92-pages-GUIDELINES-FOR-SECONDARY-SCHOOLS-All-Streams-and-Sections

learning; and thus identify their language learning strengths and areas for improvement. This process includes
testing self-comprehension, recognizing misinterpretation, and suggesting strategy revision.
Practical steps for teaching reading
In a reading comprehension lesson, three stages are to be distinguished: pre-reading, while-reading, and postreading.
1) Pre-reading stage:
The pre-reading stage aims; for instance, at brainstorming the ideas included in the text. The length and time of
the activities involved in this stage depend on the task of reading, the learners’ and the teacher’s objectives.
Here, the focus is primarily on determining the extent of the learners’ knowledge of and familiarity with the
theme under study. Resorting to the following activities / tasks activates learner readers’ schemata:
• Previewing the title: The title can be used to trigger the learners’ predictive potential about the content
of the text.
• Semantic mapping: This technique can be applied to elicit from learners words, word families, concepts
and notions, related to the theme under study.
• Picture stimulus: Effective use of pictures, graphs and other available visual aids can kindle the
learners’ interest and foster their predictive potential. This activity can also be followed by a short
discussion of the topic.
• Theme discussing: Prior to reading, the teacher can pair off the learners or get them together in small
groups to discuss the theme of the text.
• Learner generated questions: Here, the learners are invited to write a set of questions which they expect
the text will respond to. The title, pictures, headings, first sentence of the text, first paragraph, first and
last paragraph can be used as a platform to this end.
• Vocabulary exploitation: This activity is based on a number of key words in a text written on the board
for the learners to guess the theme of the text. To further explore the theme through non-committal
questions, the teacher can brainstorm ideas in connection with it. As a follow-up, learners can be
encouraged to write sentences/ texts incorporating the given vocabulary.
• Exploiting the text in chunks: To enable learners to become effective predictors, the teacher can either
select the opening sentence(s) or a chunk anywhere in the text and have the learners then read and state
what has happened before or guess what comes next.
A word of caution! ‘Background knowledge’ activation is vital for reading texts effectively. However, activating
that knowledge might not occur automatically, especially when the information activated contains
misconceptions that may override the information in the text. If the necessary ‘schemata’ is not available, the
text also remains ‘opaque’ to learner readers. Some of the teaching or learning strategies cited above might not
suit all types of learners, and therefore a variety of tasks is needed with particular focus on learners developing
their own reading strategies. Some learner readers’ generated questions about the text and their expectations are
viewed as critical for improving reading (see SQ4R method).
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التوجيهات التربوية وبرامج تدريس مادة اللغة الإنجليزية س ت ث ت 2007