Using a Written Text to Practice Multiple Skills

Purpose: To use listening, speaking, and reading in working with a written text.

Preparation Time: Depends on time needed to gather materials for pre-teaching vocabulary (see below).

Materials: Selected text, plus copies for learners, markers, white board.

Preparation: Plan to spend a little time thinking about how you will create context for the reading. What questions can you ask to elicit vocabulary and student knowledge about the subject? Decide which vocabulary words you need to pre-teach. What pictures, definitions, or examples do you need?

Procedure:

I do it:

1. Create context related to the story.
2. Teacher/tutor reads out loud while students listen. At this point, students do not have a copy of the text.
3. Go back to the beginning and read the first sentence. Ask students to name a key word from the sentence. Write that word on the board. Continue until you have one key word from each sentence on the board.

Note: Be sure to write the words in sequence on the board.

We do it:

1. Ask the class to refer to the key words on the board and retell the story.
2. After the retell, depending on the content of the story, ask students to express an opinion about it, share additional information they may have, infer meaning, suggest solutions to a problem, etc.
3. Encourage students to ask questions about the topic or story.

You do it:

1. Now pass out the story. Students read independently.