Maximizing ESL Freshman Readers’ Skills with Online Instruction

Abstract

The aim of this article is to show English teachers how reading comprehension can be effectively taught to struggling EFL/ESL college readers. The teaching strategies include the following: (1) Helping students understand the chapter structure; (2) Helping students understand the text structure by predicting content from the text title before the reading, Comparing a text to a building, writing the topic of each paragraph in the margin, underlining the main ideas, numbering the supporting details, circling words that signal chronological order, classification, definition, comparison and contrast, exemplification, process, showing the structure of the passage, i.e. relating the title with the topics and subtopics of each paragraph by drawing a tree diagram and filling it out while reading, summarizing the main ideas and supporting details in a chart after the reading; (3) Helping students recognize the text type: compare/contrast, classification, illustration, chronology (4) Helping students derive meanings of difficult words from context (without looking them up n a dictionary) by using different types of context clues such as punctuation marks, definitions, synonyms, antonyms and morphological analysis; (5) Helping students decode words in context: by highlighting silent letters, double letters, and hidden sounds in a word, and identifying the part of speech of words by breaking them into prefix, suffix and root (6) Helping students connect pronouns and determiners with their antecedents; (7) Helping students connect the information contained in the text with their background knowledge; (8) Helping students understand questions by circling the question word (9) Circling key words in a paragraph while skimming; and (10) Recognizing sentence types such as passive sentences, complex sentences, embedded sentences etc. Sample texts will be used to show attendees how reading can be taught using the above strategies.

Keywords: Online Instruction, Online Courses, Reading in EFL, College Reading, Reading Enhancement, Online Reading