Teaching reading in high school

[suharyadi]

Hi everybody. I have a problem related to teaching reading to students of junior and senior high schools. Reading, they say, is boring. In class, I usually find some difficulties such as to make students interested in reading, motivated and enjoful. Hence, I do hope there will be you all that can help me.

Thank you
Haryadi

[Lucy]

Dear Haryadi,

I understand your problem. Reading is not the most exciting activity in the classroom. Also, if your students don't read in their own language, they don't know the pleasure of reading.

Firstly, think about the choice of subject. Choose something of interest to the age group. You might need to abandon the coursebook and maybe find something on the internet

Secondly, you need to motivate the students BEFORE they start reading. Awaken their interest with a game, quiz or conversation about the subject. This is also an opportunity to learn or revise any difficult vocabulary in the text

Next think about the activities you do with the text You could give the text to your students and give them 2 or 3 minutes to read it. They then tell you (or write down) everything they remember. The element of speed (and possibly competition) will make it more exciting.

You can give students the beginning of the text and they guess the next part or the ending. Discuss which is the best and which is closest to what is in the text. Maybe theirs is better than the original!

You could also cut the text into pieces, give out all the pieces to students in groups, they put the story in order. You could also give each student one piece. Each student reads and understands their part. They then explain it orally to the others. As a group, they put the text in order.

Finally, remember that the important thing is that students understand the text: you can ask them to show understanding any way they like. They could mime, draw a picture, write a summary, make a play, etc. If they do something different, it will seem more exciting.

Good luck! If you would like more ideas, please write in again.

Lucy