Reading for information: Motivating learners to read efficiently

In the class, some students may be bored whenever teacher asks then to read a text and at the end the reading activity will not be efficient at all. Most of teacher wants students to read efficiently so they will get the main idea of the text, they’ll remember what the text talks about, and what knowledge the students can get from the text. There are some steps which we can do to motivate students to read efficiently. First thing teacher can do is providing a context and a reason for reading. Providing a context means give students a clue or picture in their mind what the text about so the students knows what the main topic and what they can expect from that kind of topic. Students also need reason for reading because if there is no specific reason to do reading, then the students will not focus or concentrate on the text. The second stage is priming stage. The main purpose of this stage is getting students ready for reading by providing a context, a purpose, and necessary language input. For example, teacher can give questions which answers are on the text.

These three steps will bring students’ curiosity slowly but sure. For example, teacher can give true/false questions and ask the students to answer them based on their own general knowledge. When they finished, usually students will work hard in finding a part which related to the questions because they want to know whatever their answer’s true or false. This trick can be used to make students concentrate fully during the while activity. The last but also the most important thing is, when the students get the main idea of reading something which started by their curiosity, then the text will be memorable in their mind for long time.



information taken from
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/articles/reading-information-motivating-learners-read-efficiently
rewrite by Sofiany