Articles 004

Becoming a better speaker

Becoming a better speaker What speakers do In some ways speaking is the most difficult language skill. Every time you speak you have to do many different things but you have very little time to do them. Imagine, for example, that the teacher has asked you a question in class. Here is a list of the things you have to do when giving an answer.

You have to: 

think what answer you want to give
find the words that you need
make sure the grammar you use is correct
try to get your pronunciation and intonation right.

To make things more difficult, you have to do all this with everyone else in the class looking at you and listening to you! It's no surprise that some ESL students don't talk at all for a while when they first come to school.
Practicing speaking is a skill like learning to swim. The more you practice, the better you will become, until finally you can do it without needing to think much about it. Here are some ways that you can get as much speaking practice as possible:

ask and answer questions in class
try to answer all the teacher's questions silently in your head
if you work in a group with native speakers, don't let them do all the talking
ask to sit next to a student who is not from your country
try to make some friends who don't have the same language
join a lunchtime club or do an after-school activity
talk English with your German neighbors
talk to your parents in English; e.g. to summarize a story or science experiment
talk to your teachers after class and at lunchtime or after school

Practicing pronunciation and intonation If you have problems with your English pronunciation or intonation, you could practice these too. For example, you could listen to stories or watch videos with people talking to each other, and try to repeat the phrases and sentences they say.

More information to help you become a better speaker Here is a list of more things to think about or strategies to try in order to improve your speaking skills:

Do not worry about making mistakes! Everyone who speaks makes mistakes. Even native speakers make mistakes when they talk, because speaking is such a complicated skill (see above). It doesn't matter if your spoken English is not perfect. What is important is that you can communicate what you want to say.


Keep talking! If you don't know a word, use gestures or mime. Or try and explain what you want to say using other words. Or draw a picture. Ask the person you are speaking to help you. If you are not sure whether your grammar is right, it doesn't matter. Keep talking!


Learn some useful phrases that you know you will often need to use; and use them! If you do this, you will have more time to think about the rest of what you want to say.
Knowing some common expressions will also help you to take more part in conversations. Most students will not wait patiently in the middle of an interesting discussion while you plan exactly what you want to say. But, if you are ready with an expressions like: Well, in my opinion .. or Do you know what I think?, they will at least stop and wait for you to continue. (Just don't keep them waiting too long, and remember again: It's ok to make mistakes!)


Prepare answers at home. Often teachers ask students to talk about their homework. For example, you may have to say how you solved a math problem; or you may be asked to give your opinion about a story you read. If you think about the likely questions at home - you could even say the answers to your parents -, you will be ready to raise your hand in class.


If you know you will have to talk to someone about something, then plan what you are going to say. For example, maybe you know you will have to tell your teacher why you were absent from school, or you want to explain to the nurse why you can't do PE. Look up the words you know you will need, and maybe even write out the exact sentences you want to say. Practice saying it at home, or with another student or your ESL teacher.


If you talk to people, they will talk back to you. Usually, they will simplify their speech so that you can understand better. This gives you good listening practice, too.


Think in English! Don't think in your own language and then translate it.

Source:

ENGLISH-4-ALL 

**True friends are those who care without hesitations, who remember without limitations, who give without expectations and love even without communication. Friendship doesnt need everyday conversation doesn't always need togetherness, as long as the relationship is kept in the heart, true friends never go apart....... ...** Sadat Moshtaghian  

Becoming a better listener

Becoming a better listener You spend more time in school listening than doing any other activity. It is important that you understand most of what you hear so that you can learn about your different subjects and at the same time improve your English. In order for you to become a better listener, look first at the following list. It contains many of the things that can make it hard for you to understand what you hear:

the speaker talks too quickly
the speaker talks too softly
two or more people are speaking at the same time
there is background noise
there are other distractions
the speaker is boring (e.g. the topic is boring or his way of speaking is boring)
you are not concentrating on what the speaker is saying
there are no pictures or charts to look at while listening
you have no idea about the topic
the speaker uses many new or difficult words
the speaker?s sentences are long and complicated

Any one of the above problems alone can make it difficult for you to understand. But very often you are faced with two or three of them together. For example, you may be in a lesson where the teacher is talking quickly and in complicated English about a topic you know nothing about. Then your chances of understanding will be small.
However, there are quite a few things you can do to improve your comprehension of what you hear. These are listed below:

ask the speaker to repeat or rephrase what they said
pay attention
block out distractions
look at the speaker (ask to sit near the front of the class)
ask questions (aloud and silently)
try to picture and make connections (e.g. to what you learned in a previous lesson, maybe in your last school)
think about and answer silently all the questions asked by the teacher
listen to the other students
keep listening even if you don?t understand at first
listen for the teacher?s clues
ask someone after the lesson to explain what you didn?t understand
try to find out something about the topic before the lesson

If you do all these things, it will help you to become a better listener in class. But you can practise your listening understanding outside of the classroom, too. For example, you can borrow cassettes with stories to listen to at home, or try to understand the words of the pop songs you like. Watching English language TV or videos is a great way to improve your listening skills because what you see can help you understand what you hear. Working on increasing your vocabulary will also help you to become a better listener.

Finally, remember this: the more you speak to people, the more they will speak back to you. Talking with other students is a great way of getting lots of extra listening practice!

 ENGLISH-4-ALL  Source:

**True friends are those who care without hesitations, who remember without limitations, who give without expectations and love even without communication. Friendship doesnt need everyday conversation doesnt always need togetherness, as long as the relationship is kept in the heart,true friends never go apart....... ...** Sadat Moshtaghian 

Improving Teacher-Student Interaction in the EFL Classroom: An Action Research Report

Jonathan Snellj_snell [at] yahoo.com
Toyo Women's College (Tokyo, Japan)

A common problem for EFL teachers is dealing with a passive class, where students are unresponsive and avoid interaction with the teacher. This is especially true when a teacher seeks interaction in a teacher-class dialog, such as asking questions to the class as a whole, expecting at least one student to respond. This can be a frustrating experience for both parties. Obviously, there will be times when no student can answer a teacher's question, but often students do not answer even if they understand the question, know the answer, and are able to produce the answer. Furthermore, students can often be very reluctant to give feedback or ask the teacher a question in front of the class. This action research project attempted to explore this problem and sought to create a more interactive teacher-class interchange in one class of Japanese adult English learners.

Action Research Defined

Action research is concerned with trying to improving one specific point in a teacher's technique in a particular classroom using empirical measurement. Richards, Platt & Platt (1992) have defined it as:

Teacher-initiated classroom research which seeks to increase the teacher's understanding of classroom teaching and learning and to bring about improvements in classroom practices. Action research typically involves small-scale investigate projects in the teacher's own classroomŠ

This usually includes having an observer collect data, and together with the teacher develop a plan to bring about the desired change, act on the plan, and then observe the effects of the plan in the classroom.

Class Description

The class observed was a group of twenty-three sophomores majoring in Japanese at a small private Tokyo women's college. The teacher was an American male with several years teaching experience at Japanese universities. The goal of this required class is to teach the students basic English conversation, reading, listening and writing skills. Their English ability level ranged from upper beginner to intermediate. During the observation period, the students appeared motivated and attentive, and they seemed to be enjoying the class.

Problem Identification

The students, as a class, didn't respond voluntarily to the instructor's questions and did not participate in class discussions. Students also never asked the teacher questions outside one-on-one situations. Thus the teacher received little oral feedback. According to the teacher:

Most of the class members sit looking straight ahead using minimal facial expressions, gestures and verbal utterances. What I want is for the students to be more demonstrative and more overtly communicative in their feedback. I want these behaviors: I want the students to ask questions, make comments and to respond with nods and shakes of the head, with sounds of agreement or sounds of understanding. Also, I want them to be both reactive and proactive.

Preliminary Investigation

I observed the teacher's class in the fourth week of the semester. In the first 45 minutes, the class went through an intermediate level taped dialogue. The students first listened to the tape with their books closed, then again with the books opened. Next, they did a dictation exercise consisting of 25 short sentences based on the dialogue. The teacher then talked about the sociolinguistic and grammar points of the exercise and went on to probe for comprehension:

• T: Any questions? Do you understand everything?
• Ss: Š(no one responds)
• T: Okay, how many people were speaking?
• Ss: Š(no response)
• T: How many people were speaking?
• Ss: Š(no response)
• T: There were two. Two people. Were they friends or strangers?
• Ss: Š(no response)Š

The teacher asked a few other questions which also drew no response or reaction from the students. The students then had to answer some questions about the conversation in their book. Most of the students seemed to have little trouble doing this, and if there were any questions, they readily asked the student sitting next to them.

The second half of the class was devoted to pair work using the phrases and vocabulary from the taped dialogue in role play. The students seemed to enjoy this, and most tried to create their own dialogues. The teacher circulated the room checking on the progress of each pair. The class atmosphere was markedly different from the first half of the class, with chatter and occasional laughter filling the air. The students answered most of the teacher's questions with alacrity, and some even asked their own questions.

Hypothesis

Because the students seemed to generally understand the teacher's questions, it was felt that there was something else that kept the students from responding voluntarily in the class-teacher dialogues. Since most Japanese students are taught to listen and not to question a teacher in class, Japanese students have little or no experience in in-class interaction with the teacher, such as questioning or commenting or giving feedback. Students are usually taught to be quiet and respectfully listen to the teacher.

By teaching the students that class interaction with the English teacher is not only acceptable, but normal, useful and beneficial, it was believed that the students would become more interactive with the teacher in teacher-class interaction.

Plan Intervention

Following the hypothesis, two steps were taken to implement a plan:

• First, on the following class, the teacher distributed an explanatory paragraph about "rules" for asking questions in class in English speaking countries. The teacher made an exercise out of it and had students read the paragraph out loud to the class and explained a few difficult words and spent additional time expanding on the text. The "rules" were extrapolated from a culture point in Helgesen & Brown (1994) and were as follows:

Each culture has different "rules" about how students should act in the classroom. In some countries, students are expected to listen and only the teacher should lecture or talk in class. But in English-speaking countries (and in English class), it is good-and important-to answer the teacher's questions and interrupt with questions of your own. It means that you are interested and paying attention. In English, it is your job to ask questions if you don't understand. (p. 3)

The teacher went on to say that if they still felt uncomfortable asking and answering questions, they had to at least nod or shake their head as a response to the teacher's questions.

• Secondly, the teacher reminded the students of the "rules" at the beginning of each subsequent class and further encouraged them to become more active in the class when the instructor was talking.

Outcome

In the eighth week of the semester, the class was observed again. A lesson similar to the one in the fourth week was presented. At the beginning, the instructor reminded the class of the "rules." After playing the taped dialogue twice, the teacher began talking about the dialogue, making grammar, usage and sociolinguistic points, interspersed with questions about the passage and the instructor's explanations. This went on for about twenty minutes and included general comprehension check questions such as 'do you understand?' and 'are you okay?' as well as specific questions about the dialogue.

Regarding general comprehension questions, most of the students did nod in response and a few answered 'yes' to these questions. And it was believed that they did, in fact, understand.

With the specific questions, however, something unexpected happened. When the teacher asked a question, he was usually greeted with poker-faced stares, as before. But when he moved closer, looked specifically at a student, or pair of students, and repeated the question, the students usually tried to answer. In general, I noted, the instructor was paying much more attention to the students, moving closer to them, and looking at specific students and trying to make a better connection with them. Instead of asking questions with the feeling that they really weren't going to be answered anyway, as before, the teacher made a greater effort to communicate the questions, and acted as if he expected to get responses.

Also, toward the end of the instructor's talk on the dialogue, two students, without prompting from the teacher, asked questions before the class. Although the questions were not related directly to the dialogue, the fact that the questions were asked before the entire class was considered a breakthrough.

Conclusion

There were some areas where the results of this action research were not as successful as hoped. For instance, the students needed to be prompted with eye contact and a repeated question from the teacher to answer a question, and when they did not understand something, they still did not interrupt the teacher with a question.

And yet some progress was definitely made, especially when the brief span between observations is considered. The students did interact with the teacher by nodding, some did answer the instructor's questions, and two, on their own initiation, even asked questions before the class. The unanticipated side effect of the teacher becoming more concerned with the interaction was a welcome surprise and contributed to the improvement. There seems to have been some success in instructing and reminding and then expecting the students to become more interactive with the teacher.

Reflection

This action research project forced both the teacher and the observer to remember that ESL teachers in Japan are not just teaching a language, but also a culture, and this includes instructing the sociolinguistics appropriate for the native English speaking classroom. Perhaps more importantly, they had to think about why the cultures are different, in this respect, and how to try and bridge that difference. This lead to questioning the conventional notion that Japanese students simply do not like the native English speaking classroom culture.

An additional reason for interest in the problem addressed here was the belief that this was a common problem in Japan. Teachers, especially native English speaking ones, often become frustrated with a lack of initial success in obtaining an interactive dialogue with the class. This often leads them to mistake a lack of familiarity with a lack of interest, and to teach within the students' culturally conditioned classroom expectations, instead of introducing the expectations commonly found in classrooms in English speaking counties. While intending to be more accommodating to students, they are failing to give students a useful sociolinguistic skill, which students would likely want and derive benefit. Some may think encouraging the use of this student-teacher interaction common in native English speaking counties is culturally arrogant. But if it is introduced in a sensitive and reasonable manner, it actually contributes to a more fulfilling English class. After all, most students don't study English just for linguistic competence. They will also want to develop sociolinguistic competence for communicating in different situations in English speaking countries, and this includes the classroom.

Reference

• Helgesen, M. & Brown, S. (1994) Active listening: Building skills for understanding. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press.
• Richards, J. C., Platt, J., & Platt, H. (1992) Dictionary of language teaching & applied linguistics (2nd ed.). Essex: Longman.

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The Internet TESL Journal, Vol. V, No. 4, April 1999http://iteslj.org/

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http://iteslj.org/Articles/Snell-Interaction.html

Teaching Second Language Reading Strategies

Takako Kawabata
takakok [at] psis {dot} aichi-gakuin {dot} ac {dot} jp
Aichi Gakuin University (Nisshin, Japan)

Introduction

This article describes a program that can be used for EFL classes to teach reading strategies.  The objectives of the program are that the students should be able to understand the text structure of a particular genre, find the main idea in the text, learn new vocabulary and learn effective reading strategies to develop their reading comprehension.  

In classroom interaction, a shift between teacher and learner focus is made to provide the teacher's support and guidance at earlier stages and gradually withdraw the teacher's focus to assist students in becoming more independent learners.  As some students may be shy when speaking and afraid of making mistakes in front of the class or peers, whole class, groups, and pair discussion are implemented at the earlier stages to minimize their anxiety.

Materials

Teaching materials used in the program are articles from newspapers graded-down for non-native speakers.  Texts printed on large sheets are used for whole class activities, and handouts are provided to the students for group, pair and independent activities. 

Pre-reading Activities

1.  Setting the Purpose of Reading (As a Whole Class)

Firstly, the teacher clarifies the purpose of reading to the students.  The purpose of reading is to get an overall idea of the text, to learn new information, to learn some vocabulary and to become familiar with the style of a news article.

After that, the teacher introduces what kind of reading strategies are necessary for reading newspaper articles and achieving the above purpose; such as skimming, scanning, and close reading.  This activity assists the students in selecting appropriate reading styles for a particular genre.  These strategies also help the students to acquire skills to deal with unfamiliar vocabulary without depending on dictionaries.

2.  Signpost Questions (As a Whole Class)

The teacher asks questions to motivate the readers and activate their background knowledge.

• How do you come/go to work/school?  (By bus, subway, train, bicycle, or on foot?)
• How long does it take to come/go to school/work?  (Less than 30 minutes, one hour, or more?)
• What do you usually do on the bus, subway, or train?  (Read books, sleep, or nothing?)
• What else can you do on the bus, subway, or train?  (Chat with other passengers, use a mobile phone, or something else?)
• Where do you study English?  (At school, library, home, office, train or elsewhere?)

3.  Prediction Activities (As a Whole Class)

The teacher shows only the title of the text (and photographs if available) at this stage, and asks the students to predict the topic based on the previous questions, prior knowledge, and the title of the text.

Based on the learners' prediction, some questions will be asked by the teacher to focus on the main point when reading the text. 

Questions such as these might be asked:

• What was the event?
• When did the event occur?
• Where did the event occur?
• Who was involved in the event?
• How did the event occur?
• Why did the event occur?

Then, the teacher asks the students to predict the style/tenor of language and the schematic structure of the text. 

Questions such as these might be asked to identify and clarify textual information:

• Who wrote the text?
• Who was the text written for?
• What style of language might be used?
• How might the text be structured?

Active participation of the students is encouraged to draw on their background knowledge to assist reading comprehension.  Therefore, to raise as many ideas as possible, the above three activities are conducted as a whole class.  Oral interaction with the teacher and peers could assist reading as giving and sharing background knowledge.

4.  Skimming in Groups

At this stage, the teacher shows the whole text printed on a large sheet put on a board to the students.  Firstly, the teacher models skimming strategies to assist the readers. 

After the modelling, the teacher asks the students some questions such as:

• What is the text about?
• How do we know about the topic of the text?
• What is the purpose of this type of text? (i.e. to provide information, to recount an event, to explain?)
• How the text is organised?  (identify major stages such as background events, sources)

Next, the teacher asks the students to skim through the text and discuss the above questions in groups.

The skimming strategies are introduced to get an overall picture and to ascertain the genre and field of the text.  Discussion with peers and the teacher at this stage might provide general information about the topic and structure of the text, and the students might be able to predict further what the text is about.

5.  Scanning  (In Groups)

Scanning activities are introduced to teach strategies of finding appropriate information in the text that would be necessary for successful reading comprehension.  With this exercise, the students might be able to locate specific information about the topic of the text.

To assist the scanning, the teacher asks the students to answer the questions designed at stage three of prediction activities, then, write down the responses on the board.  Answering the previously designed questions confirm or disconfirm the readers' prediction.

6.  Breaking Up the Text  (In Groups)

The teacher provides handouts, which is the text broken up into each section, to each group and asks the students to summarize the texts in the groups.  After finishing the summarizing of the texts, the students are encouraged to present their summaries to the other groups of students.  This activity allows the students to analyse more detail in each section, obtain specific information more closely, combine information of the sections, and understand the main idea of the text.  Moreover, reporting the summaries to the class provides the students opportunity to speak English.

Skimming, scanning, and breaking up the text are introduced as groups activities to develop and confirm the readers’ understanding further.  Reading strategies and language use by the teacher and students who have higher proficiency in English might work as a model and suggest ways of using vocabulary, explaining, classifying, comparing, exemplifying, questioning, and pronouncing words.  

7.  Brain Storming  (As a Whole Class)

By conducting this process, the teacher is able to confirm the students' understanding by checking responses answered at the fifth stage and summaries reported at the sixth stage.  If more ideas arise after summarizing each section, write these responses on the board.

8.  Pre-teaching Important Words  (As a Whole Class)

Before moving into actual reading activities, teaching new and important words for reading comprehension is necessary.  The readers are able to prepare and acquire the new vocabulary or terminology which would be necessary to understand the text before tackling reading practice.  Vocabulary items are categorized as those which could be or could not be guessed from the context, and essential or less important to understand the text.

By introducing and explaining the above language features of the text, the students are able to expand and relate their current knowledge and gain new knowledge of the genre.

During Reading Activities

9.  The Text (As a Whole Class)

This activity shows the students how the text is structured to achieve its genre.  At this stage, the teacher guides the class in discussing the feature of the text; the genre of the text (recount of an event in the newspaper article), the social purpose (to inform readers about events which are considered newsworthy and interesting), schematic structure and language features of the genre.  

• Headline; explains the story in a short telegraphic way.
• Newsworthy events; describes the events in summary form.  
• Background event; recounts what happened, in what circumstance by expert.
• Sources; introduces comments on the events by authorities.
• Background event; elaborates what happened, to whom and in what circumstances.

Finally, the teacher informs the students that language features typical of the genre are as follows:

• Material processes in past tense are employed to retell what happened in the past.
• Verbal processes are used to project the comment by expert in Sources stage.
• Many circumstances are applied to tell when, where, and how the events happened.

By introducing and explaining the above language features of the text, the students are able to expand and relate their current knowledge and gain new knowledge of the genre.

10.  Stop and Think  (In Pairs)

After the modelling, the teacher asks the students to read the text in pairs.  In each paragraph, the students are encouraged to talk and discuss what they have just read, paraphrase it, identify the main ideas, and generate questions in pairs.  This activity offers the students more opportunities to practice listening, speaking, and helps them to activate background knowledge and relate it to the new information, and confirm their understanding of the text.

11.  Reciprocal Teaching  (As a Whole Class)

At this stage, the whole class has a discussion to generate questions, make summaries, predict and clarify the text.  This is to clarify the purpose of reading, direct attention, activate background knowledge again, and also to evaluate content, monitor predictions, and draw conclusions.  The teacher is able to monitor the students’ performance and confirm whether the students are able to use new vocabulary, express ideas and concepts and link ideas.

12.  Finding the Main Idea  (As a Whole Class)

The teacher asks the students to find the main idea in a paragraph or whole text.  This activity is to identify and distinguish the important information from the less important information in the text, summarize the concepts, confirm the understanding of the content, and as a review of the previous activities.  The students are able to avoid misunderstandings about the topic by sharing the idea with peers.

13.  Signal Words  (As a Whole Class)

Signal words used to indicate a particular text pattern are taught to show how these words function in the text.  For instance, 'so' indicates a cause and effect, and 'after' indicates sequence of events in the text.  Teaching these words and the function might give the readers new or different ideas to approach the text.

14.  Key Words  (As a Whole Class)

The teacher asks the students to identify key words to distinguish the important words from the less important words in the text. 

The students are asked to identify the words by asking:

• What was the event?
• When did the event occur?
• Where did the event occur?
• Who was involved in the event?
• How did the event occur?
• Why did the event occur?

15.  Developing Data Banks (As a Whole Class)

Words and discourse markers which are useful, important and frequently appear should be added to individual or class data banks to assist the students’ vocabulary development.  Writing these words on a sheet on the wall or students’ notebooks assists the students’ reading practices in future classroom activities.

Post-reading Activities

16.  Cloze Passages (As a Whole Class)

This activity is designed to assist the readers in developing vocabulary, understanding cohesion in the text, and investigating the text further.  Reading abilities might be improved by identifying chains in the text and recognizing how the chains are used to make the text coherent.  Showing how the teacher or the readers who have higher proficiency complete the passage works as a model of good reading strategies and assists the learners who have difficulties in reading comprehension to deepen and expand knowledge of the context.

17.  Comprehension Questions  (Individual)

Comprehension questions are asked to the students to confirm their understanding of the content of the whole text and to monitor the understanding of each student.  Question sheets containing various questions are provided for each student to work on individually.

True or False Questions

• Computer training is offered on the trains.  True or False?
• The training is offered on morning trains.  True or False?
• The trains run from Houston.  True or False?

Alternative Questions

• Was the first lesson on March 26 or March 30?
• Was the first lesson English or Russian?  
• Was the first lesson a successful or not successful?

WH-questions

• Who is taking the training?
• How many students signed up for the lessons?  
• How many languages are taught on the trains?
• What languages are taught on the trains?
• What does the teacher have to do before the lesson?
• What do the students have to do before the lesson?
• What is difficult to do on the trains?
• What happened on the first day of the lessons?
• Where is Riihimak?
• Why are the lessons given on the trains?

After the students complete the activity, the teacher checks their answers with the class to confirm their understanding of the context before moving onto the next activity.

Information collected at the stage is used not only to find the learners’ language proficiency but also to present evidence of their advancement to various stakeholders.  The teacher is able to improve the curriculum by using the information collected at the stage in the future course.

18.  Compare Ideas  (In Pairs)

Charts are provided to the students to ask questions to his/her partner and fill in their answers.  By questioning, conferencing and sharing their ideas with peers, the students are able to practice listening, speaking and writing, relate personal experiences with the topic, and focus on their ideas before the final discussion stage.

Questions	You	Your partner
What kind of transportation do you usually use?	<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]-->	<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]-->
What time do you usually travel on trains/subways/buses?	<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]-->	<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]-->
What do you usually do on trains/subways/buses?	<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]-->	<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]-->
Do you want to study language on trains?  Why?	<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]-->	<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]-->
Do you think language training on trains is a good idea?  Why?	<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]-->	<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]-->
What kind of lessons can we offer other than language?  Why?	<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]-->	<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]-->
What else can we do on trains?  Why?	<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]-->	<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]-->
Do you want to take lessons on trains?  Why?	<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]-->	<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]-->

19.  Discussion  (As a Whole Class)

Discussing about the topic helps the readers to relate the theme of the text to their experience, and develop their understanding.  Questions such as the following are designed to lead the discussion in the class.  

• Do you want to study language on trains?  Why?
• Do you think language training on trains is a good idea?  Why?
• What kind of lessons can we offer other than language?   Why?
• What else can we do on trains?  Why?  
• Do you want to take lessons on trains?  Why?

The answers are not in the text, therefore, the students have to think of their own idea about the topic.  

Summary

On completion of the program, the students are expected to be able to read and understand newspaper articles, on topics familiar to them, without depending on dictionaries.  These activities help the students to reflect on written texts critically and to progress from an intermediate to an advanced level of proficiency.

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The Internet TESL Journal, Vol. XIII, No. 2, February 2007http://iteslj.org/

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http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Kawabata-ReadingStrategies.html

Utopia (saeed-zr.blogfa.com)