How to Teach Reading for the CELTA

Summary

This video tutorial outlines a five-stage process for effectively teaching a reading lesson, including lead-in, pre-teaching vocabulary, gist and detail tasks, and a follow-up productive task. It emphasizes engaging students with the context, activating their background knowledge, and developing reading subskills for gist and detail. The video also provides rationales, tasks, and quotations from language teaching experts to aid in lesson planning and assignment completion, particularly for the LSRT assignment in the Salter course.

Takeaways

• 📚 The video outlines a step-by-step guide to teaching a reading lesson successfully, emphasizing the importance of each stage in the process.
• 🔑 The stages of a reading lesson are: lead-in, pre-teach vocabulary, gist task, detailed task, and follow-up productive task.
• 🤔 The purpose of the lead-in is to engage students, generate interest, and activate their schema, not to teach the subject matter.
• 🚫 Avoid the trap of teaching the subject matter during the lead-in; focus on developing reading subskills for gist and details.
• 📚 Pre-teach vocabulary by identifying 'blocking items'—words essential for understanding the gist or details of the text.
• 🔢 Limit the number of vocabulary items pre-taught to a maximum of seven or eight in a one-hour lesson, and use student-centered activities like matching tasks.
• 🔍 The gist task is designed to help learners quickly grasp the main ideas and overall meaning of the text.
• 🔎 Reading for detail or scanning involves locating specific information quickly and requires understanding the context of the text.
• 📝 Effective tasks for reading for detail include true/false questions based on the text, with a manageable number of questions to suit the lesson length.
• 🗣️ The follow-up productive task can involve developing a third reading subskill, writing, or speaking activities to engage students and provide feedback.
• 💬 Encourage speaking tasks for maximum student engagement, opportunities for feedback, and to consolidate understanding of the reading material.
• 🌐 The video also relates to an assignment on the Salter course, specifically the LSRT assignment, providing rationale and tasks applicable to language teaching.

Q & A

What are the five stages of a reading lesson according to the video?

The five stages of a reading lesson are: lead-in, pre-teach vocabulary, gist task, detailed task, and follow-up productive task.

Why is a lead-in important in the context of a reading lesson?

A lead-in is important to engage students with the context, generate interest, and activate their schema, which is their background knowledge of the world that helps them interact with the text.

What is the purpose of teaching reading according to the video?

The purpose of teaching reading is to develop students' subskills of reading for gist and details, not necessarily to teach them about the subject matter of the reading text.

What is a 'blocking item' in the context of pre-teaching vocabulary?

A 'blocking item' is a piece of vocabulary that, if students do not understand, they won't be able to complete one of the reading tasks, such as the gist or detailed task.

What is the recommended maximum number of vocabulary items to pre-teach in a 1-hour lesson?

The recommended maximum number of vocabulary items to pre-teach in a 1-hour lesson is seven to eight.

What is a gist task and why is it important?

A gist task is an activity focused on getting learners to read quickly and get an overall idea of the text. It is important because it helps readers quickly identify key information and comprehend the central message of the text.

What is an example of a gist task mentioned in the video?

An example of a gist task is to take the title of the article and invent another title that is similar in meaning, then have students read the text and decide which title best applies to it.

What is the purpose of reading for detail or scanning according to the video?

The purpose of reading for detail or scanning is to quickly locate specific information in a text, such as names, dates, or statistics, and to understand something about the text.

What is a recommended task type for achieving scanning or reading for detail?

A true/false task is recommended for achieving scanning or reading for detail, where sentences from the text are turned into questions for students to answer.

What are the three forms a follow-up productive task can take according to the video?

The three forms a follow-up productive task can take are: developing a third reading sub-skill in a meaningful context, a follow-up writing task, and a follow-up speaking task.

Why is a follow-up speaking task considered the most engaging and student-centered activity in a reading lesson?

A follow-up speaking task is considered the most engaging and student-centered because it allows students to share their opinions on points from the reading text, provides opportunities for interaction, and offers the teacher a chance to give feedback.

Outlines

00:00

📚 Introduction to Teaching Reading Lessons

The speaker introduces the video's purpose, which is to guide viewers through the process of teaching a reading lesson effectively. They outline the five stages of a reading lesson: lead-in, pre-teach vocabulary, gist task, detailed task, and follow-up productive task. The lead-in stage is emphasized as a means to engage students with the context, generate interest, and activate their background knowledge. The video also promises to provide rationales, tasks, and quotations from relevant authors to support the teaching process and assignments related to the Salter course's LSRT assignment.

05:02

📘 Pre-Teaching Vocabulary and Gist Tasks

This paragraph delves into the pre-teaching of vocabulary, focusing on 'blocking items'—vocabulary that is essential for students to understand in order to complete reading tasks. The speaker advises against teaching too many vocabulary items in one lesson and suggests using a matching task to engage students. The gist task is then introduced, with a rationale from Jeremy Harmer, emphasizing the importance of grasping the main ideas and overall meaning of a text. An example of a gist task is provided, where students determine the correct title for a text based on its content.

10:02

🔍 Reading for Detail and Follow-Up Tasks

The speaker explains the purpose of reading for detail, or scanning, as described by Jim Scrivener, which involves quickly locating specific information in a text. A true/false task is suggested as an effective way to practice this skill. The paragraph then discusses the follow-up productive task, which can take various forms, including developing a third reading sub-skill, a follow-up writing task, or a speaking task. The speaker highlights the importance of these tasks in providing opportunities for student engagement and feedback.

📢 Conclusion and Call to Action

In the conclusion, the speaker summarizes the video's content and its relevance to both reading lessons and the LSRT assignment on the Salter course. They encourage viewers to share their experiences and challenges with teaching reading in the comments section. The speaker also promotes their website for a free consultation and invites viewers to like, share, and subscribe to the channel, emphasizing their goal to share knowledge and experience to help language teachers improve their skills.

Keywords

💡Reading Lesson

A reading lesson is an educational session focused on improving students' reading comprehension skills. In the video, the theme revolves around the structure and rationale behind an effective reading lesson, which includes stages such as lead-in, vocabulary pre-teaching, gist tasks, detailed tasks, and follow-up productive tasks.

💡Lead-in

The lead-in is the initial stage of a reading lesson designed to engage students with the context of the reading material and activate their background knowledge. The script mentions that the purpose is not to teach the subject matter but to set the stage for developing reading subskills, such as reading for gist and details.

💡Vocabulary Pre-teaching

Vocabulary pre-teaching involves introducing key words that students need to understand to complete reading tasks. The script emphasizes focusing on 'blocking items,' or vocabulary essential for task comprehension, and suggests a limit on the number of vocabulary items taught to maintain effectiveness.

💡Blocking Items

Blocking items refer to specific vocabulary that, if not understood, would prevent students from completing reading tasks. The script provides a rationale for pre-teaching such vocabulary to ensure students can successfully engage with the reading material and tasks.

💡Gist Task

A gist task is an activity that encourages students to quickly grasp the main idea or central message of a text. The video script cites Jeremy Harmer, emphasizing the importance of reading for gist to identify key information and understand the text's overall meaning, with an example of creating alternative titles for a given article.

💡Reading for Detail

Reading for detail, also known as scanning, is the act of searching a text for specific information. The script quotes Jim Scrivener to highlight the usefulness of this skill in locating and understanding specific details within a text, such as names or statistics.

💡Follow-up Productive Task

A follow-up productive task is the final stage of a reading lesson, aiming to consolidate learning and provide opportunities for students to apply their skills. The video script outlines three forms this task can take: developing a third reading subskill, a writing task, or a speaking task, with the latter being the most engaging and student-centered.

💡Concept Checking Questions (CCQs)

CCQs are a type of question used to ensure students have understood the meaning of a word or concept. The script suggests using CCQs sparingly during vocabulary pre-teaching in a reading lesson, as the focus is more on reading comprehension than vocabulary acquisition.

💡LSRT Assignment

The LSRT assignment is a task related to the language system that is part of the Salter course mentioned in the script. It involves applying the principles of teaching reading to enhance students' language skills, and the video provides insights that can be applied to this assignment.

💡Student-Centered

A student-centered approach focuses on the learners' needs and active participation in the learning process. The script advocates for this approach, especially in the context of pre-teaching vocabulary and follow-up speaking tasks, to maximize engagement and provide opportunities for feedback.

💡Reading Subskills

Reading subskills are the specific abilities required for effective reading, such as reading for gist and detail. The video script discusses the importance of developing these subskills throughout the stages of a reading lesson to enhance students' overall reading comprehension.

Highlights

Introduction to the five stages of a reading lesson: lead-in, pre-teach vocabulary, gist task, detailed task, and follow-up productive task.

The purpose of the lead-in is to engage students with the context, generate interest, and activate their schema.

Clarification that the lead-in is not about teaching subject matter but developing reading subskills for gist and details.

Importance of pre-teaching vocabulary that are blocking items, crucial for understanding the gist or detailed task.

Advice on limiting pre-taught vocabulary to a maximum of seven to eight items in a one-hour lesson.

Suggestion to use a matching task for pre-teaching vocabulary to keep the focus student-centered.

Jeremy Harmer's quote on the importance of reading for gist to identify key information and comprehend the central message.

Example of a gist task: creating alternative titles for a text and deciding which one best represents the gist.

Jim Scrivener's quote on the usefulness of scanning for locating specific information and understanding the text.

Description of a true/false task as an effective way to practice scanning or reading for detail.

Recommendation to limit the number of true/false questions based on the length of the lesson.

Discussion of the follow-up productive task, which can develop a third reading subskill, writing, or speaking.

Emphasis on the rarity of developing a third reading subskill in the context of a reading lesson.

Suggestion of a follow-up writing task, such as writing an email or blog post in response to the reading.

Advocacy for a follow-up speaking task as the most engaging and student-centered option for feedback.

Encouragement to apply these reading lesson strategies to the LSRT assignment on the Salter course.

Invitation for viewers to share their experiences and challenges with teaching reading in the comments.

Call to action for viewers to like, share, and subscribe to the channel for more educational content.

Final message emphasizing the goal of sharing knowledge and experience to help viewers become better language teachers.

Transcripts

in this video I'm going to explain to

you step by step how to teach a reading

lesson successfully and stick around to

the end because this video also applies

to one of your assignments on the Salter

course that's the language system

related task that

lsrt assignment I will give you the

rationals why you're doing each stage

I'm going to suggest some tasks and I'm

going to give you some quotations from

relevant authors for rational El again

why you're doing those tests which will

help you a lot with your assignments so

let's jump into it so first things first

the stages of a reading lesson what are

they there are five of them there's a

leadin there's pre-teach of vocabulary

there's a gist task there's a detailed

task and then there's a followup

productive task and those are the stages

of a reading lesson let's talk about

each one and why you are doing it so the

first one the leadin why do you do a

leadin and what does it look like well

the first thing why are you doing a

leadin you're doing that to engage

students with the context to generate

interest and to activate their schema

that is their knowledge or background

knowledge of the world that will help

them interact with the text now

sometimes people fall into the the Trap

of thinking that my purpose here is to

teach students about the subject matter

of my reading text recently I was

working with a person and we were

looking at a text all about impact of AI

on education and in the beginning it

looked like oh we have to teach students

to think critically about Ai and while

that is good and no problems with it

that's not our purpose when it comes to

teaching reading our purpose when it

comes to teaching reading is to develop

students subskills of reading for gist

and details so that leading is really

just to engage the students with that

topic so that we come back to developing

these subskills of gist and detail okay

the next stage pre-teaching vocabulary

again sometimes trainees or new teachers

will think okay I'm going to teach the

difficult words and that's a good place

to kind of start off but we can give a

little bit more rationale and a little

bit more I guess reason why we are

pre-teaching vocab and the way that you

do that is by focusing on what are

called blocking items so a blocking item

is a piece of vocabulary that if the

students don't understand what it means

then they won't be able to do one of the

tasks the gist or the detailed task so

that's kind of your test for whether you

should teach something or not does it

appear in one of the questions and the

gist or detail task and is it kind of

like a key piece pie of vocabulary that

you could have a reasonable expectation

the students might not understand what

that means and if they don't understand

what it means then they won't be able to

do the task if the answers to those

questions are yes then you should add

that to your pre-teaching of vocabulary

now one more bonus tip when it comes to

pre-teaching vocabulary is that you

should teach no more than let's say

seven maximum eight items in a 1H hour

lesson so if if you're teaching less

than 1 hour let's say you're teaching 45

minutes then you should aim for five or

six bonus bonus tip is that a really

good way of pre-teaching vocab with uh

student centered focus is to use a

matching task have your words and have

images for example and then ask students

to match those up don't worry so much

about covering all aspects of meaning

form and pronunciation because after all

this is a reading lesson not a

vocabulary lesson yeah sure you might

ask one or two CC Qs concept checking

questions you might drill a little bit

of pronunciation but really it doesn't

have this same Focus as it would if it

were a language systems lesson and in

the language systems as I say it would

be a vocabulary or Lexus lesson so

that's not the case here you're just

pre-teaching some voam so that the

students can do the reading tasks

successfully before I get on to the next

tip I just wanted to take one quick

minute of your time to to tell you about

my website where you can book an

appointment with me a free 45 minute

consultation just to talk about whatever

your language teaching goals are I'm

here to spend that time with you and

discuss how you can better achieve them

the third stage the gist task why are

you doing a gist task well now that

you've established your context through

your leadin and you've pre-taught some

vocabulary while students are ready to

do some actual read the gist task is

focused on getting the Learners to read

quickly and get an overall idea of the

text now I'm going to read I've got a

quote here uh from Jeremy harmer Jeremy

harmer says effective reading involves

not only understanding individual words

but also grasping the main ideas and

overall meaning of the text reading for

gist allows readers to quickly identify

key information and comprehend the

central message of the text so there's a

good rationale that could go into your

assignment for why Learners need uh to

read for gist here's a good example of a

gist task a good gist task could be take

the title of the article you're going to

get the students to read and then invent

another title which is pretty similar

let's go back to my example of the text

about AI say that the title is AI will

replace teachers then you might invent

uh title that says teachers want to

replace classes with AI so you see that

that's kind of similar but it's

different so now the students read the

text and then they just decide which is

the correct title because after all the

title really is the gist of the text

right so they're just looking and trying

to decide which one best applies to the

text and that's good gist task okay now

we've done our just task let's move on

to reading for detail or sometimes refer

to as scanning and yet again I've got a

quote here for you for you this time

from Jim scrier scrier says scanning

which is reading for detail as well

scanning involves moving your eyes

quickly down the page looking for

specific words of phrases it is useful

for quickly locating specific

information in a text such as Nam stes

or statistics you know a strong scanning

task doesn't require students only to

lift that information out of the text

but requires them to understand

something about the text so very useful

task type to achieve scanning or reading

for detail is a true false uh task so

just the way I tend to design that is a

go through the text paragraph by

paragraph I pull out a sentence and then

I just turn that into a question now

caveat there let's say your text is 20

paragraphs long you don't want to have

20 true false questions you might have

kind of Maximum 10 uh 10 is a good

number for uh a 1 hour lesson again if

your lesson is shorter aim for between

five and8 and again make sure that

that's graded dependent on the level

that you're teaching okay so now that

your two reading tasks your gist and

detail tasks are complete it's time to

wrap up the lesson with a follow-up

productive task now the follow-up

productive task can take three forms the

the first and I would say rarest on a

Celtic course is developing a third

reading sub skill and that is in very

meaningful context so what you might do

is you might pull out some more

vocabulary and direct the students

towards where it appears in the text and

then provide them with some meaning

based task this is really starting to

focus on the language systems in the

lesson so that's why I said it's of the

rarest because we usually want to keep

these receptive skills reading lessons

totally skills focused so that leads me

to two other possibilities again I'm

going from rarest to most common so the

rarer skills productive skills task

would be a follow-up writing task this

could take the form of you read an

article again about AI for example and

you might get the students to write an

email or write a blog post or something

like that in response to the article

which they've read however the third one

and probably the most sure is bet for

you the the one that is going to create

the most engagement most student

centered give you the most opportunities

to provide feedback to your learners is

to do a follow-up speaking task and all

you need to do is just go back look at

your reading text and take out one or

two points turn those into questions ask

the students to share their opinions on

those points or do they agree or

disagree generally if you have the

numbers I like to put students into

groups for this groups of three uh four

if it's a big group but of course pairs

will work just fine okay that's it for

this video remember it does apply not

just to your reading lessons but also to

your skills related task assignment on

selfa so let me know in the comments

down below how have your reading lessons

been going how have you been able to

apply this to your assignments as well

and what other challenges or maybe brain

WS have you had when it comes to

teaching Reading Please do like share

and subscribe share this video on your

social media or by email or text message

or whatever with anybody who you think

would get some value out of this content

which I've created remember my objective

here is really just to share my

knowledge and my experience with all of

you to help you all become the best

language teachers that you can so that

we can deliver the best lessons for our

students okay thank you so much for

watching all that's left for me to say

is bye for now and I'll see you in the

next one