READING ACTIVITIES

EXTENSIVE READING

It is related to further progress in language learning under the teacher's guidance. It provides a basis for explaining difficulties of structure and for extending knowledge of vocabulary and idioms.  It will provide material for developing greater control of the language and speech and writing. Students will study short stories and extracts from novels, chosen for the standard of difficultly of the language and for the interest they hold for this particular group of students. Intensive reading is generally at a slower speed and requires a higher degree of understanding to develop and refine word study skills, enlarge passive vocabulary, reinforce skills related to sentence structure, increase active vocabulary, distinguish among thesis, fact, supportive and non-supportive details, provide sociocultural insights.

ACTIVITIES FOR EXTENSIVE READINGS

Drawing and Designing

·Design a new cover for your book.

·Draw a series of pictures illustrating the story or main events of the story.

·Draw a map showing where the story takes place.

·Design a movie poster for your book.

·Make a time line of major events in the book

·Create a bingo game which includes words like names of characters, places and items from the story.

·Design an advertisement for T.V., radio or newspaper, trying to sell the book.

·Make up a “wanted” poster for one of the characters.

Writing

·Write a letter to one of the characters.

·Write a diary for one of the characters.

·Make up a different ending for the story.

·Make up a different beginning for the story.

·Have an interview with one of the characters

INTENSIVE READING

It develops at the student's own pace according to individual ability.  It will be selected at a lower level of difficulty than that for intensive reading. Where frequency word counts are available for the language being learned, extensive reading will conform to a lower frequency word count than intensive reading. Material will be selected whose choice of structure is habitually less complex and whose vocabulary range is less extensive.  The purpose of extensive reading is to train the students to read directly and fluently in the target language for enjoyment without the aid of the teacher. Where graded texts are available, structures in texts for extensive reading will be already familiar, and new items of vocabulary will be introduced slowly in such a way that their meaning can be deduced from context or quickly ascertained. The student will be encouraged to make intelligent guesses at the meaning of unfamiliar items. Material consists of authentic short stories and plays, or informative or controversial articles from newspapers and magazines. A few adaptations of vocabulary and structure will be made. The style of writing should entail a certain amount of repetition without monotony. Novelties of vocabulary should not coincide with difficulties of structure. It means reading in quantity and in order to gain a general understanding of what is read.  It is intended to develop good reading habits, to build up knowledge of vocabulary and structure and to encourage a liking for reading, Increase total comprehension, enable students to achieve independence in basic skill development, acquaint the student with relevant socio-cultural material, and encourage recreational reading.

ACTIVITIES FOR INTENSIVE READINGS

looking at  main ideas versus details

understanding what is implied versus stated

making inferences

looking at the order of information and how it effects the message

identifying words that  connect one idea to another

identifying words that indicate change from one section to another

I really think that the activities already mentioned for intensive and extensive readings are important things to make in class  to develop not just students reading skills, but also others . Also students can learn more vocaulry by reading  authentic or non authentic readings from many books.

Listening Activities

As you know, you can do listening activities to supplement the work you are doing in your English class. Listening Activities are really simple and don’t take so much time because technology is unbelievable and you can find many videos ,songs, games that you can download from internet and use it in class or send WebPages to your  students as  a homework to practice  online. But the most important thing you should know is that listening activities are really important to develop the listening skill of students.

Listening activities with songs…

In class, you as a teacher should play a song with specific vocabulary that students are recently learning, it could be verbs and so on. Then, you have to give them a paper with the song lyrics and spaces in blank to complete the specific vocabulary you need them to get and understand from the song. For example, let’s use the song ‘’ALWAYS (Bon Jovi)’’

Well, in this case is online, so you can copy the lyrics into a paper to give  students in class or also you can just give them the webpage to exercise as  a  homweork.

Listening activities with videos…

In class, you can play a video. It could be authentic or not it’s your decision according to the level of your students or other facts. Well, you have to play a video; for example, a tv comercial of two people talking about any topic, then you have to make students questions such us…what are they talking about? , what does the man think? And so on, so that, students will be able to answer you, and you will be able to evaluate if  students are understanding what you want  to teach them.Or other  way could be to send the video to their e-mails and type the questions in order that students aswer and send you the e-mail back.

Reflection..

I think that listening activities are really helpful to develop students skills not also to understand but also to learn new vocabulary maybe..or to know how to use any word and many things more. In my opinion Its better  to make speaking activities in class because you as  a  teacher  will be able to check if they  are  really working otherwise if you send it  as  a homework on line  you won’t be able to know  who is working and who is really understanding or to answer students doubts.