How to Help ESOL Students With Reading Comprehension

For many people learning a foreign language, reading comprehension might be ahead of their writing. There are several reasons English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) students might struggle with reading comprehension. Reading is, generally, a solitary activity not suited to engaging classroom activities. Also, ESOL reading material is often not very interesting, with much of the material aimed at young children. Lower-intermediate ESOL adults might understand elementary stories, but they will not find it particularly engrossing. To motivate students and help them improve their reading comprehension requires a combination of finding the right material and setting suitable tasks.

Things You'll Need

  • Newspaper
  • Photocopier
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Instructions

    • 1

      Explain to your students that they do not need to understand every single word in a text. Language learners often get distracted when reading by looking up every word they do not understand or are not sure of. This is not necessary and slows down reading. People do not do this when reading texts in their own language and they should try to avoid it when reading a foreign language.

    • 2

      Select a newspaper story that you expect your class to understand, but that also contains plenty of words they probably will not.

    • 3

      Photocopy the story.

    • 4

      Give each student a copy of the story and request the students underline words they do not know, but do not allow them to use their dictionaries.

    • 5

      Ask the class comprehension questions, without explaining the new words. Once you have done this, and it is obvious that everybody understands the text, you can move onto the new vocabulary.

    • 6

      Ask students to deduce the meaning of words from context, helping as necessary. Do not just explain or translate the words for them.

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