Improving the reading & listening skills of higher level learners
Recipes for success at more advanced levels
- Study regularly and often
- Intersperse study with real contact with the language
- Study includes analysing grammar and vocabulary of articles in the Guardian Weekly, doing grammar exercises, doing reading and listening comprehension exercises
- Real contact includes watching original version DVDs, watching and listening to the news in English regularly, regularly reading newspapers like the Guardian Weekly without a dictionary
- Regularly reading modernday fiction without a dictionary
Interesting facts and figures
How many words does a native speaker know?
The most careful studies show that even university-educated speakers top out at about 20,000 base words--and that's receptive, not active. For example, see the following study, which shows the average for university-educated speakers at about 17,000 base words:
http://iteslj.org/Articles/Cervatiuc-VocabularyAcquisition.html
http://iteslj.org/Articles/Cervatiuc-VocabularyAcquisition.html
Advise your learners: You need to read more!
In a week, a typical intermediate English learner who attends 4 hours of English classes learns maybe 5 new words or phrases from reading 2 pages in English plus another 5 from other sources (listening, conversation with teacher). They may write down more than this, but after a week they remember less than 50% of the knowledge.
If you read 20 pages per week (which is only about 3 per day), you will learn, mathematically, about 50 new words or phrases per week. If you read 40 pages per week (about 6 per day), you will learn 100 new words or phrases per week. This means that you're learning in 1 year what the average learner learns in 10 years.
Start with a graded reader, and try to read it without a dictionary.
Take a level test to determine which course to take and which graded reader to read. You will find the tests on the website below.
Penguin Level 1 test = A1 Vocabulary size: 300 headwords
Penguin Level 3 test = A2 Vocabulary size: 1,200 headwords
Penguin Level 4 test = B1 Vocabulary size: 1,700 headwords
Penguin Level 5 test = B2 Vocabulary size: 2,300 headwords
Penguin Level 6 test = C1 Vocabulary size: 3,000 headwords
General objectives
Improve students’ listening and reading skills
My objective:
Get them reading and listening to authentic English without a dictionary or other support as soon as possible. It is a good idea to start with guided reading and listening assistance. They have to learn how to use a dictionary astutely—I advise them to only look up a word if it feels familiar– otherwise they will waste time.
Read books
Give students links to good sites to choose books. Suggest they watch the film then read the book or the other way round.
What sites do you use to buy or browse for books?
Which ones do you recommend to your students?
Native speaker level
Summary of objectives at B2 and C1 levels
At the upper-intermediate level (B2—First Certificate)
Reading
· Use graded readers—get them to read without a dictionary –they buy or you build up a library.
· Send them weekly emails of articles with vocabulary identified and explained using an online dictionary. You need to devise the worksheet. Feedback in class.
· Send them weekly Guardian Weekly reading comprehension exercises—find them online.
· Send them links to CNN literacy site with news articles to read and listen to and online exercises—organized thematically.
Listening
· Send them to ‘BBC words in the news’ site where they listen, read and analyse vocabulary.
· Send them links to ‘BBC Video Nation’ site—organized thematically.
· Send them links to http://www.esolcourses.com/ intermediate level materials—organized thematically.
· Send them links to British Council Learn English site—themed podcasts.
At the advanced level (C1-Advanced—CAE CPE)
Reading
· Use graded readers—get them to read without a dictionary –they buy or you build up a library. Then get them reading real novels-how?
· Send them weekly emails of articles with vocabulary identified and they explain using an online dictionary. You need to devise the worksheet. Feedback in class.
· Send them weekly advanced level Guardian Weekly reading comprehension articles.
· Help them find online newspapers and devise a plan.
Listening
· Send them to authentic news sites eg ABC Foreign Correspondent.
· In class, discuss what English movies are out or old ones on DVD to watch.
Resource sites for lesson planning
1 Sites with vocabulary, transcripts exercises etc
· The English Blog (B2 C1—all skills)http://www.jeffreyhill.typepad.com/english/
· Guardian Weekly Learn English—reading comprehension exercises (all levels)—two sources:
Sign up and get classroom materials, especially reading comprehension exercises
· New York Times learning blog http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/
· United Nations multimedia
Radio and TV http://www.unmultimedia.org/
2 Sites without support (C1)
· Newsweek http://www.newsweek.com/ (read and listen to videos etc)
· Guardian Weekly http://www.guardianweekly.co.uk/
· Times online http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/
· BBC—Video Nation (B2 C1) http://www.bbc.co.uk/videonation/archive/
· TED (C1) —riveting talks by remarkable people http://www.ted.com/
· UNESCO site—videos from all over the world (C1) - teachers’ resources
3 Literature sites (B2 C1)
· The Reading Group on BBC
In The Reading Group, we bring together listeners, students of English, literature teachers and other contributors from the world of books to share their enthusiasm for reading.
Penguin graded readers (B2 C1)
Penguin graded readers (B2 C1)
Other reading site (C1)
http://www.goodreads.com/
Sites for students
1 Adult literacy sites with reading and listening and exercises (B2)
· CNN literacy net (B2)
http://literacynet.org/cnnsf/archives.html—thematic—mainly reading
· ‘California
· BBC Skills wise—literacy– listening and reading (B2)
2 Sites with transcripts
· Euronews (B2) http://www.euronews.net/
· CNN news and transcripts (B2 C1) http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/
· ABC (C1) - three video programmes with transcript
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/ Documentaries with transcript—about 10 minutes long
http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/ABC (Australian) Foreign Correspondent—weekly documentary news programme with transcript—about 30 mins
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/ News programmes with transcript—varying lengths
· BBC news (C1) summaries and videos http://news.bbc.co.uk/
· United Nations multimedia (B2 C1)
TV webcasts with transcript http://www.un.org/av/unfamily/unia.html
· Video Nation (B2 -listening)http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/youmeus/videonation/video_nation_index.shtml
3 Learning English sites (B2)
· BBC (B2– all skills) http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/
BBC Words in the news http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/language/wordsinthenews/index.shtml
· British Council podcasts on themes (B2)
http://www.britishcouncil.org/learnenglish-podcasts.htm . Find podcasts on many themes—listening
· Randall’s cyber listening lab (B2) http://www.esl-lab.com/
· UN learn English site (B2 C1) http://www.unepd.info/index.html
· ESOL courses free online (B2) http://www.esolcourses.com/ intermediate level materials—organized thematically.
· British Council Learn English site—themes
How to present your information
E-learning platforms
Moodle
Blogs
Blogspot
http://ochonivel.blogspot.com/
Wordpress
http://teachingtogether.wordpress.com/
http://etas2009.wikispaces.com/
http://etasblog.wordpress.com/
Emails
Send documents by email.
Send weekly emails to students with links, newspaper articles, exercises etc.
Example
Dear students
1 Welcome to the first week of the Directed Self Study course. I hope you have bought your books or at least ordered them!
2 You are invited to attend a 45-minute workshop on Thursday 7 January at 9am in my room. You will meet Gary and me to learn about how the course works.
3 Here is the newsletter in case you didn't save it. Print it out and bring it along.
4 Here is the contract. Print it out, read it, sign it and bring it along to the first workshop.
5 Here is the programme for week 1. It contains references to what parts of the books to study and the writing task. You may do one writing task a week if you like, but the minimum is 4 per term.
In addition you will find websites of interest and internet reading and listening activities.
6 Each week there are also one or two additional reading articles or reading comprehension tasks. Don't forget, the more you do, the more you will learn.
The minimum time to spend is 6 hours per week.
We look forward to meeting you soon
