How to Promote Extensive Readig

Today we'll be talking about different ways to promote extensive reading. But first what is extensive reading?

Extensive reading is simply reading for the sheer pleasure of it, doing it because you want to and not because someone told you to, reading a book, newspaper, magazine, etc. at the bus, school, your house or whenever you have some free time are examples of extensive reading.

Teachers want to encourage students to do extensive reading because this way the students learn without realizing it, and this increases their confidence with the language.

So some of the things teachers do to encourage extensive reading is to give the students a library of magazine, newspapers, books, etc. Also teachers often teach the students how to select which material to read based on their level and giving the students some classroom time to read.

Some other activities the teachers can do is to make the students do a book report or to have them answer some questions once they finish the book, but without making it an assignment, this can be an optional activity.

Also students should be allowed to chose their own reading material so that they choose something they find interesting, and its also important to encourage the students to share what they learned from reading the book, magazine, newspaper, etc.

Interesting and Fun Writing Activities

Writing activities can be boring sometimes, so what the teachers need to do is find a way to make them more interesting or fun.

For example a way of making this activities more interesting could be to first read an interesting newspaper article and write a summary of it, or it can be something other than a newspaper article, maybe something form a magazine or something the student saw on T.V. anything that the student would want to write about.

Teachers can also make this activities into competitions to make it more fun.

For example have the students listen to a recording and as soon as its over have them write down some of the specific things they've just heard (a supermarket list, list of chores, activities for the day, etc.) and the winner could even get a reward if the teachers thinks its a good idea.

Teachers can also make it so that the students realize how they can use writing in the real world.

For example the teacher can have the students do a role-play activity where they are writing a letter to a friend that lives far away. For this the teacher can have some questions on the board and the students make their letter by answering those questions with their own information. For example:

What is your friend's name?
His name is Jose
Where did you meet?
We met at school
etc...
Hi Jose I still remember when we met at school..............

There are a lot of more ways a teacher can make a writing activity fun and interesting and those were just some ideas.

How to Teach Listening Activities

For listening activities there really isn't a whole lot to teach, its more about getting the students to understand what they're hearing, there is a lot of different activities you can do to accomplish this.

When teaching a listening activity you have to keep in mind what you want the students to learn.
For example if the teacher is playing a recording, during the first time they listen to the tape the teacher wants the students to get a general idea of whats going on (skimming). Then after making sure the students understand what's the situations the teacher would play the recording a second time, this time asking the students to listen for specific details (scanning).

A thing most teachers do is known as the task-feedback circle which starts with a lead-in then the teacher would do some pre-task work if he thinks its necessary, after that the teacher sets the task and then plays the tape for the first time, then the teacher gives the students some time to discuss what they heard in pairs, if they can't do it the teacher plays the tape again, if they can the teacher moves on to the next activity.

In general most teachers want students to focus first on the general idea of the conversation, then on the specific details they ask for (name, address, phone number, etc.) and last the language focus.

Some tips that the teachers should remember are:

• To keep the recordings short.
• Play the recordings the times they need to, but not to many.
• Let the students discuss their answers.
• Play little parts of the tape if necessary.
• Help the students if they are stuck.
• Don't change the instructions half-way.

The teachers should also consider how he wants the class to go, if top-down then he would go from a general idea to details but if he wants to do bottom-up he would start with the specifics and then work to a general idea.