1 Preparing students to read
Many teachers use translation when they are teaching a new text, as this can help students understand individual words. However, there are some disadvantages of using translations all the time:
- If you always use translation and explanation, then students do not listen to as much English as they could. The more your students hear English in the classroom, the better they will be able to understand and use it (see the unit Using more English in your classroom).
- There are often no direct translations of many words and phrases in most languages. If students learn English by using English, they will be more likely to think in English and experience and use the language more effectively.
- Translation and explanation don’t help students to work out the meanings of their lessons for themselves (see the unit Strategies for teaching vocabulary). If every word is translated for them, they could have problems when they need to read in English outside the classroom or in future.
 Pause for thought Think about the last lesson that you taught your students and answer these questions.
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It is good for you to use other techniques (along with some translation and explanation) to help your students to understand what they read.
Students have to read many lessons in their textbooks. Many of these texts are difficult, with complex vocabulary and grammatical structures. Sometimes the topics or themes of the texts are difficult too, discussing events that happened a long time ago, or in places that students have never visited or even heard of.
Students will be better able to understand what they have to read and the language in the text if you prepare them to read. You can do this by teaching some of the words, phrases and grammatical structures from the text before the students start reading, or by discussing the topics or themes of the lesson in advance of reading the text.
Activity 1: Planning how to teach ‘The Perfect Life’, a seventeenth century poem
This is an activity for you to do; it is a planning activity.
Read this poem from a Class X textbook (English: A Textbook for Class X). It is called ‘The Perfect Life’ and was written by Ben Jonson.
It is not growing like a tree
In bulk doth make man better be;
Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere:
A lily of a day
Is fairer far in May,
Although it fall and die that night—
It was the plant and flower of light.
In small proportions we just beauties see;
And in short measures life may perfect be.
When you have read it, answer these questions. Discuss them with a colleague if you can:
- The language in this poem is quite difficult for Class X students. How would you prepare them for the language before they read the poem?
- The poem was written by an English poet in the seventeenth century. How could you prepare Indian students in the twenty-first century for the themes in the poem?
Now read some teachers’ ideas about how to teach this poem, and compare them with your own. Add any ideas that you thought of into the empty speech bubble below.
Activities where you prepare your students before they read something are often called pre-reading activities. They help students think about what the text will be about, which also helps them to understand the text better.
Case Study 1: Ms Gupta does a pre-reading activity with her class
Ms Gupta teaches English to Class X. She had to teach Ben Jonson’s poem ‘The Perfect Life’ to her students. She knew that the text was difficult, and thought that her class would understand and remember the poem better if she prepared them before they read it.
Before teaching the poem, I wrote the title on the board: ‘The Perfect Life’. I checked that my students could understand what this meant by asking them to translate the title into Hindi. Then I asked them: ‘What makes a perfect life?’
Nobody suggested anything at first, so I gave them an example: ‘The perfect life for me would be to do no cooking!’ The students laughed, and one or two of them felt confident enough to make suggestions. This gave more students ideas, and I wrote five or six of them on the board.
Then I organised everyone into pairs. I did this by asking the students on every other bench to turn around, and to work with the person who was now opposite them. I told them:
While my students were writing, I walked around the classroom to make sure that they were doing the activity and to help anyone with vocabulary if they needed it.
After a few minutes, I told everyone to stop writing and I wrote the following sentence on the board: ‘The perfect life is like a …’.
I read out the sentence on the board, and asked students to finish the sentence using a natural object, and gave them an example: ‘The perfect life is like a hotel.’ This is because you don’t have to cook when you stay at a hotel!
Then I asked them to give some ideas from the pair work, along with reasons for their suggestions. It was difficult for most of the students to give reasons in English, so I checked if other students could help them find the right words. If they still couldn’t explain in English, I told them to use their home language. What was important for me was that the students were interested in the topic, and eager to read the poem.
After this, I told my class they were going to read a poem with the title ‘The Perfect Life’. I told them that I was going to read the poem aloud, and that they should listen and follow in their textbooks. I explained that in the poem, the poet compares life to natural objects. I asked them to note what these natural objects were as they read and listened to the poem. I did this so that they would have a reason to read the text. I then read the poem aloud, without translating or explaining it.
Then I asked the class some questions:
This activity helped everyone to understand the poem. After this, it was easier to discuss the poem, and students remembered the poem better too.
Activity 2: Try in the classroom – preparing students to read
prepare students for a listening activity in the same way – see the unit Helping your students to listen to English.) Follow the steps below:
- Select a lesson that your students haven’t read yet (perhaps the next one in the textbook). It can be any kind of passage – prose, poetry, a play or a newspaper or report.
- Before the class, read the passage. Note down a pre-reading activity that you want your students to do before reading the text. Here are some examples of pre-reading activities:
- write the title on the board and ask the students to guess what the text is about
- ask them to discuss the main topic (for example, if the topic is about household chores, you could ask them to discuss who does what around the house)
- teach some of the difficult words and phrases from the text
- write some of the words and phrases from the text on the board and ask the students to use them in sentences.
- In class, do the activity with your students. If students use their home language, help them find the important words and phrases that they need in English. This will still help them to understand the lesson or passage better.
Pause for thought Here are some questions for you to think about after trying this activity. If possible, discuss these questions with a colleague.
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You may think that pre-reading activities take up too much time, and that it is quicker to just start the lesson. But these kinds of activities do not need to take up much time – even five or ten minutes can be helpful to prepare students to read.
Hopefully these activities will raise your students’ interests and help them to understand the lessons better. Note which students seem to understand and which don’t, so that you can further support those who are still struggling to understand. Try different activities before students read and see which ones are more effective.
What you can learn in this unit