What are the steps you follow in your preparation to the new stories in the secondary stage؟

Dealing with the new stories Oliver Twist, Gulliver’s Travels, and The Prisoner of Zenda is very different from dealing with the last year’s stories. Do you think I should explain the chapter, then make students read it and answer the questions by themselves through their understanding (and that would be new), or should I give them questions and answers to learn by heart?

THE ANSWER:

Your purpose in teaching the stories should not be to have the students pass their exam, but to develop their reading skills. This cannot be done by giving them questions and answers to memorize.

Before the first chapter, give a bit of background on the historical period in which the book is set and the significance of the book, and a bit of biographical background on the author. You can easily find more information on these topics on the Internet.

Do a bit of pre-teaching for each chapter. Pre-teach only one or two key vocabulary words. Ask the students some questions to make them recall what happened in previous chapters and to predict what will happen in the chapter they are about to read.

As they read, ask questions to check their comprehension but don’t focus only on the events. Ask them about the personalities and characters of the people. Ask them to describe the various characters — are they kind, selfish, evil, brave, cowardly, etc. — and to give examples from the story to support their opinion. Ask them to explain the motives characters have for their actions, in other words why they do certain things. These motives might be stated or only implied. Ask if their predictions of what would happen were correct. If they were not, was it because they had misread something or because the author surprised us with something new?

When they come to new vocabulary, ask them to first guess the meaning. You might have to ask a series of questions to develop their ability to do this. For example, ask them if the word is a noun, verb, adjective, or adverb. What else can they deduce from the text — for example, is it something to eat, something to wear, a weapon? If it’s a verb, who or what is doing the action? What would they expect someone or something in that situation to do? Ask them to read a sentence or two farther and see if they can get more information to help them understand the new word.

Your teaching should aim to develop the following reading sub-skills:

Skimming: ability to get the main idea of the text regardless of the details

Scanning: ability to extract a specific piece of information or details from a passage regardless of the main ideas

Drawing inferences: ability to draw conclusions that are not directly stated in the text

Recognising coherence: ability to figure out the logic sequencing of different parts of a text

Guessing meaning of unfamiliar words: ability to guess the meaning of new vocabulary based on contextual clues

Tolerating ambiguity: ability to understand the overall meaning of a passage or a sentence without necessarily understanding every single vocabulary item in it

Can you give me some advice on teaching the readers?



The Question & Answer is quoted from Longman site

http://www.longmansec.com.eg/QuestAns.aspx?QA_ID=1841

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Thanks a lot

When you teach stories

1. Be animated, dynamic and lively
2. Your voice and facial expressions give a book life.
3. Make it an exciting one.
4. Let SS fill in the blanks.
5. Pause when you come to an obvious word and let them say it.
6. Ask SS what they think will come next.
7. Talk about how the characters feel or why they are acting a certain way.
8. discuss your own opinions on topics like: anger, selfishness, greed, laziness, being polite, kindness, etc