Text in language classrooms: TALO, TAVI and TASP

One of the enormous benefits of the Internet has been the accessibility of loads and loads of English texts for teachers to use with their learners.

Designing a WWW reading task

The world wide web offers a myriad of opportunities for authentic English reading texts. Any good teacher can turn a reasonable authentic reading text into a useful and fulfilling activity,

Revisiting texts

We often encourage our students to infer words from the context as they read and, as a result, they fail to notice useful lexis in the texts we use.

This is especially true in case of chunks consisting of the words students already know. For example, students may be familiar with run and risk but not know the collocation run a risk.

Techniques for form focus after reading

In my earlier articles Reading for information, Form focus and recycling, and Techniques for Priming and recycling, I set out a four stage cycle for teaching reading:

Extensive reading

In general, students learning to read in English do not like reading and they rarely read. This is partly due to the way reading is approached in the language class.

Making reading communicative

If telling my students "And now we're going to practise listening," elicits looks of dread and fear, announcing reading practice can often elicit yawns, heads descending to desks, or eyes ascending heavenwards.