Once the preparatory written work is done, they can all go around asking each other their own questions. They can present their results orally or in writing. Again, this is a structured activity but it involves communication and doing something with the information they’re told. It can also involve a little bit of arithmetic and the setting up of tables. Questions and activities Look back at the exercise at the bottom of page 38. It uses cards which are all about food. Can you think of more topics you could make cards for? Look at your textbook and list the activities from one lesson which are designed to practise oral language. Do you like them? Do you think they will be useful for your class? If you're not happy with them, how would you make them more suitable for your class? Either on your own or with a colleague, add some more free oral activities to the ones given in this chapter. They may be things you've done in class or read about elsewhere, or they may be activities which you've thought out yourself. we oo References Howe, D H 1985 English Today! ~ a 6-Level course for children, Oxford University Press Scott, W 1983 Are You Listening? Hong Kong Edition, Oxford University Press Worall, A and Abbs, B 1988 Longman Picture Wordbook Activity Book, Longman Wright, A 1976 Visual Materials for the Language Teacher LongmanReading Just as listening is the main source of language when pupils start to learn a language, print is the second main source. As pupils become better and better in the foreign language, the printed word becomes the main source of expanding and strengthening the language. Reading is also the language skill which is easiest to keep up ~ many of us can still read in a foreign language that we used to be able to speak as well. Books open up other worlds to youhg children, and making reading an enjoyable activity is a very important part of the language learning experience. Approaches to reading Many five to ten year olds are in the process of learning to read in their own language. Whether or not they have mastered the skill in their own language, and whether or not their own language is written in the Roman alphabet, will have an effect on the initial stages of teaching reading in English. example, a German child of nine will already be f most of the techniques of reading - with word di sentence links, paragraphs, how letters relate to sounds, how the illustrations help him or her understand what is going on. A Japanese child of nine will also be aware of much the same things, but he or she may not be very familiar with the Roman alphabet or relate sounds to individual Roman letters. Clearly, children whose mother tongue is not based on the Roman script have more stages to go through when they are learning to read in English. 1 There are a number of different ways to approach the introduction of reading in a foreign language. 1 Phonics Basically, we teach the pupils the letters of the alphabet, and the combination of letters, phonically — as they are actually pronounced ~ so thatthe letter a is pronounced /z/, the letter b is pronounced /b/, ¢ is pronounced /k/, ph is pronounced /f/ and so on. It is best to start off with three or four letters that can make up a number of words, like c a n t. You can then show pupils how to pronounce /wen/,/ket/,/kent/and/ten/. Although phonics can become very complicated as all the pronunciation rules are introduced, it can be a very useful way into reading for those learners who are not familiar with the Roman alphabet or who do not have a one to one relationship between letters and sounds in their own written language. It is not to be recommended as the main way into reading for those pupils who are already reading in their own language using the Roman alphabet, and it should not be taught to pupils who are learning to read using phonics in their own language — this could lead to great confusion in pronunciation. 2 Look and say | This approach is based on words and phrases, and makes a lt of use of flashcards - words written on cards like thi a book my book the blackboard It is usual to start by teaching already familiar to the children. repeat the word. This happens several times with each word. The introduction of the words only takes a short time, and goes quite quickly, so the teacher may spend five minutes of a thirty minute lesson on four new words. There are a lot of word recognition games which can be done at this stage - matching words and pictures, pointing to the object on the card, guessing which card Teddy has picked out of the hat — and so this approach encourages recognition of a range of words and phrases before ‘reading’ a text. 3 Whole sentence reading Here ‘is often means a story which the children read for the first time themselves after the whole text is familiar to them. The words are not51 presented in isolation, but as whole phrases or sentences. Since _ we will look at this approach in more det low. 4 Language experience approach This approach to reading is based on the child’s spoken language. The teacher writes down a sentence for the child to read which is based on what the child has said. For example: This is me. My sister is nine. She is in class 3F. This is a posteard from my uncle in Milan. Again, since we think that this is a good, pupil-centred approach to reading, we will go into it in more detail below. Clearly, if there was one correct method for teaching all children to read, then only one method would exist. We favour an approach which concentrates on meaning from the beginning. However, if your pupils have a mother tongue which is not based on the Roman script, you will probably find that you will have to spend quite some time teaching phonics and word recognition first. No matter which approach to reading you take as your basic approach, you should remember that all these approaches are a way in to reading and are not an end in themselves. You will probably want to make use of all the methods described at some stage in the process of learning to read. == ti ero years olds are likely to take longer to learn to read in a foreign language than eight to ten year olds. Some children starting school are not familiar with books or what they are used for. They have to go through the process of doing reading-like activities first — ‘reading’ from left to right, turning the pages at the ri the same pages again, etc. © If your pupils have not learnt to read in their own language, many will not yet have understood what a word is, nor what the connection is between the spoken and the written word.is an Reader Sentence structure, paragraphing, grammar — none of this means anything to most pupils at this stage. Decoding reading ~ making sense of what we see on the page ~ is a very involved process, and adults make use of all sorts of clues on the written page — punctuation, paragraphing, use of special words, references to things which have happened, hints as to what can happen. What five to seven year olds have instead is often a visual clue and this clue is vital to meaning. Take, for example, Belinda’s Story by Margaret Iggulden, a story written for four to seven year olds. The story is about an elephant called Belinda who goes around looking at animals of different colours. The text of the last three pages of the story 1s: I'm an elephant and I’m grey. That’s an elephant. It’s super. I'm an elephant and I’m super. Without the drawings, you don’t know that the elephant is unhappy about being grey. Here are the last three pages taken from the book, with the accompanying illustrations: — | 7 elephontOne of the conclusions to be drawn from this is that the illustrations in a book for young children matter almost as much as the words themselves. inglish. This means that you can spend much less time teaching the mechanics of reading, and concentrate more on the content. Children whose mother tongue is not based on the Roman alphabet will still have to spend more time on the mechanics of reading, but they know what reading is about, and this speeds up the process. Starting off Let us take as our example a class of six year olds who have English for three short lessons a week. Let’s look at four possible starting points.1 Reading a story from a book Look back at what we said in Chapter 3 about reading stories. Some of the stories which you read aloud will become the stories that your pupils read. Let’s take Belinda’s Story as our example. The whole text of the story is as follows: That's a bird. It’s green. That’s a butterfly. It’s red. ‘That's a fish. It’s blue. That's a crab. It’s yellow. That's a cat. It’s white. I'm an elephant and I’m grey. That’s an elephant. It’s super. Tm an elephant and I'm super. a) b) ) qd e) 8) Look back at what we said on page 28 about creating a routine for story reading. This is not a big book, so you will have to read with quite a small group. Read the book so that all the pupils can see it, and point to the words as you say them. This is important if your pupils are to understand the connection between the spoken and the written word. It also helps these beginners to understand what a word is. Some children may think that ‘butterfly’ is two words. Read at just under normal speed the first time, keeping your intonation correct. Let pupils point and ask questions if they want to, but not so much that it interrupts the flow of the story. Encourage the pupils to talk about the story. Ask them questions in their own language, like, ‘Why was Belinda unhappy?’ ‘Were the other animals unhappy?’ ‘Which animal did you like best?’ ‘Do you think Belinda is super?” Leave the book in the book corner. Tell the group they can read it on their own if they want to. The next week, read the story again. Let them give you some of the words. Teacher: ‘That's a...” Pupils: ‘Cat.’ Teacher: ‘It’s ..... : Pupils: ‘White’. Teacher: ‘Yes. That’s a cat. It’s white.’ Give all the pupils their own copy if possible and tell them to follow it while you read to them. Encourage them to point to the words as you read, but don’t slow down.55 h) If you see pupils pointing to the wrong words, sit with them and point with them. i) Let them read the book silently for themselves. j) Tell them they can read the book whenever they have time, Go back to it from time to time and read it with the whole class. Pupils don't usually get tired of good stories, and this is a good, simple story. 2 Reading a class story Instead of reading from a book, you might want to use a class story as your starting point for reading. This has the advantage that you can photocopy freely, making sure that everyone has a copy, and the pupils can colour their own copies. There’s also the point that shared stories are always a good starting point simply because they are shared. In a class where Teddy is used, build up a short story about Teddy using the story-telling techniques already described in Chapter 3. If you have already read the story about Belinda, you and the pupils could make up a story about Teddy who doesn’t like being brown/white/beige or whatever colour he is. This allows you to keep the same structure, but bring in more colours and animals: That’s a bird. It’s orange. That’s a fly. It’s green. That’s a frog. It’s green too. That’s a zebra. It’s black and white. I'm Teddy and P'm beige. He’s Teddy and we love him. He’s great. 'm Teddy and I'm great. When you make the book ask pupils to help you with the illustrations if they can. These ones were done by nine year olds at Mosstodloch Primary Schoo! in Morayshire.Your story can now be treated in the same way as above, but you can give the pupils their copies quite quickly. Remember that Teddy’s story must look like a book with pages to tun and pictures to look at. 3 Reading texts based on the child’s language This approach has proved effective with beginners in both age groups. The idea is that each individual pupil has his or her own written text which says what he or she wants it to say, and is used for both mother tongue and foreign language learning. When working in the foreign language, it is important that the teacher does not set the pupil a task which he or she does not have the words for in that language. For example, there’s no point in pupils bringing in a picture of the place where they live, if they have no words to talk about it. This type of reading is often based on a picture, but can be about something which has happened, or just about how the pupil is feeling today. It is easiest to start off with a picture. a) Ask the child to tell you about the picture. b) Ifhe or she gets stuck, ask either/or questions. ‘Is she tall or small?” ©) If this still doesn’t work, let the child tell you what he or she wants to say in his or her own language. If this translates into something familiar, talk about it, make sure the child understands. Do not write words which are new or unfamiliar. d) Write a sentence in the child’s book based on what the child has told you. It can be very simple. ‘This is me at home.’ e) Let the child see you writing the sentence, and say the words as you write them. f) The child repeats the sentence after you, pointing to the words as he or she says them. g) This is now that pupil’s reading task, which he or she can read aloud to you. h) It shouldn’t take more than a couple of minutes to do this ~ _ you have a lot of pupils in your class. i) This sentence can gradually be built on. ‘This is me at home. It’s my bedroom. It’s blue. It’s nice. I have fish in my bedroom,” j) As the child’s vocabulary increases, you can gradually build up stories.57 ‘The same technique can be used for making up group/class reading books. This technique of writing down what your pupils say or the stories they tell you helps the five to seven year olds to see that print is a means of communication, and that there is a relationship between the amount of talking that is done and the amount of writing on the page. For both age groups, it is important that the pupils see themselves as writers with something to say. 4 Reading familiar nursery rhymes or songs Most children learn nursery rhymes in their mother tongue and in English without having a complete understanding of what they're saying. Some nursery rhymes are produced as books, so the children can ‘read’ what they already know off by heart. While you might say that this isn’t real reading, the pupil can behave like a reader, and it helps to build up confidence. As we have said before, there is also a very narrow dividing line between knowing something off by heart and actually reading the words. Reading aloud Let us now move on to look at various reading techniques When we went to school, most of the reading done in class was reading aloud. Reading aloud is not the same as reading silently. It is a separate skill and not one which most people have that much use for outside the classroom. But it can be useful, especially with beginners in a language. Traditionally, reading aloud is often thought of as reading round the class one by one, and although many children seem to enjoy it, this type of reading aloud is not to be recommended: © It gives little pleasure and is of little interest to the listeners. © It encourages stumbling and mistakes in tone, emphasis and expression. © It may be harmful to the silent reading techniques of the other pupils. © It is a very inefficient way to use your lesson time. However, reading aloud is a useful technique when used slightly differently: Reading aloud to the teacher should be done individually or in small groups. The reader then has the teacher’s fullattention. Reading aloud from a book lets the teacher ask about meaning, what the pupils think of the book, how they are getting on with it, as well as smooth out any language difficulties which arise. High priority should be given to this kind of reading aloud, especially at the beginner stage for all ages. By the time pupils progress to level two, this kind of reading is not so necessary. The teacher can use it as a means of training and checking rhythm and pronunciation. The teacher can read a sentence or a phrase and the class or parts of the class can read in chorus after. This is particularly useful if the text is a dialogue, but should only be done for a very short time. Choral reading can easily become a chant if there are a lot of children in the class. Reading dialogues aloud in pairs or groups is an efficient way of checking work. The pupils can help each other with words they find difficult to pronounce, and you should try to get them to be a little critical about what they sound like: ‘You don’t sound very friendly, Michelle’ or ‘Are you angry, Heinz?” ‘The following reading text is clearly suitable for reading aloud, and gives lots of opportunity for reading with expression: ‘This example is from Snap! Stage 1.THis Wit HAKE You HAPPY © © Listening to a pupil reading aloud should be a treat for the whole class. If pupils are going to read aloud for the rest of the class, they must be well prepared and the others should want to hear what is going to be read. ‘Maria is going to read you a story she’s written with me. It’s about a princess and a bird. “Peter has written about his trip on board his uncle’s boat and he wants to read it to you.’ Silent reading Reading aloud can be a useful skill to have in the classroom, and one which teachers make good use of, but silent reading is what remains with most people for the rest of their lives. Nobody can guarantee that all your pupils will love books, but a positive attitude to books and reading from the beginning will help. Make as much use of your English corner as possible (see page 12): have print everywhere, put up jokes on the notice board, give your pupils messages in writing, try to give them their own books, even if it is only a sheet of paper folded over to make four pages, make books available to them, and listen to what they are saying about their reading. Use the textbook to concentrate on conscious language development, but let your pupils read books for understanding and for pleasure. Building up confidence © Some children are natural readers and will want to read books as soon as they can, but you should spend some time building up confidence with the whole class about silent reading. Give them all a story that they have listened to before and give them, say, two minutes to see how far they get. Talk about the story with them in the mother tongue after they’ve read it. Clear up any difficulties. The emphasis is on the content and the language shouldn’t be a stumbling block. Let them finish the story at their leisure. Give pupils only half the story, and discuss what happens next in the mother tongue. See how many different endings are possible, then let them read the rest of the story to see if they were right. From the beginning encourage this type of anticipating. Good stories put the reader in the mood of wanting to know what happens next. © For the eight to ten year olds who are beyond the beginner61 level, you might want to use silent reading as the starting point for role play for the whole class or for a smaller group. If the book is written in dialogue form, then they may want to act some of it out for the rest of the class. If the book is a story, then the pupils will have to work out their own roles and what they say. Different reading materials Once your pupils are on the road to reading, it is important that there is as wide an individual choice of reading materials available to them as possible. : Reading cards You may want to start off with reading cards in a box or a book pocket. It is very simple to make a collection of reading cards which tell a story and can be read quickly. A one-page story still gives a sense of achievement. You might have different stories with the same characters either from the textbook you're using or characters which your pupils have invented during class story time. Some of the reading cards can have nursery rhymes on62 them, but try to choose the easier ones. Here are two examples of reading cards adapted from primary textbooks: TREASURE! SHEILA'S RABBITS Sheila’s rabbits | Sheila has got two rabbits. Oneis grey with a white nose. His name is Farl Grey. The other is white Treasure! = with a lack spot over one eye Last April two English boys, His name is Spotty Martin and John, found some treasure. They went for a walk 02 os Earl Grey is two years old. with their dog Sandy. Sandy Spotyisony eight weeks od had a stick in his mouth. He ean Sheila thinks he is wonderful, “But you are nice, too,” she says to Earl Grey. jumped into the river with it. It was a hot day, So Martin went into the river, too. He saw some- thing in the water. It was an old metal box. The boys opened the box. There were 172 gold coins # init. They went toa museum with the coins. The museum gave them a lot of money. So the boys were very happy. It was a very lucky day for them ax ‘Treasure ¥ Sheila's rabbits Text from Sam on Text and illustration Channel 9, Stage 2. from Up To You 1 Plus. Illustration Jorgen Yereberg. You may want to add questions on the back of the card. These oa may be questions about the story in the child’s first language to begin with, but in English later.Introducing new books There are different ways of introducing new books to the pupils Ideally, at the five to seven stage you should read all new books to the whole class, but there isn’t usually time for this, However, a new book should not just appear. You can: a) show the pupils the new book and tell them what it’s about. b) look at the cover of the book and try to work out with the pupils what it might be about. ©) read them an amusing or interesting bit from one of the books. EMPEROR’S * Suddenly they heard Lite | NEW CLOTHES: “But the Emperor isn’t wearing any clothes!” “Don’t be stupid!” the boy's father said. “But he hasn’t got any clothes on,” the boy said “The boy's right,” a woman said. “Yes, he’s right!” a man said. “The Emperor hasn't got any clothes on.” From The Emperor's ‘New Clothes in the Longman Favourite Farry Tales series‘This 1s the cover of The ‘Nose Book 1n the Beginning Beginner Books series ) put the title of the new book on the notice board. A new book for you to read Book reviews It is always a good idea to find out what pupils thought of a book, even if they stopped half way through. Book reviews a) help you to decide on the suitability of a book, b) give you some indication as to the progress the pupil is making, ©) help other pupils to decide about the book, d) help pupils to develop a critical approach to reading matter and e) show that you are concerned about what your pupils are reading.As pupils become older and more critical you can encourage them to write ‘real’ book reviews, but you can start off very simply, like this: DINO THE DINOSAUR ics PupiLs' NAMES q) : i QO MARIA N. | %* PETER x Questions and activities Which of the ways of teaching reading are familiar to you? Were you taught to read using one of them? How are pupils taught to read their own language in your country? 2 Look back at the section on reading aloud on pages 57 to 60. Can you think of times other than those mentioned here when it would be useful for your pupils to read aloud either to you, the teacher, or to other pupils? co We've mentioned a number of ways of introducing new books to the pupils. Which do you think would be the most effective? Can you think of any other ways of introducing new books?67 References Ekman, L, Peterson, Land Soderlund, K, 1982, Up To You Plus Book 1, Aschehoug, Norway Iggulden, M 1986 Belinda’s Story Longman The Emperor's New Clothes 1986 Longman Perkins, A 1970 The Nose Book Random House, New York Webster, D and Cobb, D 1983 Sam on Channel 9, Stage 2 Longman Series of readers This is only a very short and completely personal selection of readers which are suitable for children, The series of easy readers from the major English Language Teaching publishers have not been included here. Beginning Beginner Books and Beginner Books, Collins and Harvill Breakthrough to Literacy Longman for the Schools Council Dunn, O Ranger Story Workbooks Macmillan Favourite Fairy Tales 1989 Longman Groves, P Bangers and Mash Longman (concentrates on the sounds of the language) Howe, D 1983 Start with English readers Oxford University Press Ladybird books. This series is written for native speakers and covers a wide range of subjects. Starters Macdonald Educational (covers Places, People, Maths, Activities, Long Ago, Nature, Science and Legends) Strange, D 1988 Start Reading Oxford University PressWriting We assume here that your pupils can already write in their own language or are in the process of learning to write. However, since the process is a long one, we also assume that most of your pupils will still be coping with the mechanics of writing as well as thinking about what to write. Writing is not always easy Although the writing and the oral skill are combined in the classroom and the one clearly benefits from the other, writing has certain characteristics which seem to make it difficult for pupils to get to grips with, especially for younger pupils © You can't make the same use of body language, intonation, tone, eye contact and all the other features which help you to convey meaning when you talk. © Very little of what you write is concerned with the here and now, which is where many young children exist for a lot of the time. Exercises which reflect the pupil’s world help to bridge this gap. A copying exercise could be: ‘Carlo is very happy today. It is his birthday. He has got a kitten.’ Or you might have a fillin exercise about Teddy: “Teddy has got a new . We think it is very © Many children take a long time to master the skill of writing. Ina survey done in Britain in 1982 on attitudes to writing in the mother tongue, about 10 per cent of eleven year olds thought they were being asked about the mechanical problems of writing — pens and pencils, neatness, etc. If the teacher can occasionally type out a pupil’s work it really does help those who are struggling with the mechanics of writing. © The last comment reflects the fact that writing in a foreign language is all too often associated with ‘correcting errors’. Handwriting, grammar, spelling and punctuation are often given priority over content. If we try to make children’s writing meaningful from the start, with the emphasis on