148 Part III: Teaching Skills Classes
Some ideas for summarising are to have students read separate related texts,
which they then explain to each other. Give your students a table to fill in
with key points or ask them to give a one-minute presentation in front of the
class.Bring in a handful of film reviews. Divide students into groups, with a member
for each review and have each student read a different review. Hand out a
table such as the one in Table 10-2. As each student tells the group about her
review, the others can listen and complete the table with all the films.Table 10-2 Reviewing Films
Name of film Genre Plot Star Rating
Vampire Attack Horror Vampires invade
London looking for
more victims.Brad Cruise *****Love In London Romance Two tourists from
different worlds meet
and fall in love in
Trafalgar Square.Denzel Snipes and
Jennifer Streep***Handling Vocabulary
You can handle new words in a reading exercise in a few ways:✓ Get the vocabulary out of the way from the outset by teaching it in the
pre-reading stage.✓ Let the students read first and work on the meaning of individual words
afterwards.
✓ Don’t deal with vocabulary at all so that students learn to find their own
coping strategies.In the first two cases beware of wasting time on words that can just as well
be ignored. Even native speakers encounter words they’re unfamiliar with
and may not look up them up if they’re still able to understand what they’re
reading.The next sections explore each option in turn.