CELTA Online

About Receptive Skills (Reading)

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Basic facts about Reading as a skill:

 Reading helps with conscious or unconscious language acquisition

 It has an impact on the development of all the other skills
 People read different texts in different ways, depending on the reason why they are reading
 People use a mixture of sub-skills when they are reading, and often deploy several of these at the same time
 Learners learning a second language are supposedly literate in their L1 (their mother language)
 Learners need to be trained to apply the skills they use naturally in their L1 to L2
 When done in a formal learning context, it is level-sensitive
 Learners profit from reading for general information first and then, specific information

The Staging of a Receptive Skills Lesson (Reading & Listening)

Every reading or listening lesson to be taught as a skills lesson should follow the stages suggested below:

1. Lead-in
2. Pre-teaching of Lexis (if necessary)
3. Text Phase:
a. Set the scene for the text (maybe using the pictures generally associated with it)
b. Set the first task (Initial Reading Task, or Gist Reading Task), for general comprehension
(Here, Ss need less time to read the text. This initial task helps students to feel confident about the text. It also
prepares them for the second task, which is more complicated and encourages them to read the text more
thoroughly.)
c. Set the second task (Detailed or Specific Reading Task), for Ss to read for specific information
(Here, Ss need more time to read the text. They will need to read more carefully to find out specific information.)
4. Follow-up
(Here, a communicative task needs to be offered for Ss to react to the topic of the text, NOT the text itself.)
5. Final Feedback on the task
6. Correction of possible mistakes made in the communicative stage (Follow-up)

Suggested tasks that respond to different subskills:

 To set the scene

• Use pictures and / or headlines to generate ideas about the text
• Give the topic and learners discuss what they know about it
• Guess the meaning of the title
• Look at the headline or title – learners think of 1 idea they except to read about
• Learners come up with questions they would like to ask about the topic, and later check if the text answers it

 Initial Reading Tasks (Gist)

• Match text to picture
• Match a heading to a paragraph
• Match a question to an answer (e.g. interviews)
• Choose a title for the passage (from the ones given)

 Detailed Reading Tasks (Specifics)

• T/F
• Multiple-choice questions
• Gap-fill (for interpretation, not language)
• Sentences correction (for interpretation, not language)
• Summarize the text
• Sentence ordering
Procedural Hints:

 It is important to give learners a reason to read. A well-devised task will guide them and help them to avoid getting
stuck on new words, or other unimportant areas of the text.

 Setting a time limit for each task will encourage students to read the text fairly quickly so that they gain an overall
understanding of the text, and sharpen the skill you are helping them develop.

 Monitoring Ss is a must, but in a receptive skills lesson, it needs to be done from a distance.

 Make use of peer-checking before checking answers with everyone in order to give students more confidence. This
step also gives her the opportunity to monitor and that in turn will help inform how she manages the class feedback
stage.

 The teacher is not supposed to give answers to Ss but to validate theirs. However, a final written record of the answers
should be boarded or distributed to learners, after the feedback on the task.

General Hints:

• Reading is an important skill and therefore has an important place in the classroom.
• Make it interesting to Ss by arousing their curiosity about the topic of the text.
• Show learners how they should read a text (skimming vs scanning). Reassure students they don’t have to
understand every word in the text as long as they can get the overall meaning (skimming). Encourage them to
deduce meaning (at least partially) from context. Tell them they will need to read a little more carefully for
specific information (scanning).
• Grade the task, not the text! (Simpler texts call for more challenging tasks, and vice versa).
• Avoid choosing articles from tabloids or any source that incorporates too much colloquialism.
• Pre-teaching lexis will help students’ comprehension, but don’ go overboard: 4-5 words max!
• Prepare tasks that guide students through the comprehension of the text, but do not test them.
• Reading is essentially a silent activity, which should be done individually prior to checking.
• In communicative language teaching, it does not make much sense to have Ss read the text aloud.
• Encourage students to read for pleasure outside the classroom.

What NOT to do:

 Select a highly technical text

 Select a text that is over or under challenging
 Ask Ss to read a text WITHOUT a clear task
 Pace up and down while Ss read the text
 Have Ss do reading tasks in pairs or groups
 Ask Ss to read texts aloud

Possible problems Ss may face:

1. The text is too long.
2. Ss may not be interested in the topic.
3. Ss may feel like looking up every word they do not know in the dictionary.
4. Ss do not understand the vocabulary in the text.
Possible solutions:

1. Ensure the text is an appropriate length for your students.

2. Raise their interest in the topic before they read through an engaging lead-in.
3. Encourage students to read quickly to get a general understanding by setting clear time limits.
3/4. Choose texts that are appropriate for the level. Ensure the language isn’t too difficult and/or pre-teach words that
can hinder general understanding and are not tested later.