Successful reading techniques in teaching reading fiction to senior secondary school students

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Successful reading techniques in teaching reading fiction to senior secondary school students

Yu. Kriukova

Reading is a crucial skill which allows students to enhance the other three foundational components necessary for language learning: writing, listening and speaking. Despite its significance at the secondary school stage, until 1980s it was unfairly paid little attention to. However, since 1980s the situation has drastically changed and reading has been given serious reconsideration by ESL/EFL teachers. Since then reading has been considered to be a complex information processing skill with the help of which the reader interacts with a text in order to recreate meaningful discourse. Therefore, reading becomes an effective and essential means of grammar and vocabulary acquisition as well as a source of information giving learners a unique opportunity to perceive the peculiarities of culture and traditions of the country of the target language [3].

Whether a home-reading lesson will encourage and inspire students to further language learning or, vice versa, demotivate them depends directly on the choice of appropriate reading material. J.Collie and S.Slater claim that while selecting literature to be used in the EFL classroom, three interconnected criteria should be taken into account: authenticity, cultural enrichment and personal growth [1]. Many teachers like to use authentic texts, “texts written for use by the foreign language community, not for language learners” [2, 177]. There are a number of reasons for preferring them. First of all, they may serve as a model of unmodified language for EFL learners containing grammatical structures and lexical units intrinsic to the target language. In this way, EFL students improve their level of language proficiency in general. Secondly, authentic literature exposes students to cultural and social aspects of the life increasing learners' insight into the country of the target language. Finally, reading promotes their personal growth and mental development as it encourages students to understand and respect other ideologies and cultures which differ from their own ones. Fiction is the most preferable genre of literature which is “realistic works, co n- sisting of stories that attempt to portray people and events as they are in real life” [5, 38]. It is widely used for teaching reading as it awakens EFL learners' interest in the culture of the country of the target language. teaching reading language school

The purpose of this article is to consider the main advantages of using realistic fiction, particularly one of its genres - a short story, while teaching reading to intermediate EFL students and suggest some effective techniques and activities that can help teachers to make home reading classes more interesting where students become their highly motivated active participants. Without pretending to treat all the aspects of the problem, in particular the problem of using authentic materials in homereading classes, the author of this article makes it her aim to reconsider the way literature is presented in the language classroom in order to develop a broader range of activities that can make a reading lesson a pleasurable and positive experience.

A short story is the most suitable literary genre to be used in teaching reading to senior secondary school students due to a comparatively small number of pages a reader should cover. Having a `single effect' as an aim [3], it usually includes only one plot line, involves a few characters and contains no detailed description of setting. Therefore, a short story is practical for EFL teachers to use it within the limited time of the lesson, so it can be covered entirely in one or two class sessions. Analyzing true-to-life scenes in the story and expressing their point of view, feelings and emotions at the post-reading stage, students also gain valuable life experience.

Standard approach, which can have negative effect on learning, is becoming less applicable giving way to more inspiring and engaging ways of working with literary texts. Owing to these non-standard approaches, teachers, by tailoring their instructional strategies to the needs of their classes, help learners not only to take positive attitude towards reading but also motivate students to become active participants in the classroom community. The organization of home-reading classes at the three stages, pre-, while- and post-reading, guarantees a successful and smooth process of work.

The pre-reading stage is primarily aimed at removing difficulties of text perception (grammatical structures, lexical units, etc.), improving the skills of anticipating the content of the text, actualizing students' knowledge and experience as well as eliciting the purpose of studying the text. The most effective warm-up activities that can be done at this stage are as follows:

• Present/missing? This technique is designed to enable students to develop specific receptive skills such as reading for gist (often called skimming) when they are quickly trying to find answers to the teacher's questions in the text.

• Anticipation (predicting). It is an attempt to guess the content of the work with the help of the title, subtitles or cover. Students can also use the illustrations supporting the text.

• Vocabulary Previews. This activity is done with a view to studying unfamiliar key words before the process of reading in order to get some background information for further comprehension of the plot.

• Brainstorming. It is mainly team work, when the teacher asks students to come up with ideas about the title of the text, to make some predictions concerning the plot. Then, the teacher lists on the board the ideas that come to students' mind.

• Motivating questions (prequestions). Students read the text more attentively having several questions in mind. In this way, this technique forms the purpose for reading as well as activates learners' background knowledge.

• Semantic mapping. The teacher organizes students' ideas about the plot of the text in a diagram in a way that qualities and relationships are evident.

• KWL. A technique which consists in answering three metacognitive questions: What do I Know? What do I Want to learn? What did I Learn? [4]

Exercises at the while-reading stage help students to cope with problematic areas of the text and define the main idea of the text [3]. In order to awaken active thinking, which will help students to interpret the content of the text, the following techniques can be used:

• Jumbled Paragraphs. The technique consists in putting the sentences of the extract or paragraphs in the correct order.

• Mind Mapping. A mind map consists of a central idea or a word and related subdominants around it.

• Story Mapping. This technique demonstrates the ability of a student to define five main stages of the story: setting, beginning, culmination, outcome and ending.

• Immediate Feedback. The teacher interrupts the reading process and discusses separate parts of a story with students, promoting interactions between the text and the reader.

• Jigsaw Reading. Separate parts of the text are given to learners. Their task is to discuss those parts with their classmates in order to find out the whole message.

• Comparing, matching, filling in the blanks.

• Giving the contextual synonyms/antonyms to the words.

The final post-reading stage is represented by activities that can refine, enrich and stimulate learners' interest in the topic, develop and clarify interpretations of the text and help students remember what they have individually created in their minds from the text. The most effective strategies that can be proposed at this stage are the following:

• Discussions. Students discuss main ideas reflected in the story. This activity is aimed at helping students to perceive the importance of the texts they have read and activities done by them.

• Role plays. Students dramatize some scenes from the text or come up with their own ones based on the interpretation of the text. While doing this, students use the key vocabulary and, in this way, enhance their skills in speaking.

• Visual Creations. Students may create collages, graphs, pictures to demonstrate their understanding of the plot.

• Talk Show Host. One of the students becomes a star, a talk show host, while other students present different views on problems reflected in the text.

In conclusion, since the aim of EFL teaching is to help students to communicate fluently in the target language, teachers should provide an authentic model of language use. A short story creates a meaningful context to teach students different speech skills and language aspects. The organization of home-reading lessons at the three stages, pre-, while- and post-reading, helps learners to become strategic readers of literature. Knowledge which students acquired in home-reading classes help them to develop their communicative skills and creative thinking. In this way, EFL students stay motivated and inspired for further language studying.

REFERENCES

1. Collie J. Literature in the Language Classroom / J. Collie, S. Slater. - Glasgow: Cambridge University Press, 1991. - 274 p.

2. Nuttall Ch. Teaching Reading Skills in a Foreign Language / Ch. Nuttall. - Oxford: MacMillan, 1998. - 282 p.

3. Pardede P. Using Short Stories to Teach Language Skills / P. Pardede [ Електронний ресурс]. - Режим доступу: https://parlindunganpardede.com/using-short- stories-to-teach-language-skills/

4. Porter K. Pre-Reading Strategies / K. Porter // Study Guides and Strategies [Електронний ресурс]. - Режим доступу: http://www.studygs.net/preread.htm

5. Savage J.F. Teaching Reading Using Literature / J.F. Savage. - Boston College, 1994. - 464 p.

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