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Teaching those studying English as a second language how to learn to read and write is a process that can be greatly simplified with the right approach. Seasoned ESL have found that starting out with reading as opposed to writing is the number one step to success that eludes so many other programs.
Choose carefully the words or sentences you will introduce in class. Group them around a theme, vocabulary lesson or specific sound you are working on. If necessary, explain what some of the words mean. Depending on your ESL students’ backgrounds, you may want to explain the uses for an appliance or item you are reading about.
Prepare your students for the words or sentences they are going to read. Point out sounds that may be unusual to them, such as the “th” or “gh” combinations. Identify grammatical patterns, if you are reading a more advanced text, or explain the context of a paragraph with respect to a lesson they learned previously. Whenever possible, your ESL students should build on their already acquired knowledge when learning how to read in English.
Model proper enunciation of the sounds, and invite your students to imitate your articulation of the sounds.
Ask your students to pronounce the sounds in the words that contain them. Your students are now learning to read the words you indicate. Using the example of the “th” and “gh” consonant combinations, they may read “the,” “light” and “thought.”
Go a step further and encourage your students to now read the sentences that contain these words. Repeat this step over and over, until your students are comfortable reading the words with the “th” and “gh” combinations as well as the other words that surround them.
Randomize the approach to discourage mere memorization. ESL students may memorize the sentences, but if you break up the reading, they will actually need to focus on the word or sentences at hand. Break up the reading exercise by calling on students in no particular order to read a sentence, a paragraph or simply a word.
Suggest that your students take a break from class. At this point you are confident that they are able to read the text beyond merely memorizing the words. At the end of the break, move on to the writing exercise.
Incorporate all of the words you taught earlier in a crossword puzzle format. You can make your own crossword puzzle for free online (see Resources below).
Stipulate that writing must be done by printing, using uppercase and lowercase letters. For those students unsure of how to accomplish this kind of writing, go ahead and set up a remedial study group.
Use a printout of the English alphabet in print form to allow your remedial students to copy the letters. Use worksheets you can download online to bring your students up to speed in the art of printing the English letters (see Resources).
Dictate the sentences the students read earlier and require your students to write them on paper without peeking at their reading exercise. The goal is to ensure that there is no disconnect between reading and writing the words that were previously studied.
Build on the exercises and now suggest that students craft their own sentences, using the words they learned in prior lessons and incorporating the words, sentences and phrases they learned today. You might make it a group effort if the class is large or simply an individual exercise if you have fewer students.
End the class by having the teams or individual students come up and read some of their creations.
Learning to read and write in English is a slow and sometimes frustrating process. ESL teachers and students alike need to understand this and work slowly but gradually toward the goal of language mastery.
ESL teachers should have several additional exercises for both remedial and advanced students in their classrooms.
What is writing and why is there a need to learn it?
In this study, writing will be explored and discussed in the context of ESL, particularly in an international school environment. Reference will also be made to studies and issues that affect first language writing since quite many of the theories that govern second language writing are also derived, based or influenced by first language theories on writing.
Writing, unlike the other skills of reading, listening and speaking seems to be of a more complex nature, especially in the context of second language use. In Britain, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, emphasis was placed more on reading than on writing. The basis of which was the notion that it was more desirable for people to be able to read than write. That way, they can be educated and/or instructed into a particular belief or ideology.
Writing also involves the giving of instructions, but instead of enabling learners to simply react to a range of social demands and instructions, it can lead to a more proactive role. It can lead to “the formation of views about society” (Foggart, 1993:6).And that aspect of writing, perhaps more aptly identified with the concept of empowerment, is a potential threat to the status quo in society.
This study will not be concerned much with the teaching of writing in order to produce learners who play proactive roles in society or in a political sense. Rather, the writing that will be discussed here is more on the expression of ideas and experiences, and the discovery of self which could come about as children engage in the writing process.
It can not be denied that the teaching of writing plays a significant role on the kinds of individuals students become once they have acquired mastery of the English language, and have reached adulthood.
Proficiency in this particular skill could open the way so students, in the future, would have access to certain social roles which would have remained closed to them if there was failure to give appropriate input or instruction today.
As countries become more industrialized and as the language becomes more and more the language of choice in many business, political and social interactions, having the skill to write in the English language would give one an edge in the international community
(Tribble,1996).
There are many social and business activities that require proficiency in writing. The students in this study will not be involved in activities ranging from inviting a business contact to dinner to making a law. They will instead be more likely to be participating in writing in journals and diaries as a school assignment or personal activity, writing a descriptive or narrative essay on a topic assigned to them in school, writing a friendly letterto family, writing a story, or writing a response to literature read in thelassroom. Nevertheless, they still have to learn, practice and master the skill of writing. And being second language learners, this is a more difficult task than others.
“There is a widely held belief that in order to be a good writer a student needs to be read a lot”. (Hedge, 1988:11).
Harris (1993:81) is also of the same belief as Hedge when he wrote in his book, “Introducing Writing”, that “reading and the consideration of written texts should form an important part of the teaching of writing.” He explains that writing cannot be taken as a different entity from other aspects of language use. He says writing requires attention to reading and to talking, for these are the two means by which writing skill can be learned or acquired.
According to Eisterhood (1990:88) traditionally, the answer to the question of “what constitutes the relevant language input that would pave the way so second language learners develop hypotheses of writing in English” has been reading.
The reason for this perhaps, is because reading is believed to provide “models from which writing skills can be learned, or at least inferred. Reading in the writing classroom is understood as the appropriate input for acquisition of writing skills” (Eisterhood, 1990).
This link between reading and writing is perhaps akin to Krashen’s (1984, as quoted in Eisterhood, 1990) theory on language acquisition. According to him, reading for interest or pleasure paves the way to developing writing competence. He claims that “the development of writing ability and of second language proficiency occurs in the same way: via comprehensible input with low affective filter”. He goes further by saying, “It is reading that gives the reader the ‘feel’ for the look and texture of reader-based prose” (Krashen, 1984:20).
Stotsky (1983) and Shanahan (1988), did a survey of first language correlational studies, and here are the results they found as mentioned in the book, Reading and Learning to Read, by Vacca, Vacca and Gove (1991:137-138):
These results suggest that the two skills, reading and writing, are interrelated. “Both are language based and experience based, both require active involvement for language learners, and both must be viewed as acts of making meaning for communication.” (Vacca, Vacca and Gove, 1991:138).