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Teaching Reading Activities According to CELTA

CELTA, similar mentioned earlier in this article , is one of the most demanded initial teaching qualifications, that is widely recognized throughout the world and has a lot of teachers applying for it yearly. It shouldn't surprise us then, that this a quite intensive class, rich in theoretical noesis and applied experience.

It tends to exist that passive skills are really getting less attention in the classroom than they should, hence, here we will be talking most some reading activities that I have learnt to employ during the CELTA course I was doing a couple of years ago.

Stage 1 — Warm up

Kickoff of all, we should bear in mind, that no affair what skill we are working with ( speaking, writing, listening or reading ) warming the students up for the upcoming session is the first pace to accept. This ensures that the learners are prepared in the frame of the topic and volition be ready to dive into it at later stages of the lesson. Here are a couple of ideas that we can employ to create a context for, let'southward say, a reading section about " Travelling ".

Pick one

Draw a spider'south gram and ask the students to brainstorm on what associations they accept with the give-and-take " travelling ". Elicit at least eight ideas. Beneath is a sample of a spider's gram my students had come with.

Next you can inquire the students to narrow down their associations and come up with i word that would summarize the thought of " travelling ".

In my case the students had equaled " travelling " with " Brazil ". This game creates a good round of laughter and is really fun in the process. The students experience relaxed, set for the text.

Option two

You tin can commencement with the same clan game, but do merely the first function. Next you tin have 3 questions nearly travelling yous want the students to comment on in pairs. For instance;

• Tell about your best travel story.
• Tell most an gamble y'all had while travelling.
• Where would you like to travel to side by side and why?

This volition also go the students warmed up for the topic and will let them have speaking practice correct in the kickoff of the class.

Stage ii — Setting the context

Every bit mentioned earlier, setting up the context is besides a vital office of lesson commitment if y'all want your students to have the big motion picture of the course and encounter the lesson outcomes. This stage makes sure the students are on the aforementioned folio during the sessions and don't get distracted.

Here is what can be done;

Option ane

Present 1 paragraph of the text ( normally the start ane ), enquire the students to read it, work in pairs and come upwards with ideas of what the text is going to exist about. This ignites their interest and makes them competitive in coming up with the closest story to the original.

Option 2

If the story has characters, places, events, accept them out of the context and accept the students recreate the story.

Y'all can have the following for case: " Jack, Mary, Joe, plane, storm, constabulary ". Put the students in pairs and have them come up with possible stories. You will exist surprised at how many stories the students come upwardly with, sometimes better than the original one. When students are ready, read their stories out ( permit them read information technology themselves, or maybe pass around ) to make sure everyone knows what the other teams' stories were.

Stage iii — Reading for gist

At this phase, your primary goal for the students is to compare the original story to the 1 they had come upwardly with. You lot volition need to highlight that they don't demand to worry about the unknown words. They but need to become the full general thought of the text.

This is what I ordinarily practise;

Option ane

Split the text into 2 parts and put them on a PowerPoint presentation, unlike slides. Adjacent, split the students into pairs and have them sit back to back, then that 1 of the students sees the slide and the other doesn't.

Time the educatee who sees the slide for two-iv minutes, depending on the length of the text and take him/her read it. And then, ask the students to alter seats and requite the other student an equal corporeality of time to read the text on the 2nd slide.

When done, ask the students to face each other and tell their parts to each other trying to put the story together.

I really like this activity every bit it keeps the students more than focused and is more challenging.

Option ii

If the text is not that long, you can ever go with the traditional " Read the text and comment on the following questions " task. This is a much easier way to  cover this stage every bit a lot of textbooks offer follow up questions afterwards a reading passage to convey the general meaning of the text. However, I would strongly recommend to look through those questions carefully before the form and maybe accommodate them according to the level of your learners. Some of those questions can be too uncomplicated for your target group of learners.

In whatever case, at this stage it'southward a adept idea to have the students work in pairs/groups where they tin help each other understand/find answers to some questions together. It will be less challenging for them and the weak learners will not feel under pressure.

Stage 3 — Vocabulary Work

This is the all famous " Vocab pre-teaching " stage, where we focus on the words that are new to our learners. A lot has been spoken about different ways of pre-education vocabulary, so, not to waste your time, have a look for some dainty ideas here .

Stage 4 — Reading for Details

In one case we have introduced the words that might be new to our students, it's safe to motion on to the side by side stage of teaching reading skills. At this stage, students go deeper in the text, try to larn more than data, focus on details and read between the lines ( for B2+ and higher level of learners ).

Here is what can exist done to brand information technology more than fun;

Option 1

A traditional True or False exercise can exist found in all the ESL/EFL books. How to brand it more fun? — change the T/F statements into open up ended questions. This volition requite the students a chance to generate more language while answering the questions. You can even create questions which accept more than one possible answer. In this case y'all will besides have your students speculating on the possible answers and have more than speaking exercise.

Pick 2

Once the students are done reading the text, you can turn information technology into a gap-fill exercise where they will demand to fill in the missing information. This doesn't accept to be with the verbal wording of the text ( unless your focus is to piece of work on the target language in the text ). You can just ask the students to make full in the gaps in a logical fashion that will not contradict the meaning of the text and will be lexically/grammatically right. This is a very overnice opportunity for the students to piece of work not only with a simple task of gap fill, but too deal with judgement structures, synonyms, antonyms, etc.

Stage 5 — Controlled do

This is the phase where students demand to practice the language/structure of the text. Commonly this stage is used to work on the target linguistic communication presented at an before stage of the lesson.

Here are some activities that have proven to be useful;

Option 1

If in that location is more than one grapheme in the text, accept them out, assign the students to act the roles of those characters and recreate the text by making a dialogue. Nevertheless, you will need to brand sure that the students are using the linguistic communication you want them to. You tin can either put it on the board or ask them to highlight it in the text.

Option 2

Some other interesting action can exist conducting an interview. You will demand to split the students in pairs and assign them the roles of an interviewer and the author/ane character from the story , etc. The interviewer will need to inquire different questions to their interviewee and continue the conversation going in the telescopic of the text and the story it covered.

Option 3

My personal favourite is telling the story on behalf of some characters. You will need to assign a character from the story to each student ( works best if you lot have more than than ii characters ) and ask them to tell the story only on behalf of that character. For instance, if the text was about the " Little Red Riding Hood " and one of the characters is the grandmother , she volition demand to tell the story only known to her. This ways, she will not know about her granddaughter visiting her that 24-hour interval, about her encounter with the wolf, etc. This activeness can exist actually fun and creates a very warm atmosphere in the classroom.

Phase 6 — Fluency Exercise

This final phase is to make sure the students can apply the knowledge gained in real life situations. As nosotros know, reading texts mostly serves to introduce vocabulary or grammar in ESL/EFL books. So, there are several activities you can do to give your students some nice practice.

Selection 1

Put your students in pairs/groups ( depending on your class size ), distribute some questions related to the topic of the lesson (" travelling "  in our example ) and ask the students to interview each other with those questions using the target vocabulary/grammar.

Hither are some resource that you can use to come up with the questions;

Resources one

Resource 2

Resource 3

Pick 2

You can ask the students to write a similar text to the i they had just read using the language/structure presented in the text. In this case the reading phase tin be hands turned into a writing session. It works just smashing if you lot accept a longer class ( 2-2.5 hours long ) and want to cover two linguistic communication skills. Afterward on, you tin can ask the students to pass the stories around, read them all and vote for the best i.

Well, these were some activities that I have learned, practiced and seen work during and long afterward my CELTA course. They ever work like a charm. Endeavor and let us know how it went in your classroom.

ESL senior trainer with 8+ years of teaching experience, specializing in ESP (Medical, It, Financial, Business English), grade content creator, CELTA certified trainer, PTE examiner

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Source: https://skyteach.ru/2020/06/14/teaching-reading-activities-according-to-celta/

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