View Content #1971
| Contentid | 1971 |
|---|---|
| Content Type | 1 |
| Title | Methods of checking comprehension |
| Body | I have had extensive experience using retelling and summarizing (I call it "checking") in my language teaching and highly recommend the technique both in teaching both spoken and written language. The majority of my teaching is in spoken language skills, but I think the value of checking is extremely valuable in all areas of language learning and teaching as necessary communication skills. From the beginning I inform my students of the reality that much of the language they encounter will be language they have not encountered before, and they will have to be constantly checking with speakers of the target language to make sure they have correctly understood the message of the native speaker. To do this they will need to summarize what the speaker has said and retell the speaker's message for the speaker's correction of what has been mis-communicated or non-communicated. Because of this we target in on the summarizing and re-telling skills fairly early and use these skills regularly. When basic language skills have reached a certain point, I include as part of every lesson a talk that I know the students will not completely understand. This is followed by the students' attempts in the target language to make sure they have understood the general idea of what I have said and have got the information they need from the talk. At first I use a worksheet in which students are asked to summarize the general content of the talk and to answer specific questions. This gives students a crutch guide for how they check for a short time. Initially the students direct their checking to me or the native speaker, but very soon the students use each other as a resource to try to decode the original message by summarizing to each other. Typically, I record the original talk, so that students can go back over the original talk, after they have done personal and group checking during the lesson time, so they can increase their vocabulary by relating the original message to the message they have understood by checking and be more closely tuned into the context of the message. If I am dealing with written material, I present it orally first as a subject for group checking, and then present it later as written material. I prefer to use eventually only material for checking practice that deal with aspects of the target culture most different from those in the learners' native culture. This requires more frequent use of checking skills and contextualization. Many of my "target language only" classes involve a lot of checking on the part of the learner, rather than just repetition of previously learned material. So, I am deeply committed to the major language skills of summarizing and re-telling and find them extremely valuable language skills. Szczurek, D. Re: Retelling, summarizing. Foreign Language Teaching Forum listserv. FLTEACH@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU (19 Aug. 2004). |
| Source | FLTEACH |
| Inputdate | 2004-08-27 14:15:00 |
| Lastmodifieddate | 2004-08-27 14:15:00 |
| Expdate | Not set |
| Publishdate | Not set |
| Displaydate | Not set |
| Active | 1 |
| Emailed | 1 |
| Isarchived | 1 |
