How can we teach efficient EFL reading?

An effective way to teach EFL reading

“Improving the reading skill of any student begins with identifying his weaknesses, and then implementing appropriate methods for strengthening these skills.” So the first thing for the teacher of EFL reading to do is to find out the weaknesses or problems of the students. Usually students have five major reading problems:

1. Reading word by word, relying too heavily on the visual information, which greatly impedes their reading speed and hampers their comprehension.

2. Focusing too much attention on form at the expense of meaning.

3. Paying too much attention to the details: they often miss the main ideas and see only the trees instead of forest.

4. A small reading vocabulary and heavy reliance on the use of a dictionary for word meaning.

5. Limited background knowledge.

It is obvious that some of these problems result from the intensive reading, which emphasizes intensiveness and accuracy. Students analyze words, phrases and sentences before tackling the meaning. This slow word by word meaning does not mean efficient reading and by concentrating on every word they delay the transmission of information from their short – term memory to their long – term memory, which results in poor comprehension.

The task before the teacher then is to help the students change their reading habits by teaching them efficient reading skills. An effective use to do this is through guided reading.

The term guided reading refers to timed reading conducted in class under the guidance of the teacher. In guided reading students can learn how to read in different ways at different speeds for different purposes. The teacher can also observe how the students actually read and can give them prompt help by correcting reading habits.

How to teach some of the skills through guided reading.

1. Word - attack skills.

These skills enable the reader to work out the meaning of unfamiliar words and phrases without looking them up in the dictionary. There are two useful word – attack skills:

a) using context clues: this includes using the meanings of other words such as synonyms and antonyms in the same sentence of paragraph, or the meaning of the sentence or paragraph as a whole, to deduce the possible meaning of unfamiliar words and phrases.

e.g.: The Indians cut their canoes out of tree trunks by using an adʒe ( an instrument for cutting something like an axe).

b) using structural information: this refers to word – formation. Analysis of the stems and affixes of words can help students get the meaning of many unfamiliar words.

2. Reading in meaningful units

One of the factors that determine reading speed and comprehension is the number of words the eyes can see at one glance. The more words students can see and comprehend at one glance the greater will be their reading speed and the better will be their comprehension. Students should be able to read in meaningful units instead of isolated words.

A useful way to train students to read in meaningful units is to break up a sentence into sense groups and have students focus their eyes on the middle of each sense group arranged in separate lines and try to see words on each side of the middle line. e.g.

Successful improvement

of your reading

depends on

your eagerness

to improve

and your willingness

to practice

At the beginning each line can be very short, and later on the lines can be made longer.

3. Scanning :

This is used to locate a specific item of information that we need, such as a date, a figure, or a name. In scanning we focus our search only on the information we want passing quickly over all the irrelevant material. The key to scanning is to decide exactly what kind of information we are looking for and were to find it. A useful way to teach this skill is to have students search for some specific information such as a definition, or the name of a person or a place, asking them to start at the same time and see who is the first to find it. Then ask the students who finds the information first to explain how she or he has done it.

4. Skimming:

This is the technique generally used to determine whether a book or an article merits a more careful and thorough reading. The difference between scanning and skimming is that in skimming we are not locating specific, isolated, and scattered items of information. What we are trying to get is the general, overall idea(s) of the whole text. Therefore, the key to skimming is to know where to find the main ideas of different paragraphs. Since the main idea of a well organized paragraph is, in most cases either in the first or the last sentence, and the general idea of a text is usually in the introductory paragraph or in the concluding paragraph, the best way to teach skimming is to have students read the first and the last paragraph in full , and the first and last sentences of the paragraphs in between, and pick pup the key words, such as dates, figures and names while moving their eyes down the page.

The time assigned for skimming should be only a half or a third of their average reading speed.

6. Prediction:

According to the psycholinguistic models of reading, efficient reading depends, to a large extent, on making correct predictions with minimal sampling (choosing meaningful units).

This ability will greatly reduce our reliance on visual information, increase our reading speed and enhance our comprehension. Therefore, it is a very useful skill. Students can learn to make predictions based on the title, or subtitles, and their knowledge of the topic; the linguistic context; the non-context, such as diagrams, tables, pictures, and maps which serve the same purpose as gestures and facial expressions in conversation.

6. Recognizing:

The logical structure of a passage is often signaled by textual connectors, which are expressions connecting ideas. The most common organizational patterns in text-book are cause - effect definition, sequence of events, thesis - example, description, generalization, and hypothesis - evidence, each of which has its characteristic textual connectors.

These textual connectors are the best indicators of ideas, so most important for reading comprehension. The best way to teach this is to have students read different passages with different organizational patterns and identify their textual connectors.

7. Distinguishing general statements from specific details:

General statements usually contain main ideas, and specific details are usually explanations and examples that support the general statements.

Therefore, general statements are more important to comprehension. Very often they are introduced by signal words such as in general, above all, in conclusion, and it can be seen that . Students should learn to direct their attention to these signal words. They should also learn to identify expressions of probability, frequency and quantity that indicate different levels of generality.

8. Inference and conclusion

Comprehension involves understanding not only what is stated explicitly but also what is implied. That is to say, the reader has to make inferences based on what is stated. To do so requires the ability to analyze and synthesize. E.g. from the sentence “Age affects hearing”, we can infer that with age hearing either increases, decreases or changes. To infer, the reader has to read between the lines, whereas to conclude, he has to summarize stated facts.

9. Evaluation and appreciation:

This is a high – level comprehension skill. The reader not only has to thoroughly understand what he has read, he also has to analyze and synthesize it so as to form his own opinions and judgments. To evaluate, the reader has to read critically. The essence of critical reading is to consider what, why, and for whom the author has written. That is to say, the reader has to determine the author’s purpose, consider his intended audience, recognize his strength and weakness, and distinguish his opinion from facts. Appreciation is different from evaluation in that the former only requires the reader to see the merits of the text, whereas the latter requires the reader to see both its merits and demerits. To appreciate, the reader has to understand the author’s tone and attitude, to recognize his literary devices such as the use of figures of speech, to identify his characteristic style, and to see his humor, satire and irony. Evaluation is a useful skill for reading political and academic essays, whereas appreciation is useful in reading literary works.