Teaching Reading Strategies to Students who Study Foreign Languages

Abstract

This article describes methods that can be used for EFL classes to teach reading strategies.  The objectives of the article are to help students understand the text structure of a particular genre, find the main idea in the text, learn new vocabulary and learn effective reading strategies to develop their reading comprehension. 
In classroom interaction, a shift between teacher and learner focus is made to provide the teacher's support and guidance at earlier stages and gradually withdraw the teacher's focus to assist students in becoming more independent learners.  As some students may be shy when speaking and afraid of making mistakes in front of the class or peers, whole class, groups, and pair discussion are implemented at the earlier stages to minimize their anxiety.
On completion of the program, the students are expected to be able to read and understand newspaper articles, on topics familiar to them, without depending on dictionaries.  These activities help the students to reflect on written texts critically and to progress from an intermediate to an advanced level of proficiency.