First of all, I would say that in order to learn how to read in English or any other language we need to read! Read, read and read! We need to try reading everything we can imagine: magazines, newspapers, novels, comics, etc. But It's very important, for example, if the student is in the 7th grade, we cannot suggest him or her to read a big newspaper or a very thick book!
Before anything, to get started with the learning of reading, we need to call the students' attention for the act of reading. The material can be chosen for the students' best interest like science fiction, adventure, police chronicle, manga, and other matters that are close to the teenagers.
The first time when I studied English, the teacher asked the students to buy an English reading book. I thought: I've never enjoyed reading books in Portuguese, and now I will have to read in English ?! Since it was a small book with few pages, I decided to buy it. To my surprise, it was a Police chronicle named "K's first case". I got so happy because the only kind of book I used to be interested in was police ones. I started to read the book and I couldn't stop it until I found out who the murder was in that story! The words I couldn't understand in the reading I would search them in the dictionary, and I would go back reading to be able to understand the text. This way, I loved the book and I loved reading in English!
This episode was about twenty years ago and I'n describing it now because I really believe that one of the best ways or strategies for learning to read a foreign language is exactly to be able to "AWAKE THE STUDENT DESIRE FOR READING".
No comments:
Post a Comment