Analysis of activity-designing in reading teaching
Today is a gift
Two men, both seriously ill, occupied the same hospital room. One man was allowed to sit up in his bed for an hour each afternoon to help drain the fluid from his lungs. His bed was next to the room‘s only window. The other man had to spend all his time flat on his back. The men talked for hours on end.
They spoke of their wives and families, their homes, their jobs, their involvement in the military service, where they had been on vacation. And every afternoon when the man in the bed by the window could sit up, he would pass the time by describing to his roommate all the things he could see outside the window. The man in the other bed began to live for those one-hour periods where his world would be broadened and enlivened by all the activity and color of the world outside.
The window overlooked a park with a lovely lake. Ducks and swans played on the water while children sailed their model boats. Young lovers walked arm in arm amidst flowers of every color of the rainbow. Grand old trees graced the landscape, and a fine view of the city skyline could be seen in the distance. As the man by the window described all this in exquisite detail, the man on the other side of the room would close his eyes and imagine the picturesque scene.
One warm afternoon the man by the window described a parade passing by. Although the other man couldn‘t hear the band - he could see it in his mind‘s eye as the gentleman by the window portrayed it with descriptive words.
Days and weeks passed. One morning, the day nurse arrived to bring water for their baths only to find the lifeless body of the man by the window, who had died peacefully in his sleep. She was saddened and called the hospital attendants to take the body away.
As soon as it seemed appropriate, the other man asked if he could be moved next to the window. The nurse was happy to make the switch, and after making sure he was comfortable, she left him alone. Slowly and painfully, he propped himself up on one elbow to take his first look at the world outside. Finally, he would have the joy of seeing it for himself. He strained to slowly turn to look out the window beside the bed. It faced a blank wall.
The man asked the nurse what could have compelled his deceased roommate who had described such wonderful things outside this window. The nurse responded that the man was blind and could not even see the wall. She said, "Perhaps he just wanted to encourage you."
Self-reflection
General analysis of the reading lesson
Generally speaking, it is a successful reading class with effectiveness, vividness, and abundant information. The setting of teaching objectives is very clear and appropriate. The teaching procedure is designed scientifically, smoothly, and effectively. The teaching method is quite proper and original. This reading lesson begins with a short video “A beautiful mind”, which successfully arouse students’ great interest and activate their background knowledge. Activities designed in the pre-, while-, and post-reading stages effectively increase students’ reading skills and strategies.
While-reading activities, especially, have been used since the adoption of the idea of reading as an interactive process. These activities generally aim to encourage students to be active as they read.
What follows is the detailed analysis of some while-reading activities focusing on the process of understanding.
Analysis of activity-designing
Activity1. Skimming
The students are instructed to go through the reading text quickly to get a general idea of the text for the first time Usually, teachers can set up skimming activities by asking general questions which allow students to focus on one or two things, or by providing three or four statements one of which represents the main idea of the text. Through comparison and peer-learning, students tend to accumulate and assimilate knowledge better.
According to constructivism, especially social constructivism, teachers should take the role of a promoter of the student learning as a scaffold in that the he or she listens to the different meanings constructed by the students, negotiate with them about these meanings as the need arises, and encourage the students to bring about more different ideas.
Activity 2: Scanning
For the second time, students read the text to scan the specific information and answer the questions. This activity is completed without difficulty for the questions are quite easy. What is important is the instruction and guidance given before the students do the scanning. I teach the reading strategy of scanning in an explicit way. I start by giving the definition of scanning (Scanning means searching for certain specific information) and then tells the class that it is not necessary to read the whole text, rather, they need to find the effective reading area, locate the information in the text and catch the key words. I remind the students that numbers and proper nouns are often the index, to which they need to pay special attention. Additionally, I relate this reading skill to the reading materials outside the classroom and the reading comprehension part in the English examination.
Constructivists advocate that the setting of teaching aims should be more flexible and open so that the students may constantly construct their own learning goals according to their learning demands and needs. My explicit teaching of reading strategies and the explanation of its practical and real-life use dramatically motivate the students to master the strategies, either to facilitate their comprehension of the English materials in daily life or get higher marks in their English exam. The setting of teaching aims is open and flexible, for I don’t confine the teaching of reading skills to the text “Today is a gift” itself, rather, I put my teaching aims in a much more flexible and wider context where the students are allowed and encouraged to construct their own learning goal.
Activity 3: Reading comprehension questions
The third activity I design in my reading teaching is answering reading comprehension questions. Unfortunately, most of the questions belong to the type of factual questions, which can be directly found in the reading text. It would be better if I supplement the students with some inference questions, evaluation questions or questions for personal response which will more effectively stimulate the students to think actively and communicate by using their own language.
To be an effective reading teacher, I suppose, it is important to help the students to see questions not as attempts to expose their ignorance, but as aids to successful exploration of the text. Before checking the answers concerned with paragraph 3, I ask the students to have a discussion in groups of four and negotiate with the other group members to get a better answer. According to the theories of CLT, work in small groups has substantial value in lessons where reading is the focus of communicative activity. Moreover, Constructivism also thinks highly of group work and discussion and even proposes the discussion as the major means of learning. It is not that all the proposals by the constructivists should be totally accepted. Yet, to be an effective reading teacher, I believe the teacher can relate the theories of Constructivism and CLT to the real condition of the students and the teaching material to design appropriate activities.
Activity 4: Language study, a controversial issue
Language study is included in this reading lesson, though it has always been a controversial issue as to whether it is appropriate to include language study in reading classroom, when, to what degree and in what way it should be done. In the form of the competition, I encourage the students to find the relevant words in the text according to the meanings given and photos shown on PPT. Originally, I intend to combine meaning with form, and teach the new words in a communicative way. The result is not so satisfactory, though. Within a short period of time, the students find it difficult to locate the exact words, and pronounce them correctly to finish the task.
The new curriculum calls for the teacher to encourage, elicit, guide, assist, prompt, participate, give feedback and assess in reading teaching. Teachers are no longer merely the center, the decision-maker, the performer or the controller as in the traditional English teaching. Therefore, the design of language-study in my lesson somewhat reveals some characteristics in the transitional phase with the implementation of the new curriculum.
Activity 5: Information-transfer activities
Partly owing to the genre of the text, the chart designed makes the organization and the development of the text very clearly presented before the students. I ask the students to complete the chart while they are reading and explore the text by themselves. The chart serve as a means and an end in the sense that students tackle the text with the guidance of the chart and also, while they are reading and exploring the text, they need to complete the chart.
The keys to approaching a text successfully lie in the relevance of the text to the learners, its interest, the experience they can bring to making sense of it, and the appropriateness of the task required. Quite difficult texts can be made accessible through simple but appropriate tasks. CLT approach indicates the importance of teacher’s activity-designing and its appropriateness. The design of information-transfer activities proves to be effective and appropriate to tackle this text “Today is a gift”.
To sum up, this reading class effectively develops students’ reading strategies and skills. Still, I think there are some points to improve and perfect. For instance, it would be better if I can prolong the wait-time for the students to discuss in small groups and think deeper so that the students’ answers will be more satisfactory. I should modify my questions and make them easier when the students can’t grasp my meaning. Whatsoever, reading lessons can follow many patterns, and different text and target readers call for different treatments. We should design effective and appropriate activities that best suit the students and the reading materials.