral repetition of part or all of the text, insisting on accurate pronunciation and full participation. This reinforces the first reading, builds some phonological memory and allows another pass at the meaning.

5.       Have some individual students read aloud short sections. Alternatively get students to read a sentence at a time to each other in pairs. The previous teacher reading and choral reading should make personal reading aloud easier. Another technique is to have students all read aloud individually with fingers in their ears. This has the benefit of discouraging distractions between students.

6.       Do a ‘find the French/Spanish/German’ style whole class exercise where students, by reading the text, have to find the L2 translation of the English word or phrase you read out. This gets the class to scan the text again. You could use hands up or no hands up. To ensure full participation students can write answers on mini-whiteboards.

7.       Do a ‘correct the false statement’ task. Give the class false statements which they have to correct from reading the text. They could give oral answers or write them down. These false statements can be tailored to the level of the group.

8.       Do a QA  sequence using the full range of questioning types described above. On hearing a good model answer from their peers or from your own recast (corrected version), students can write these down. This builds listening and transcription skill.

9.       Give a similar set of written questions.  Students work in pairs, with one as the teacher, one as the student. They can swap roles after a few minutes of questioning. This reinforces the previous oral practice.

10.   Do an aural gap-fill task. Students hide the text, you read aloud and pause at certain points to ask the class what the next word is (see Chapter 5). Answers could be given orally or written down. Again, this can be tailored to the class; the next word to be given might be quite memorable, obvious, or more difficult.

11.   Give a comprehension task such as true/false/not mentioned, tick the correct sentences or match the starts and ends of sentences.

12.   Hand out a gap-fill task, either with options available to choose from or not. You could make the focus on either grammar or meaning, depending on your aims at the time.

13.   Do a traditional dictation or running dictation activity. Running translation is another option. Both of these are motivating for students and get them out of their seats for a bit.

14.   As a quiet written task give sentences from the text to translate into English, or do retranslation into L2. This provides more recycling of language and helps reinforce meaning for students who may still have any issues.

15.   If the text is appropriate there may be a more creative oral or written task which could be done with some classes. Students may be able to make up interviews, tell the story from a different point of view or summarise the key points in their own words.