Title: Reading Awareness
Author: Ruth
Last saved by: gooder

Reading Awareness (60 min.)

By the end of the input, participants will be able to:
1. Analyze a concrete experience (reading a text in an L2) and identify key features of what the skill of reading involves by contributing ideas for a poster.
2. List factors/strategies beginning and advanced readers use to facilitate reading and link these strategies to teaching the skill of reading. 

Materials: Reading Awareness letters, poster paper, markers

Time | Teaching Point | Procedure

10 min

Raise Ps awareness of different types of listening and purposes for listening. 

Establish a starting point definition with which to work later.

1.) Ask Ps what module is beginning now. Elicit, “the reading module” and tell them that as with all modules, you will begin with an awareness.
2.) Instruct Ps to individually list everything they have read in the last 24 hours and why they read it. (Note: Have participants hold on to these lists for future use.)
3.)  Have Ps share briefly in whole group create a written list on the board.
For example, 

    What did you read?		Why did you read it?
• the newspaper classifieds    	• to look for a job
• a romance novel	             		• to relax, escape
• an article for the course          	• to learn something new
• traffic and road signs	              • for safety
• email messages		 	• to get news from friends

4.) Give Ps a few minutes in small groups to come up with a definition of reading: Reading is...
5.) Have a member of each group write their group’s definition on the board.
6.) Give Ps time to read over the definitions and make comments/ask questions.

5 min

To clarify the task Ps will do.

7.) Intro. the letters activity
•	Need the various letters in different languages.  
•	Be careful not to tell participants that it’s a letter or that they are the same letter in different languages.

Tell Ps that they are going to read 3 documents written in three different languages: 
#1  a language with which they have no experience at all
#2  a language they have studied a little in the past/are at an intermediate level
#3  their native language/ are at a near-native level.

Ask Ps what they think the aim of this activity is… what do we want them to discover through doing this task?   Elicit: how learners at different levels approach the reading process, what is different, what strategies do they use, etc.

10 min.

To create a concrete experience which brings out the contrast between the reading skills and strategies of learners at different levels.

Step 1
Lay the letter envelopes out on a desk/the floor– be sure they are labeled with the languages on them. 
Instruct Ps to choose and read text in language Ps have no experience with. Tell them that when they finish, you will be asking them to tell you 2 things: a.) what they were able to “get” (not only what they understand, but what they can glean from looking over and trying to read the document), and b.) how they got the information they got, what clues did they have as to the type of document, its content, etc.)
Give Ps a few minutes to look over the first letter.
When they finish, ask “What did you get?” and “How did you get it?” and record their responses on the board.

Example:

         What did you get?  		How did you get it?
• page orientation			 •  noticed numbers, roman letters
•direction of writing		    in the text
•punctuation & date		 • same as in English
•alphabet			 • names written in roman letters
•vocabulary 		             •  looked like English words, cognates
•awareness of paragraphs		 • noticed indentation, spacing
•awareness of letter format	 	• looked like greeting & closing format

What did you get?  		  How did you get it?
• combinations  of sounds	          • knew letter sounds in L2
• vocab words        	          •  cognates, guessing, 			             learned in previous study
• short phrases 	                     • knew simple grammar 
• some content		         • pieced together words to 			            guess  meaning 			 

15 min

To give Ps another opportunity to apply different reading strategies.

Step 2
Repeat the process in a language Ps have some (intermediate)  familiarity with. Be clear that it should not be a language they know extremely well yet, but one they feel they know something about. Remind them of the aim of the activity. (Ps sometimes get antsy to show how much they know in a foreign language after  reading the first letter)

Possible additions to the board for step 2

What did you get?  		How did you get it?
• voice, tone			• casual language/slang
• humor				• can relate culturally
• entire sentences			• background knowledge 				  of grammar and vocab
• entire paragraphs 		• able to read and link full
				 sentences together. 
• cultural references		• background knowledge 				of the culture	
• able to guess unfamiliar words	• looked at surrounding 				  context		

10 min

To give Ps another opportunity to apply different reading strategies.

Step 3. 
h.) Repeat the process with a language Ps know well – either one they feel they have native-level fluency in, or if they have not studied another language in-depth, their native language. 
*Here the “How did you get it?” is less critical as most responses are related to the Ps knowledge of the language.

Possible additions to the board for step 3