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The unit 11 covers teaching receptive skills - listening and reading. I agree that we have different motives for reading and listening and that those motives can be divided into two categories: for a purpose and for entertainment. It is true that we need not only to recognize and understand the words, but also to grasp the overall meaning from our pre-existing knowledge of the world. It is useful to know that there is a number of specialist skills when reading or listening, such as predictive skills when we, for example, can predict the content of an article from a headline, scanning when we listen or read for some specific information, skimming when we try to get a general understanding, also there is deduction when we need to deduce the meaning of individual words and detailed information. The teaching and learning of receptive skills presents quite a number of potential problems and there are many ways of approaching language difficulties, such as teaching the students difficult language and structures prior to commencing a reading or listening activity. Another way is careful selection of topics for discussion and texts which can be authentic or non-authentic. It is important for the teacher to get the students motivated and engaged in the tasks which can be achieved but discussing the topic, showing pictures, predicting what the text will be about, etc. It is also necessary to provide comprehension tasks to promote understanding which shouldn't be too easy or too difficult. It could be jigsaw reading when the students read part of the text and then share their information. Jumbled texts can also be used where the students need to reorder paragraphs of a text. I think that the basic keys to successful receptive skill lessons that are given in this unit will help me to be successful with my future lessons.
