Stephen van Vlack

Sookmyung Women`s University

Graduate School of TESOL

Teaching Reading

Week 14 - Answers

Nuttall (1996), Chapters 11 and 12

1. In a reading program why is it important to ask questions?

It is important to ask questions, especially as regards reading because asking questions helps both the teacher and the students in a reading program. They help the teacher in that they allow the teacher to check up on how the students are doing. In a receptive skill like reading, especially in the type of extensive reading we have tried to focus on here where the majority of the text is to be read out of the class, it is often hard for the teacher gauge the progress of the students. Asking questions is one efficient way of being able to gauge the students progress as they read. Sometimes it is necessary to ask questions because so much of the reading process (whether the reading is done in or out of class) is unobservable. Questions may be the quickest the and simplest way of getting an idea of how well the students are doing and even what kind of strategies they may be employing in the reading. Just be careful not to assess or at least not to let the students you think you are assessing their answers. If the students think they are being assessed on their answers they will either be reluctant to answer or will not answer freely. They will think too much about the form rather than the content of their answer and the whole process will be for naught.

As for the students, questions (depending a plethora of variables) can be used to either scaffold them or to bring them to the zone of proximal development (as described by Vygotsky). The former we do by asking questions which help them activate schema, better understand the structure of the text, or deal with conclusions. The latter is done by getting them to engage the text. The idea here is that the questions the teacher asks will get the students to grapple with the text, thus forcing them to use literacy skills as a means of dealing with the questions and in turn the text.

2. How can questions be formed and presented?

As for the forms and presentation of questions, there are two different variables associated with each. In the form criteria there are two ends of a continuum, which are close-ended and open-ended questions. Close-ended questions include such format types as multiple choice, yes/no, and true/false. Which one of these the teacher will chose depends on the complexity of the text or the situation that they want the student to deal with. It is important to note here that close-ended questions can and should be used to spark conversation and discussion in the class, not just to find the right answer. They should, therefore, be constructed in such a way so that even though the correct answer is indeed present, the students can discus how they arrived at that answer or what the answer means in relation to the rest of the text. At the other end of the form continuum are open-ended questions which often take the form of wh-questions or, if you feel your students are ready to tackle the text in a more complex manner, how/why questions. These question types beg for longer, possibly more complex answers and while they might be more effective for eliciting target-language responses, they might not be better used for attacking a text. In short the form that the teacher chooses to encode questions in should correspond primarily to their goals in having the students deal with (comprehend) and interpret the text.

The second variable in relation to asking questions is the presentation of the question. The two basic options here are either written or spoken. Written questions are often used as a base to get things started. In fact many texts will come with a set of written questions which the teacher will have to decide either to use, not use, or determine how to use. As mentioned above, written questions are often used as a base because the students can see them before, while, or after they read. In this way they can guide the students to meaning in the text, or divide the text into different sections as we saw last week is quite important for some texts and some readers, and the students will have time to think about their answers. In any case, written questions need to be supplemented by spoken questions. Teachers need to use spoken questions because the purpose of asking questions is to get the students to think about the text, not to have correct answers and this is a very important point to keep in mind. Spoken questions will be answered more spontaneously by the students and may work better to get more honest, less controlled discussion flowing. Teachers, therefore, can use spoken questions to follow up on responses either written or spoken to written questions. Also, since the teacher never actually knows how the students will respond to the questions, she must have some spoken questions ready or needs to be able to use spoken questions as a follow up to some unexpected answers to written questions or other spoken questions.

3. What are some different types of questions to use for reading?

Nuttall gives us six basic types of questions for dealing with texts. They are:

Questions of literal comprehension

These are questions which basically are designed to draw students attention to important facts in the text. They should be facts which are meaningful in that there difficult in the development of the text. This is the basic point that you need to keep in mind. Simply make sure the questions you ask relate to relevant parts of the text.

Questions involving reorganization or reinterpretation

In a text where the story line is somewhat disjointed or where there is vague or missing information then is good to ask questions which involve reorganization or reinterpretation. Often text in a move in a straight linear type of progression. This relates particularly to more literary genres but is not exclusively limited to literary genres. What we do in asking questions of reorganization or reinterpretation is basically making the text more linear so that is easier to understand. As we are reinterpreting the text we're going deeper into the text and using the reinterpretation to make important connections between data points were (even invisible ones) within the text. These questions might be very important in interpreting a text where things are not explained overtly or carefully.

Questions of inference

In all texts there is going to be some inferencing involved. One of the signs of a good writer is their ability to be able to indicate in the text what is not stated overtly. This allows for a somewhat different interpretations of the same scene or the text itself. These interpretations need however to be fostered through inferencing. We have already talked about the tremendous importance of inferencing as a skill for literacy. One of the simplest and most effective ways of fostering inferencing skill is by asking questions which cost the students to try to infer meaning which is not directly stated in the text. This might be hard at first because it is based on knowledge. Younger students with limited knowledge of the world and particularly of the target language environment might have difficulty doing this. The benefits however tremendously outweigh any of the difficulties and training students to do this. Inferencing is the key comprehension. It must be developed for language success.

Questions of evaluation (writer`s)

As a way of fostering inferencing being able to evaluate the feelings of the writer is a very important skill. We can see how having this knowledge would allow us to make better and hopefully more accurate inferences. Again whether we want to use the questions like this in relation to a certain text really depends on the nature of the text. In some types of text, the writer is fairly straightforward in giving an opinion. In most texts, however, the writer's opinion or evaluation of situations, people are much more finely or covertly encoded. It is important for readers to know how the writer feels about certain things in the text. If the reader doesn't really get into the writer's mind that not going to be able to make any kind of remotely accurate inferences about anything.

Questions of personal response

The idea here is to ask questions to get the students in touch with their own feelings about the text. Sometimes students read a text and they never really get into it. They don't have access to their own feelings which are quite necessary for how they interpret the text. The purpose again to these questions is simply to have the students themselves evaluate. It is important to remember that the students responses to the text did not have to be all the same and they certainly don't have to fit exactly the author's set up of the situation.

Questions concerned with how writers say what they mean

This is a question that really puts focus on particular forms. But we're trying to do here is tried to get the students to develop skills for finding how authors indicate feelings by focusing their attention on particular types of forms. Wanting to study particular vocabulary items, possible structures like uses of tense clues, and any other type of structural techniques which allows the writers to say things with the text not just directly but also indirectly.

In conclusion

One thing that's important to remember is that matter how many or which type of questions you use in trying to get students to deal with the text you need to have some sort of overall plan. This means that the questions must relate to the text in a meaningful way and that there should be some purpose behind each and every question. This does not mean that you should write down every single question that you're going to ask in advance and simply go down the list asking. Remember asking questions is a type of interaction and it should be somewhat free. This means that your questions should come in response to have students answer. It is important again at this point to mention that we can't really expect to the students are going to answer. Often when dealing with texts there is no clearly correct answer. Rather, there may be many correct answers. Also we don't necessarily want our students to always give us the correct answer. Giving the correct answer will not allow us to discuss things further or go deeper. We never really need to get not only our students but ourselves used to this type of method for dealing with texts. It is different and it takes a little practice and preparation.

4. How can we decide which questions are good or maybe not so good?

There are two basic criteria that need to be considered in assessing questions. They are form and intent. In the form criteria the teacher needs to make sure that the language of the questions is not beyond the level of the students. Simply put, the questions should readily comprehensible to the students and certainly they should not be more complicated than the text itself. In this category is also the idea that there needs to be a variety of question types. In the intent category the most important idea that questions need to focus attention on the text itself. Following this, the students need to have read the text to answer the questions. In this area is also the concern that the questions get the students to develop skills for literacy.

5. When deciding to use supplementary tasks with a reading text what do teacher first need to consider?

In using supplementary reading tasks, the teacher primarily need to consider the level of the students as well as what it is they are expected to get out of the text, i.e., what is the purpose of reading the text. This goes back to what we mentioned in the previous week, namely that without a clear possible purpose, or list of purposes nothing is really going to happen. Essentially a teacher first needs to think about how the students are going to have to react to the text. Are they going to have to react with language or with non-linguistic means like pictures. This of course will depend on the nature of the text and why we might have them read it. A teacher might want students to manipulate the text in order to focus on pragmatic markers by doing something like a stripstory, or they might be asked to summarize the text for a specific communicative purpose in order to gte the students to focus on problematic vocabulary. Designing tasks involves trying to control a vast array of different concerns simultaneously.

6. Why and how can we use tasks that require little real language use?

Studies have shown that language production often lags behind comprehension. It is, therefore, natural to expect students to read above or well above their productive capabilities. Following this it is easy to see how reading texts can be supplemented by activities that do not necessarily require much output. Often such activities ask the students to manipulate information and this is often done through the use of charts. The basic idea is that we can have students work with reading texts that are way above their productive level. We don`t want to link the text to overtly to production because production lags might severely limit or slow down the treatment of the text. Thus by separating a reading text from any productive activities we can get a purer, more, meaning based response at a level that better suits the text.

From the opposite point of view, however, because reading skills (receptive skills) often precede productive skills it would seem quite logical to try to use a reading text to enhance and further develop productive skills. This is particularly suitable for writing but works a s well for speaking as we shall see in the answer to the question below.

7. Why and how can we use tasks that require the students to respond orally?

Nuttall gives us four different oral type of activities in relation to texts. They are:

Drama, simulation, role play

Debate - discussion

Reading aloud 

Listening to the text.

Of these, reading aloud is certainly the least effective or useful. In Korea (and this will depend to a certain extent on the age of your students) I find that role plays and simulations often don't work very well because they're too open-ended, but that would be great if actually worked. One way of making the work better would be to turn roll plays into things that are less open-ended by combining writing with speaking. In this version the students would first right out role-play, drama, or simulation and then would perform it orally. The only possible problem with this is that it takes tons of time. Debates often work well with somewhat older students and I find a more structured the debate the better it seems to work. The students seem to do well in their specific rules and guidelines. Another advantage acting in highly structured debate is that everybody has to speak and take part in the debate so we don't have certain students sitting there totally disaffected by the whole situation feeling like stupid losers who can't talk. Listening to the text is basically for lower-level readers and can be used as the kind of scaffolding. If the students having difficulty reading a certain type of text read part of it aloud for them. Just make sure if you're going to do this that you yourself are a good reader. A bad reader reading out loud is really not going to help students at all.

Now, why do we want oral types of activities in relation to reading texts? I think the answer is obvious. We've said all along with speaking as primary and that reading should actually develop out of speaking, or communication, which is primarily spoken. The whole purpose of developing literacy is to allow language to develop. This means that we also have to focus on other skills, the primary one being speaking. Encoding language in different ways through different types of practice only serves to solidify and stabilize language forms inside the brain. It allows people to use and interpret the same language forms in different ways. It is necessary.

8. Why and how can we use tasks that require the students to respond in written form?

Nuttall gives us five different kinds of writing activities that we can do in relation to reading texts. They are:

Reassembling, making use of information

Using figures

Summarizing and note-taking (outlining)

Functional summary

Translation.

9. Why are cloze and jigsaw activities seen as being particularly affective with reading?

Cloze and jigsaw activities are seen as being affective because they provide the maximum benefit with the minimal amount of effort.