The Receptive Skill Of Reading - Essay Example

?DESIGNING A RECEPTIVE SKILLS LESSON By Introduction to the receptive skill of reading In designing a receptive skill lesson, one of the things that one should put in mind is that the students tend to understand something properly when they read a text thoroughly and understand it. Another key thing that one should put in mind is that the students tend to use their imaginations a lot in defining what is being taught to them through their power of observation. The main aim of providing these materials is to improve the reading and the understanding of the students. One of the main ways of ensuring that the students are interested in what is being taught is to make the lesson more interesting, in a more personal manner if possible. One of the ways to achieve the latter is to use prediction in that before indulging in the topic, the students get the chance to brainstorm on what the topic is all about so that they can get the chance to express their ideologies as well as their understandings. The reason for the emphasis on the personal learning is due to the sense that people get to learn more when they are “involved personally in the topic” (Barone, 2011, p 38). The reason for the latter is on the basis that when students are involved in the topic, they are able to use their personal knowledge on the topic, which makes it one of the best ways of learning because people learn what is personally relevant to them. The material to be used as per this receptive skill lesson is the influence of micro blog on the movie attendance as obtained from http://www.enread.com/science/94834.html. The activities as per this lesson have been designed to suit an upper intermediate class in the C1 CEFR level. Aims of the lesson The aims of this lesson are stated in their level of importance. The first aim for the students is based on their basic reading skills. To enhance their basic reading skills, detailed reading will be conducted. In addition, the students will receive information through the technique of finding words as well as phrases in the texts. The second part is aimed at the improvement of the students’ gist reading, listening and reading skills . To achieve this, the students will receive a skimming practice for the gist through the selection of the relevant summaries provided to them. The last language skills that the students are going to learn are the speaking skills. The reason for this is so that the students are able ‘to improve their expertise of discussions’ through the use of groups, which can help them deliberate their human experiences with each other. This is mainly for the purpose of improving their speaking skills (Thompson, 2007, p 48). Tasks overviews Since the main theme that is persistent in the source text is that of the influence of micro blog on the movie attendance, as a start to the lesson, the first thing will be to get the students to be deeply involved in the material that is being taught (Appendix 1). To get them to be interested in the subject matter mentioned in the latter, I will at first tell them to find the main idea sentence and read it aloud to help them improve on their reading skills. Secondly, I will give the students some time to ensure that they get the chance to understand the topic as well as understand what it is all about - this is for the purpose of improving their listening skills. The next thing is to get them to discuss on how they would answer why the micro blog is so influential to a person who does not have a clue about what the topic states. The reason why this question is important as per this lesson is because it will get their imagination to work, since they will have to think of some of the most basic concepts that are related to what they have read and find the right words to express themselves and using the speaking skills that they have gained; they will be able to express themselves properly. The group engagements will also enable the students to think of ideas that are positive which are also highly related to the topic. The discussion will also form a good task for enhancing the reading and listening skills (Mishra, 2009, p 56). Pre- lesson practices Task one- warm-up activity Before the start of the lesson, before the introduction of the topic of study for the students, I will present the list of words that are somewhat new compared to what the students have been studying over the past periods of time. Such words as per this topic will include geographic preferences, demographic findings and movie attendance. The reason for this pre-teaching vocabulary is because they are ‘vital in the understanding of the context’ that is supposed to follow in relation to the topic (Mishra, 2009, p 233). An example of the definitions of geographic preferences is countries, states, or regions where a private equity firm will consider an investment. The definition of demographic findings, on the other hand, is the results of a statistic characterizing human population. For the phrase of movie attendance, I will use the picture in Appendix 2 as a visual aid to explain the meaning and check whether the students have understood. For the understanding example, I would ask the students about an experience of going to the movie theatre and the reaction of the people to the newest irritable movie. This is mainly to enhance the sub skill of organization in speech as they express their opinions. While task Task two-Gist task The students at this stage will be given the article that is complete so that they can get to quickly go through it and thereafter select a summary (Appendix 3) that suits most appropriately for what they have read. The latter includes statements such as demographic findings of Blog readers. The main focus of the task is based on the skill of skimming for gist (Skowron, 2006, p 68). The main purpose of this task is to ensure that the students get to understand how in general, ‘the way that the argument is presented’ (Kormos, 2012, p 160). ‘The time limit will have to be strict’ to ensure that some of the students do not get more reading time than the others. The purpose of this task is to improve the pace of the students’ reading skills with the deep understanding of the content. (LittleJohn, 1998, p 152). So as to help the student understand the text better, one of the things that will be taught to them is how to read silently with adequate understanding. The student will be indulged in the process of understanding what is vital for his purpose. One of the ways to ensure that this happens is to ask the students to answer the questions that they will be provided and if the task require that some words be looked up in the dictionary, I will first tell the students to read the text and see whether they can tell the meaning in relation to the text. Detailed reading task For this task, the students will now get the chance of reading through the whole text in a detailed manner. The students will also get to underline all the phrases and the words (Appendix 3) that are associated to blog valence, advertising and marketing. The main focus of this practice is to ensure that the students get the ‘required skills of reading through a text’ (Skowron, 2006, p 95). Through the detailed study of the text, the students are also able to gain the ability to express one text which as per this case is blog in different ways. Task four- organizing the follow-up activity speaking task As the lesson continues with the topic of discussion, the students will get the chance to talk about the personal experiences that they have had to get to exploit the text further in pursuit of developing their skills in oral eloquence as well as listening skills in the process of expressing themselves. The purpose of these questions is to get the students to tell more about themselves with the discussions that arise would likely be positive ‘despite the depth that they run’ (Brook, 2012, p 9). This exercise is more than it seems in that it uses examples that are more relatable so that the students are able to understand the topic more deeply in that they get to show they speaking skills through talking about something that they are familiar with. Conclusion In the last part of the class, I will give the students a review activity so that I can get to see the progress that they have made in that one topic regarding the subject matter. Some of the reading skills that will be taught will include, the elimination of bad behaviors in reading, the development of flexible skills of reading and the obtaining of overview reading skills. The sub skills to be obtained include those of association that are important in effective reading and those of recognition that enable the student to recognize instantly, written words or phrases. One of the things that I have to look at keenly is the time so that I can try my best to end the topic were I had planned and ensure that I do not start a new topic. One of the ways that I will carry out the review activity is to ask the students what they have learned that day. The purpose of the latter is so not an implication by the teacher to the students what they have learned like the traditional methods of teaching nut it instead gives them a chance to tell me what they have actually understood. Reference list Barone, D., 2011. Children's Literature in the Classroom Engaging Lifelong Readers. New York, Guilford Publications. Kerr, P., 2007. Straightforward Student's book. [Ismaning], Hueber. Mishra, C. R., 2009. Lesson planning. New Delhi: India, A.P.H. Pub. Corp. Skocik, C., 2002. English lesson plans for substitute teachers. Portland: Me, J.W. Walch. Littlejohn, A., & Hicks, D., 1998. Cambridge English for schools. 4 4. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Skowron, J., & Skowron, J., 2006. Powerful lesson planning: every teacher's guide to effective instruction. Thousand Oaks: Calif, Corwin Press. Brook-Hart, G., Jakeman, V., & Jay, D., 2012. Complete IELTS. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Read More