Date: 1st March 2018
Place: Georg Sverdrup House, group room 4
Seminar teacher: Lisbeth M Brevik

How – and why – do you encourage your students to read in the English subject? Do you use texts to help your students develop their language, learn about various cultures, or understand other people as well as themselves? To what extent do you encourage your students to search for authentic texts or literature of specific interest to them? Do you teach them reading comprehension strategies to bridge the gap between what they understand and what they are expected to, or want to understand? In this seminar, we address the teacher's reading comprehension strategy instruction and the students' use of such strategies. The aim is to identify quality teaching and use of reading comprehension strategies in the English classroom.

Photo: Colourbox

In this seminar we will assess the strategy use and instruction in English lessons in the LISE classrooms, including what kind of reading is done. We will identify low and high quality instruction and use of reading comprehension strategies. We will discuss why some references to reading comprehension strategies in these classrooms are brief or implicit, and how these analyses provide detailed insight into ‘daily use’ of strategies, including how the teachers prompt students’ strategy use. We will also discuss the quality of some examples of explicit teaching of strategies, and compare these to the quality of the teaching when teachers offer guided practice and encourage independent use of known strategies, instead of explicitly teaching new ones.

Oral presentation
In addition, Øystein will give an oral presentation (obligatory activity) about the quality of strategy use and instruction in the English lesson he has transcribed (S02EN01EaE). Ahmed and Lisbeth will offer some feedback.

Preparation
To prepare for this seminar, please read all the texts about Reading strategy use and instruction (96 pages).