Then you all put the text away and the class tells you what they saw: a name here, a place there, an idea here, an unusual word there. You can, for example, give your class a text and simply give them 30 seconds to read it as fast as possible. The argument goes that students will use these skills in exams and to help them understand texts, but is this true?Ĭertainly there is a special use for skimming in TEFL. They tend to do this because TEFL books are very conservative and often rely on ideas and practices years out of date. If you read any TEFL book, chances are that they will tell you that skimming and scanning are skills which must be taught. We look for specific information all over the place: the time of a performance the quantity of flour in a recipe for bread the address of a shop the amount of tax Amazon don’t pay the name of the first Lakers owner the height of Queen Victoria… Criticism & TEFL In real life scanning is used much more often by native speakers. Scanning (or Reading for Specifics) on the other hand, is searching a text for very specific information: an answer to a question we have in mind. (This last technique borrows from the skill of speed-reading of course).īut then again, most TEFL teachers probably don’t go this far and most TEFL teachers are probably right! Scanning or Reading for Specifics While normal reading is roughly 200-300 words per minute skimming is 700+ words per minute and when you do it you’ll skip words, clauses or even entire sentences which your brain decides aren’t relevant.Īlthough native speakers aren’t usually taught skimming when they learn to read, some TEFL teachers will actively teach the “art” of skimming and get their students to read any headings in the text and then just the first and last sentence of each paragraph some will even get students to use their forefinger to rapidly move over the page in a zig-zag pattern which their eyes follow, just picking up the words around it. When we pick up a newspaper we might glance over the front page to see if there’s anything worth reading. ![]() ![]() We might glance at a row of brochures to see if there are any about a subject we’re interested in. We might pick up a book and skim through it deciding whether it’s the kind of book we want. In real life skimming is not used so much by most native speakers. ![]() Skimming (or Reading for Gist as it’s sometimes known) is glancing as quickly as possible over a text looking for signposts or clues as to what the text is about. Is that lady in the picture skimming an article to find out what it’s about? Or scanning an article to find some specific information? Or looking at videos of cats? Skimming or Reading for Gist This article looks at what these skills are and asks just how useful they are to a TEFL teacher and their students and it also asks if native speakers skim and scan. In fact, some teachers swear by them every reading lesson (they maintain) should include practice with these skills because they feel their students will benefit enormously from knowing how to skim and scan effectively.īut what exactly are they? And do they do any good? Are those TEFL teachers who espouse them wasting their time? Skimming and Scanning are two skills which are often talked about in TEFL when it comes to reading. Skimming, Scanning, Reading, Custard Pies…
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