Assessing Reading
The chapter Assessing Reading by D. Brown talks about different tasks for assessing reading and some considerations for them. However, what do you think we as teachers must also take into consideration when designing or applying any of those tasks? Explain your reasons.
we as teacher must take into account what we want get from our students and how our activities can help students in their learning process, the assessing does not be do it in a poor and isolated way, as first part we must be aware what we are assessing, how are we going to do it, and if it is really helpful for our students. in a second part also is necessary think that students just do not learn grammar, structures, vocabulary and tenses they also must learn about culture, their knowledge should be contextualize; as a third point we should apply different kind of test because is indispensable for our students to get used to the challenge that those can represented and avoid the fact that our classes can become boring .
ReplyDeleteTeachers need to take in to account the different skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) Reading is one of the skills that student more develop and through this skill students learn vocabulary, expressions and students can assimilate a second language but for teachers is difficult to develop this skill in their classes because students do not enjoy reading, so it is a challenge for teachers make their students to perform such activities, it is for that reason that they must to have in mind the culture, the level, the context, the students likes and different things that are necessaries for develop a class.
ReplyDeleteTeacher should be very patient and think in the best way for present a text in order to help the students in the process of learning a second language
Reading is one of the perceptive skills, which is useful not just to learn vocabulary or expressions, but also to develop more complex abilities such as comprehension, deduction, interpretation, and analysis, among others. That is why teachers should pay close attention to the development of this skill.
ReplyDeleteTo fully develop reading activities, the teacher should take into account that the text is at the right level, the students' context, their needs, and he/she must have clear purposes for the activity. These goals should be also significant for the students.
Every reading activity should have a pre-reading activity, to contextualize de students, to prepare them for reading, to make students aware of what they will read and the objectives,to present new vocabulary, and to connect reading with other skills. As teachers, we can use the pre-reading to assess students' previous knowledge of the topic and linguistic aspects of the text. Examples of pre-reading are: guessing from the title, looking at images, talking about background, etc.
After this stage, a while-reading activity is essencial. This activity is used to check students' comprehension as they read. Here, the teacher can ask questions about the topic or ask for a brief.
Finally,a reading activity should have a post-reading, in order to the students upon what they just read. It helps students to recall information and to clarify interpretations.An example of this activities is applying the knowledge to new situations.
Developing reading tasks involve more than identifying a text that is at the right level or writing some comprehension questions for students to answer. I think that for designing reading tasks, we should bear in mind that teachers should build up students' confidence in their reading ability. One important consideration is to guide students with a vocabulary development. They should learn the importance of using dictionary when reading a text, to recognize word forms and teacher must give strategies for them to guess the meaning from the context. Also, the purpose of each reading should have significance for the students. They should enjoy the reading and we, as teachers, should select attractive readings for our students. Another important consideration is to foster critical thinking. It helps students to ask relevant questions, interpret complex ideas and make wise inferences from the reading. Finally, when designing or applying a reading task teachers must keep in mind how familiar the students are with the topic. We should select the reading according to their background knowledge, environment and cultural aspects, trying to avoid controversial topics. It can facilitate the reading comprehension and make students feel real pleasure when reading.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteTeachers must take into account that reading is a complex process of thinking so that teaching and moreover assessing reading means to develop a deep cognitive skill because one of the most important issues is that students need to construct their own meaning not just to receive messages without sense. Thus those tasks that the teacher uses need to be active and interactive for them to develop their abilities in terms of interpretation and comprehension.
ReplyDeleteBesides that, the teacher should take into account that reading is a way of constructing interaction and meaning so it is necessary to keep in mind students' previous knowledge so the activities should include a way of expressing life experiences, previous ideas, etc. And of course tasks should let students to establish relationships and inferences according to what they read. According to this the teacher should implement tasks and activities that master students' mental abilities which make possible the interpretation.
Teachers must take into consideration when designing or applying different tasks for assessing reading; first at all, the level of the students because when teachers know the level, it is more easy to designed and apply the way that they are going to assess their students, due to one of the purpose of assess is that students have already worked on the topics and students have the leveI in order that, the assessment will be accurate. In addition, it is important to bear in mind, the content validity of an assessment, because in that way students will know what kind of information they could expect, and they will be confident about that the topic in what they are going to be assess is the same that they were working on previously.
ReplyDeleteFor example, after I read the chapter, one of the activities that caught my attention was picture-cued items because it is a good way for assessing my students during my practicum, because this kind of activity involves pictures and you can start design the activity looking for vocabulary or completed sentences and it also could have a level of difficulty according to the students’ proficiency or their improvement in class.
The chapter talks about different kind of tasks for assessing reading. As teacher, if I want to design or apply any of those tasks, I have to take into account some considerations. First, I have to see what is the student’s level, therefore, I can check the level of difficulty of the text that I can apply. Second, I should to know what I want to assess ( tasks for writing or speaking, Reading tasks for grammar and vocabulary or tasks for comprehension) and what kind of reading is appropriate for them (perceptive, selective, interactive or extensive).
ReplyDeleteI think that, another important consideration is to use a pre-reading activity to prepare students for the activity. It is very important face validity and contextualize them, when you are applying o designing any kind of assessing.
For me, as a conclusion, the text that I have read is very useful, but I have to learn how to put in practice all consideration mentioned in the reading, to be an excellent teacher and help to my learners to improve their skills.
COMMENT BY CAROL MODERA ROMERO
When preparing a reading exercise the first thing we must ask ourselves is: what the purpose of this reading is. In order to understand whether the resource meets our students’ needs and how effective is for them to improve an analytical and constructive way of getting real knowledge from the reading exercise. On the other hand, students must be given a variety of materials to read in which they feel encourage to talk about what strategies they think will help them approach a reading assignment, and then talking after reading about what strategies they actually used. This helps students develop flexibility in their choice of strategies. Besides, teachers must guide them when talking about vocabulary, grammar, sentence structure, etc. In fact, students will gain more authentic contexts and they will be able to convey real meaning what the reading is trying to tell them. In brief, we could find countless strategies and techniques for improving reading skills but we must take into a count three excellent techniques which are scanning, skimming and concept mapping they will help them to improve not only upon the context but also on the purpose of the reading as I said at the beginning.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteAs teachers we must take into account different aspects, if we want to apply some reading activities in the classes. First of all, the teacher must know his or her student´s interests on what type of reading they like the most. if the teacher knows this the activities developed in the class will be better because they will be focus on what they like.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, the activities must be related to their level of language and the cultural competences, for example: if the students are in level A1 the readings do not have much content and some of the questions are easy to answer, activities such as: picture -cued items are good for this level, and little by little the teacher can implement more difficult activities in order to improve this skill.
On the other hand, the kind of activities for the class should be appealing and with interesting topics.
And finally teacher's attitude is the key¡¡¡ if he or she does not motivate the class, the activities will not work
Teaching reading is not an easy process, either assigning reading tasks, As result of this, teachers must take in to account all the elements that teaching reading implies, in this way teachers must keep in mind that teaching reading cannot be an isolated and poor process, on the contrary it must take elements of the other skills (speaking, listening, writing), in order to have a better teaching process, for example reading aloud improves speaking, pronunciation, among others, or following a person who reads aloud allows students to develop listening skill, or writing something based on what students have read allows them to develop written skills.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, at the moment of teaching reading, teachers must be aware of the students’ knowledge and language proficiency, in order to apply strategies, activities and task coherent to the students’ level, and students’ likes and dislikes as well. Having this in mind the teacher is going to be able to design excellent material to teach, which would allow students enjoy reading.
Finally teacher must design and apply creative and motivating material to teach how to read well and also at the moment of applying them, teachers must combine different strategies like: contextualizing, skimming, scanning, intensive and extensive reading in order to get a good result from the teaching process.
Teaching reading is not an easy task to teach, and also being one of the most complex processes known to man, it is important that we as teachers stimulate students in such a way that they do not view the process as a dull and boring one.
ReplyDeleteAlso teachers must be aware of the student’s proficiency in the target language, to apply and assess the correct reading strategies, activities and tasks.
Teachers must as well make sure nowadays that the students interest is taken into account when assigning reading tasks, because books that have topics of their interests would be appealing to them and therefore they will actually finish the book on their own and have a good time while doing it.
To conclude it is important that teachers do take into account the students needs and capabilities, as well as the teachers will, which is key in the learning process to set the right learning environment, and provide students with the correct stimulus to improve their reading skills.
Jorge Luis Mejía - 26072078
Michael Moreno
ReplyDelete26072079
Assessing reading
This chapter introduces at first, certain type of readings that permit their readers bring about a great variety of meanings accurately, they are sort in some types of different performances that will work to organize several assessment tasks such as: perceptive, selective, interactive, extensive readings.
Regarding the strategies for reading, teachers should be able to encourage students to get familiar in a productive way with the distinction of the themes which they are attempting to comprehend by retaining essential information and making them sure infer by their own what they are acquiring through the information they got in front of, It is also important to recognize what interests students could have from what they are really keen on reading.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteTo prepare a reading exercise, the first thing teachers should identify the purpose of the reading. In order to understand the resource of our students, their needs and how effective is for them to improve the way that they read.
ReplyDeleteTeahcers should have in mind at the moment of teaching reading, the students’ knowledge and language, to apply the correct strategies, activities according to the students’ level, and students’ likes and dislikes. Having those ascpects in mind the teacher is able to design the appropriate material to teach, which could be enjoyable for the students.
teaching reading is not an easy task but it's extremely important to engage students from the very beggining. Reading needs an specific purpose or outcome and the teacher needs to make this very clear before even giving them the reading itself.
ReplyDeleteAlso, vocabulary has to be taken into account because teachers tend to assume that all of the students can handle everything and this may not be the case.
Finally, the students must read on their own and the teacher needs to encourage them to read even if he or she is not there assessing the reading. Motivation is the key.