Teach english new edition r

Following instructions: 
students read instructions for a simple operation (using a 
public phonebox, etc) and have to put the instructions in the correct order. They 
m ight also match instructions about, for example, unpacking a printer or inserting a 
new ink cartridge with the little pictures that normally accompany such instructions 
in manuals. We can also get students to read instructions in order to follow them.
Recipes are a particular kind of instruction genre, but can be used in much 
the same way as the examples above - e.g. students read a recipe and match the 
instructions with pictures. We can then get them to cook the food!
Poetry: 
in groups, students are each given a line from a poem. They can’t show the 
line to the other members o f the group, though they can read it out loud. They have to 
reassemble 
the poem by putting the lines in order. A poem I have used like this with 
some success - at upper-interm ediate levels - is ‘Fire and Ice’ by Robert Frost:
Som e say the world w ill end in fire,
Som e say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire 
I hold with those who favour fire.
But if it had to perish twice 
I think I know enough of hate 
To know that for destruction ice 
Is also great 
And would suffice.
We can get students to read different poems and then, w ithout actually showing 
their poem to anyone else, they have to go round the class finding similarities and 
differences between their poem and other people’s.
Another way of using poems with the whole class is to show the students a 
poem line by line (on an overhead projector or a com puter screen) with words 
blanked out. The first tim e they see these blanks, they have to make a wild guess 
at what the words could be. W hen they see the lines for the second time, the first 
letter is included. W hen they see the poem for the third time, the first two letters are
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Teaching reading
included, and so on. This is a great activity for getting students to really search in 
their minds for contextualised