Reading problems in class

Doing reading activities may be difficult. Students can be bored, uninterested and so on.        

Here are some common questions and answers to them

What about reading aloud?

Reading aloud is an essential part of teaching this skill. Teaching reading in a foreign language is like teaching reading again. Though a person can read well in L1, but that doesn’t mean they will be able to read perfectly in English. Especially if their L1 is completely different.

Reading aloud will help them to learn to pronounce some sounds, they will learn some new words and, what ’s more, it will enable them to increase their reading speed.

If you do reading aloud with your students, you shouldn’t forget about leads-in, pre-reading, during and post-reading activities. They are essential as well.

Perhaps, it will be better if you ask your students to read the text at home first, and then they will read it in class. 

Can we make reading texts in the coursebook more exciting?

Sometimes, the coursebook gives not very interesting, exciting texts. Students may be uninterested in the topic or the text is irrelevant to our times.

To make these texts more engaging for students a teacher can do the following:

• Do a good lead-in and pre-reading activities;

• Ask students to make a small research at home. They are to look for additional information about the topic of the text and then to share it;

• If the text is irrelevant to present times, ask student to compare the past situation and the present one. They can come up with some statistics as well;

• Tell students more about the topic of the text by using pictures or videos. Motivate them to read it;

• After reading the text make a small quiz or suggest that students should play a game, which will centre on the content of the text.;

Can we teach grammar through reading?

Reading activities are a good way of teaching new grammar materials. By reading different texts, students can understand how to express ideas in English. What constructions English people use, and what the typical ways of saying it are – this is what can be found in texts.

The only thing is that you should explain new grammar material in an easy way as sometimes one idea can be expressed in different ways in different languages.

So, grammar material should be explained and then trained so that students could use it in their own speech.