Boost learners' motivation while reading in a foreign language!

Introduction

Welcome to our WebQuest on learners' motivation while reading in a foreign language! Have you ever struggled to boost students' motivation when reading in a second language as English? This WebQuest will take you through practices, activities, and materials that will help you motivate your students to learn and apply reading skills while reading in English. You will explore various websites and resources to complete your task, and by the end of this WebQuest, you will have a deeper understanding of strategies that will support your English lessons every day.

Task

You are reading mentors, and your mission is to help your students/classmates improve their reading skills. You will follow steps to guide you and your classmates to read storybooks more fluently. You should monitor the four primary reading skills of your students/classmates, which are vocabulary, decoding, fluency, and understanding sentences. Overall, your students/classmates should be able to understand and explain the book being read.

Process

  1. Create a teacher account at Epic Library Books. 

 

  1. Ask your students to access Epic Library Books with your class code. 

 

  1. Set the rules for reading. Ask the students to set these rules with you for the class. 

  • Read quietly.

  • Be respectful.

  • Listen carefully to the reader.

 

  1. Divide the group into pairs. 

 

  1. Ask the groups to choose reading roles. One person is the mentor reader first (who monitors the reader’s skills), and the other is the reader. Then the roles will be switched. 

 

  1. Use the book “Kitty and Dragon Plant a Garden.”

 

  1. Use flashcards to introduce the vocabulary in the book. The flashcards can be found in the resources provided below. 

  • Vocabulary Introduction: Show the flashcards to your students, read the words, and ask them to repeat the words. 

  • Lip Reading: Having the flashcards facing down and away from you, take one of the flashcards without showing it to the students. Pronounce the word without saying it. Students try to guess the words. You can give the groups points as they guess the terms to make it more exciting. 

  • What’s the Word Missing? Display the flashcards on the board. After going over them, ask students to close their eyes. Remove one card. Students open their eyes and say which card is missing.

 

  1. Each team starts reading the book “Kitty and Dragon Plant a Garden.” By taking turns between the mentor and the reader. When they both finish reading the book, ask them to listen to the audiobook.

 

  1. The Reading Circle: Sit on the floor in a circle. Ask the students to volunteer to read pages of the book. 

 

  1.  Ask reading comprehension questions: 

  • What are the characters of the book?

  • What is one characteristic of each character?

  • What time of the year is it in the story?

  • How do Kitty and Dragon prepare their garden?

  • What does Kitty plant in her garden?

  • How do Kitty and Dragon take care of the garden?

  • How do Kitty and Dragon eliminate the bugs on Kitty’s plants?

 

  1. Each team should present one new word from the book, different from the words in the flashcards. They have to explain the word by using drawings or sentence examples. 

 

  1. Each team plays a memory game with the words in the flashcards. The game can be found in the resources provided below.

Evaluation

The suggested rubric can be found in the resources shared above. 

Your reading skills will be graded on the following criteria: 

 

  • Self-monitoring: Reads with accuracy and attempts self-correcting when required. 

  • Behavior: Keen to learn and ready to read. Participate and contribute to reading groups discussion. 

  • Fluency: Have mastered the required reading sight words. Are reading with fluency. 

  • Comprehension: Demonstrate an understanding of what they have read.

  • Phonetic Skill: Apply phonetic skills accurately. 

Conclusion

Ideally, as a teacher, you will better understand strategies to use in English classes when reading. Students will enjoy reading by practicing the tasks of this WebQuest. And without noticing, the student will be motivated to read more and more stories because he or she will enjoy the reading journey! And definitively as well the teacher's journey of teaching will be even more fun.

Credits

Resources:

 

Teacher Page

Cristhel Campos and Katherine Lizano have designed this WebQuest for the Elements of Applied Linguistics Course.

cristhelgc18@gmail.com 

ktica4eva04@gmail.com