Read

I have discussed about some methods of using English newspapers in class in my previous blog posts. Here is the final section, concerning some post-reading activities.

Post-reading Section

Objectives: To help students further comprehend the text, help students be able to output what they have learned and develop other skills. Activities focusing on some vocabulary and sentence structures will develop students’ strategies for dealing with unknown words. Besides, well-organized follow-up activities can greatly develop students’ other skills such as listening, speaking and writing, for it is an important process to link the reading to speaking activities and writing activities and develop integrated skills, in which students can apply their acquired knowledge in similar readings or different situations. It will also build up their confidence and stimulate students to read after class.

Activities:

• Encourage students to re-read the text and underline examples of a specific language area. For example, they can focus on the present perfect, the passive or some other grammar items.
• Get students to do role-play based on articles they have read (eg. have interviews, act out short plays, etc)
• Choose a statement about a hot issue in the article and get students to debate about it or have discussions.
• Personalize the articles. Get students to act as a character in the story and imagine what will go on and continue to write the next day’s story. Or write a letter to the editor, a friend or the government. This is a most motivating and challenging writing task. Meanwhile, it will cultivate the students’ imagination and creativity.

Post-reading activities may also include any reactions to the text and while-reading tasks, for example, students do role-plays, or give comments on the articles they read, or have discussions which will develop students’ integrated language skills. Discussions and question-and-answer sessions after the reading stimulate high-level thinking, which in turn whets the students’ appetite to learn more (Scarcella & Oxford, 1992, p.97). Teachers should not forget that post-reading activities can extend out of class, like some project work, making surveys according to the articles in the newspapers. This is a very important stage for teachers to stimulate the students’ intrinsic motivation to read widely, which helps to build up students’ schema and cultivate them into autonomous and more efficient readers.

Glossary

well-organized (adj.) – arrangements that are made in a good way

stimulate (v.) – to encourage something to develop

autonomous (adj.) – able to make decisions independently

Discuss

Do you have any post reading activities that you could share?

What motivational techniques do you use to get students going in class?