By: Jose Gregorio Preciado Petro, Liliana Yolanda Burga Yuy, Lourdes Katiusca Gomez Cornejo and Claudia Marcela Suescún Giraldo.
Reading is more than one step learners need to develop. As the experience has taught when reading the learner has the possibility to acquire new vocabulary, to learn more about the world and to develop strategies for language learning.Definitely written language plays an important role in language learning. Some researchers agree on the point that the process of language development can be more efficient if learners read material at an appropriate level and if they receive help with the language while they are reading.It is precise to take in consideration that, there are different types of skills used quite naturally when reading in a mother tongue. Unfortunately, when learning a second or foreign language, people tend to employ only «intensive» style reading skills.
It has been noticed that students insist on understanding every word and find it difficult to take my advice of reading for the general idea, or only looking for required information. Students studying a foreign language often feel that if they don’t understand each and every word they are somehow not completing the exercise. Here it is a brief explanation of these types and how they can be approached.
Skimming For example: The Newspaper (quickly to get the general news of the day), magazines (quickly to discover which articles you would like to read in more detail), business and travel brochures (quickly to get informed)
Scanning For example: The «What’s on TV» section of your newspaper, a train / airplane schedule, a conference guide.
Extensive reading For example:The latest marketing strategy book, a novel you read before going to bed, magazine articles that interest you
Intensive reading For example: A bookkeeping report, an insurance claim, a contract. Tips for Teaching – Reading Low Beginnning
Focus on getting students to recognize simple words and phrases in written English Types of Materials: Texts with pictures, heavily contextualized information High Beginning Focus on straightforward, easy-to-follow texts here little inference is required Types of Materials: Simplified readings, remedial texts Low Intermediate Focus on extracting main ideas and finding specific information in learner-oriented texts Types of Materials: Articles and books designed especially for non-native readers High Intermediate Focus on drawing conclusions, making inferences and outlining ideas in a variety of texts Types of Materials: Items of general interest in a variety of formats Advanced Focus on understanding of author’s intent, including tone, irony and nuance Types of materials: Literature and highly-specialized texts The most important goals when teaching reading are to help learners understand the meaning of the words in a text and to help them use the text to develop their language ability and here is when we can take advantage of CALL. Learners can interact with the computer when they click on a phrase for help with meaning or select help from a menu to have more information about culture or grammar.Such interactions before, during and after reading are really valuable for second language acquisition, because learners pay attention to the language and can comprehend it.The interaction with electronic texts is incredible and the learning of new words is more memorable.
ICT For reading
Why?
Kasper (2003) already talked about how important technology can be in the development of children’s literacy . It does not oly offers the teacher the opportunity to enhance their curriculum, but it provides learner ample opportunities to improve. Using ICT can help students with poor reading skills since they are more accesible and handy too. Implications in the classroom. It does not only affect the way children learn but, it also affects the way we teach . Children will be exposed to different things at a different time from when using more tradtitional materials ( speech -text conenctions and make the work he had done a tangible thing can be examples) As teachers, we also should develop the ability to » edit» materials in order to avoid distractions or to extend them to higher levels.We should teach students to look for the best information and materials on line and to be more independent . We should be able to provide continuous support to learners and help them in the development of skimming and scanning strategies. Assesment is also greatly modified since it gives us the opportunity to create more personall and faster ways of assesment ; at the same time they can help us in the placement of students according to their reading levels and selct a specific area or sub skill we want to emphasize .
How to do it? The internet alone offers many options and ideas to include in our classes, here are some links that you might find useful to read or to apply:
This link can help you create stories and texts in general for your studenst to enjoy: http://bookbuilder.cast.org/
This one provides a source of reflection for us as teachers: http://cte.jhu.edu/TeachingExceptionalCHildren-JC.pdf
This link can show you how helpful this kind of activities can be: http://www.ldonline.org/ld_indepth/technology/lewis_rdgsftware.html
This one provides material for reading: http://www.eslgold.com/reading.html
This one offers reading material practice: http://www.tv411.org/reading
Here you can find interesting reading lesson plans: http://www.eslflow.com/readinglessonplans.html
Conclusion.
In this ever-more demanding world of foreign language education we need to be very aware of the evolution of technology so we can take advantage of this knowledge and apply it in our classrooms, specially when it comes to the development of skills such as reading that are sometimes hard to motivate in our students. The use of ICT’s for reading can be quite useful for us if we have the courage of experiencing something new and the will to take our students to higher levels of proficiency.