INTENSIVE READING

learners must often engage in slow deliberate reading of a small amount of a difficult text.

- Consider that many of our language learning principals correspond with the
idea of introducing learners to difficult texts. For example, the concept of
scaffolding, which we have previously introduced to you, suggests that a
teacher’s job, at least in part, is to break down difficult information, so that
students can acquire language more easily.
- Vygotsky's zone of proximal development also suggested that language is
more easily acquired when a teacher serves as a guide and that a teacher
serves as a bridge to help learners access difficult information.
- Stephen Kashan’s concept of i + 1, also suggested that a learner can gain
valuable insights into language when given information that is just beyond
the learner's reach.
- In other words, learners want things to be hard. They want to approach texts
that are difficult and intensive reading skills may be a way to accomplish this.
For many learners, passionate love of reading comes after having read
something difficult and meaningful with a teacher. Slow, tortoise-like
techniques allow learners to gain appreciation for difficult meaning,
precision, and for a love of language itself.
-
1. TECHNIQUES

- Discussions of parts of speech

- Discussions of parts of speech. One thing that intensive reading instructors
do is pay attention to language in a way that is intensive. This means that a
teacher might point out parts of speech to a student, having them look at
objects, subjects, and verbs. A teacher might also ask students to identify all
the adjectives, adverbs, or prepositional phrases. A teacher might
demonstrate a passage that has the use of active or passive phrases. In other
words, the teacher is constantly helping students turn their focus to the
language itself, in an effort to show learners how language works.
- Whereas, the extensive reading teacher might look at the meaning, the
story line, the main ideas of a text. The intensive reading teacher can turn
that focus to look at the details of language.

- Morphology.

- Another item of interest to the intensive reading teacher, is to have students

turn their attention to parts of words themselves, prefixes, suffixes. Bound
and unbound morphemes all carry meaning. And an intensive English
teacher can give students strategies for learning to identify and understand
those meanings. An intensive teacher might, for example, look at what the
suffix means, in words like farmer, baker, and teacher, and help students
 identify or guess at the meaning of such words in context. Intensive language
teachers often encourage learners to guess whole meanings from parts, and
give them strategies to break down unfamiliar words themselves.

- Jigsaw.

- Jigsaw is a common TESOL reading activity. There are many variations but in
a classic jigsaw, a teacher divides a classroom into four groups. A, B, C, and D.
A reading is also divided into four with one part for each group. So group A
reads part A. The students in each group must read and take notes on each
part of the reading. After each group had finished reading the assigned
section, students form new groups with one member from each original
group represented. Meaning a member from A, B, C, and D all sit down
together. Students now report information to the members of the new
group, and every student should take notes on each section of the reading.

- This gives students a chance to serve both as a reader, a speaker, and a

listener, which naturally encourages interaction. Generally, teachers provide
questions that the final group must answer, and should monitor each group
to provide guidance and answer questions.

- Cloze Passage Exercises.

- The word cloze is TESOL jargon, meaning fill in the blank or missing
information. A cloze passage generally has missing words or phrases in the
form of a space.

- Students listen to an audio clip, either recorded or spoken, and attempt to fill
in the blank with the missing information. The cloze passage is a popular
TESOL activity because it gives students an opportunity to listen to a popular
song, conversation, or topic that uses authentic language students can
identify with.

So who is right? Coach Hare or Coach Tortoise? Does proficiency create passion, like
Coach Tortoise explained? Or does passion lead to proficiency like Coach Hare
claims? To be honest, I have been taught by both teachers throughout my language
career. And I'll admit I have gain a healthy respect for both kinds of instructors. As
we discussed in our first course, Foundational Principles, we find it useful to think of
language like a camera with a zoom lens and a wide angle lens. While we might be
able to have a healthy debate about the amount of intensive and extensive reading
to have in a classroom, I believe it is safe to assume that you, as a language teacher,
will need to do both. Zoom in on details and break down language as an intensive
language coach, or zoom out and allow students to gain fluency and understanding
by giving them large amounts of texts to consume and enjoy.