Reading Rules

Reading Crisis

Every class when it comes to reading I feel hopeless, useless and desperate. How to teach reading in a way that doesn’t seem boring, difficult and frustrating? Am I the only one who faces this reading crisis?
Looking at the texts offered by the authors of popular communicative coursebooks for upper-intermediate students I always think of how those authors imagine they read the texts in class with their 12 students in a group. And I picture a silent classroom, all focused and tense, spending 15 minutes of a 90-minute class underlining the new vocab, trying to figure out the meaning, answering the questions or deciding if the statements are true or false… and I do understand that this is precisely the way I wouldn’t want to be taught reading.

Listening vs. Reading

The new poll is on, which means it’s time we analyzed the results of the most recent one. Actually, they came as a surprise. I don’t mean the fact that listening beat them all astonished me. No, I kind of agree with those 48% of participants who believe it to be the most difficult skill to master. And I do not imply that speaking shouldn’t be on the second line of the chart as 40% of respondents insist. Writing came third with 12% in its favour, which is again not that astonishing. What got me stunned was the fact that nobody voted for reading.

In my humble opinion reading is definitely underestimated. It is a fantastic source of vocabulary and grammar. Unlike listening, reading appeals to understanding based on our knowledge of vocab items and structures in which they are used. And if we fail, the tasks become a guessing game. However, success in Reading fully depends on us and our knowledge.