Principle For Teaching Reading Skills

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Do you know that when we teach something, it has some principles?
It also happening in teaching reading skills.
When you want to teach reading as a second language or foreign language you have to consider some principles to make your teaching is good.

Here, I want to mention those principles: 

• In an integrated course, don't overlook a specific focus on reading skills.

Give time for students to do silent reading that can develop a sense of fluency. Silent reading also becomes an excellent method for self-instruction on the part of learner.

• Use technique that are intrinsically motivating.

Just focus on the goals, choose material that is relevant with the goals also the interest of students.
You also can use LEA (Language Experience Approach), it is the famous one to motivating approach for reading instruction.
 LEA referred to where students create their own material for reading.

• Balance authenticity and readability in choosing text.

Authenticity is if you give a real story for the students which already edited to language proficiency level of students. Meanwhile the simplified text is make story/ passage/ essay simpler than the original one, but actually it become more difficult.
Christine Nuttall (1996) offered three criteria for choosing reading texts:

1. Suitability of content--> students will find interesting, enjoyable, challenging, and appropriate for their goals in learning English.
2. Exploitability--> a text that facilitates the achievement of certain language and content goals.
3. Readability--> a text with lexical and structural difficulty that will challenge students without overwhelming them.

• Encourage the development of reading strategies.

To what extent are you getting your students to use all these strategies?

• Include bottom-up and top-down techniques

Make sure you give enough classroom time to focusing on the building blocks of written language, geared appropriately for each level.

• Follow the SQ3R sequence.

SQ3R following five steps:

1. Survey: Skim the text to everview of the main ideas
2. Question: Reader ask her/ his wishes to get out of the text
3. Read: Read the text while looking for answers
4. Recite: Write the point of the passage
5. Review: Assess the importance of what one has just read and incorporate it into long-term associations

• Plan on prereading, during-reading and after reading phases

1. Before you read: Introduce the topic, encourage your students to skimming and scanning, predicting the main idea.
2. While you read: Giving students a sense of purpose for reading rather than just reading because your ordered it.
3. After you read: Comprehension questions are just one form of activity appropriate for postreading.

• Build as assessment aspect into your techniques.

It is important for reading to be able to accurately assess students' comprehension and development of skills.
Consider some of the following overt responses that indicate comprehension:

1. Doing: reader respond physically command
2. Choosing: reader select alternative posed orally or in writing
3. Transferring: reader summarize what they have read
4. Answering: answer the questions
5. Considering: reader make a note or outline
6. Extending: reader provide the end of story
7. Duplicating: reader translate the passage into her/ his native language
8. Modeling: for example --> reader puts together a toy after reading directions for assembly
9. Conversing: reader engage a conversation that indicate the information

All right, that's all about the reading skills principles. A lot but very useful I think for teacher.

So, if you want to teach reading in your classroom, please consider those principles.

Characteristics of written language from writer (student) point of view

Did you know that to learn English as a second language or foreign language have some characteristics?

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May be not all English teacher realized about it, but these characteristics are very common in students writing process. 

This written actually is design for English teacher to make them realized and consider about some characteristics and hopefully, by the end of this post English teacher could help their students to create a good written either in English as a second/ foreign language or written in their first language. So that student's written will be better :)

Well. Pay attention with these characteristics:

1. Permanence -- means when students write something they already set in their mind have to finish in one session. They don't think that they can edit or revised their written to be better because students think their written would be permanence. In this case teacher perhaps notice for all of students that they just write everything come in their mind and they can edit it to finish their written.
2. Production time -- This part is crucial issue for me. In this part students think about the deadline. The possibility case in here is students just only focus on the deadline not for the content of their written. As the result, their written will not maximal and they can not or elaborate their written. Again this is also job for teacher to push students think about the process of learning rather than the result.
3. Distance -- have a relationship  with the audience anticipation. Before students start to write they have to know who will be read their written. If they write for teenager it also influence the word, phrases and sentences that will use.
4. Orthography -- This part is talk about the technical of appearance. After writer consider about the word, phrase and sentence that they will use students also consider about the font, size and also the picture. All appearance have to connect with the topic and target of the reader.
5. Complexity -- This is talk about the the sentence whether students use simple sentence, combine or complex sentence. We as a teacher will know the students progress of learning. And for the academic writing, students should provide reference.
6. Vocabulary -- Talk about word richness. We (teacher) can see what a new vocabulary that they already acquired. 
7. Formality -- This is complex conventions for academic writing (describe, explain, compare, criticize, argue, etc). If the writer create academic writing it means the product have to formal. Because of that the language that they use have to formal and polite. The font or size have to consistent with the guideline that they use (APA stlye, MLA etc).

All right, that's all about the characteristics of written language from student's view.

Let's make our student's writing better by our help :)