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EFL
Reading: An Outlining Technique
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Current EFL/ESL reading programs focus on
developing students' reading skills, such as recognition of main ideas, supporting
information, and organizational patterns. Some reading classes may include summary writing
of authentic materials-academic texts and frequently, newsmagazine articles. A widely used
classroom practice, is to involve students in pre-reading, while reading, post-reading,
and follow-up activities aimed at promoting writer-text-reader interaction (Barnett
1989). Students are led to draw on their background knowledge, in order to gain reading
efficiency and to understand the text more thoroughly. Among the post-reading activities,
students are usually asked to write a summary or to outline the text.
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Writing an outline in English is usually
perceived by our students as one of the most difficult tasks. It is not unusual for many
students who successfully process a text-guessing word meanings, drawing inferences,
making predictions, etc-to fail to produce a well organized summary or a coherent outline.
It should be pointed out that, on the one hand, research findings on the transfer of L1
reading strategies to L2 reading are not conclusive (Laufer and Sim 1982; Bendetto 1984,
1985). On the other, we lack a systematic teaching approach to outlining at both the
secondary and college levels.
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The purpose of this article is to present a
technique I use in my reading classes as a consciousness-raising device to facilitate
outlining-which may help alleviate some of the discomfort students experience when writing
an outline of a text intended for native speakers of English.
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Examining the "Outlines" section of
college reading workbooks, we might notice that students are provided with excellent
guided exercises to outline texts, preceded by the following instructions: After
reading., write an outline , or Read.; Then write an outline. Obviously,
students are expected to write the outline after they have read the whole text.
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The assumption underlying the suggested
technique is that during the pre-reading activities, the students can start forming a
mental picture and jot down the skeleton of the outline of the article they are going to
read. This can be achieved by analyzing the title and making predictions based on the
information it provides.
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During one or two sessions previous to the
actual outlining of any text, considerable time can be devoted to title analysis. Working
in pairs or in small groups, students are given a series of titles from articles on a wide
range of current issues. The first step, after the students have identified the topic,
consists of asking them to paraphrase the title, either in English or in Spanish. This is
done to ensure clarity, particularly when the title contains figurative language or a
cultural bias. Then, based on the information provided in the title, students write down
the main idea they expect to find in the passage. (In most cases, the main idea is an
expansion of the title.) As the students share their conjectures, the teacher goes from
group to group monitoring, occasionally pointing out relevant information in the title
which the students have overlooked, or helping them to narrow down the topic, if the one
they identified proves to be too broad.
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After the topic and the main idea have been
identified, students will write down their predictions about the information, that the
author is likely to develop in the text. These self-generated predictions will be
expressed as words or key phrases.
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The topic, main idea, and students' guesses
about the information categories will then be written on the board, in the same random
order that the students have given them, and each group will receive feedback on the
appropriateness of their analysis. This means that information categories
considered too far-fetched will be dropped and others may be deleted if students notice
any overlapping. Occasionally new categories might be inserted.
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As a last step, students will rearrange the main
idea and the information categories in logical sequence, from general to specific, in
topic outline fashion. At this point, it should be stressed to students that, in doing so,
they are actually writing a skeleton outline.
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After analyzing a few titles, students realize
that standard information categories can be anticipated depending upon the subject matter
of the article, (see figure 1 ).
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Title analysis and predictions about information
categories will now precede any text to be processed. As they read, students will
underline in the text any information that matches their predictions. This procedure
contributes to building up the students' confidence in outline-writing.
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For illustration, I will reproduce the
information categories predicted by students in connection with one of the titles I have
used as an outlining awareness device: Young and Pregnant , by James P. Comer.
There are two equally valid reasons why I have chosen this article. In the first place,
its subject matter appeals to the students. Secondly, my objective was to show students
that they are able to draft an outline based only on the title.
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Upon analyzing this title students came up with
the following information categories.
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| Title |
Young and Pregnant |
| Subtitle: |
none |
| Main Idea: |
Pregnant adolescents face many problems |
| Problems: |
-health
-social
-economic |
| Statistics: |
number of pregnant adolescents:
-country
-ethnic group
-social class
-per year
-age span |
| Reasons: |
opinions of:
-parents
-educators
-psychologists
-clergymen
-adolescents |
| Effects: |
-school dropouts
-early marriage
-single parenthood
-abortions |
| Solutions: |
-by above groups
-by special groups
-campaigns |
Once they read Young and Pregnant , the students modified their sketchy outline
according to the information they found in the article. They changed the main ideas to
"Reasons why adolescent pregnancies have increased." Under problems , the
health and social class categories were deleted since they were not
discussed in the article. The country category was altered to show the United
States alone. The rest of the information from the article fit the remaining categories.
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After students finish reading any text, they
verify their predictions and make the necessary adjustments to the basic framework. An
outline results from:
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- Substituting the predicted information categories with actual information from the text.
- Adding specific information from the article that had not been predicted.
- Deleting information categories which were not discussed in the article.
- Re-arranging the sequence of headings or key phrases to fit the development of the topic
by the writer.
- Numbering and lettering subordinate ideas and details.
- Expressing the ideas condensed in key phrases using complete sentences.
- Transforming the outline into a summary by linking subordinate ideas and supporting
details with cohesive devices.
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After analyzing several titles in isolation, as
well as the titles of texts they read in class, most students report a gain in confidence
about their (intelligent) guesses and claim to feel more control over a text. As students
become more familiar with this technique, they seem to be more at ease with outline
writing and quite deft at discounting irrelevant information, and visualizing
organizational patterns and relationships between ideas. My classroom experience suggests
that negative attitudes, or feelings of inadequacy toward outlining diminish considerably
when using this technique.
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Anna
Maria Sola is an EFL professor at the School of Modern Languages of Universidad
Metropolitana in Caracas. Her interests include vocabulary development and English
materials design. |
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Return
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- Adams, J. A., and M. A. Dwyer. 1982. English for academic uses. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice-Hall
- Barnett, M. A. 1989. More than meets the eye. Foreign language reading: Theory and
practice. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
- Benedetto, R. A. 1985. Language ability and the use of top-level organizational
strategies. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the National Reading Conference.
- Comer, J. P. 1987. Young and pregnant. Parents.
- Laufer, B. and D. D. Sim. 1982. Does the EFL reader need reading strategies more than
language? Some experimental evidence. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the
American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, New York.
- Mikulecky, B. S. 1985. Reading skills instruction in ESL. In On TESOL '84, eds. Larson,
E., T. Judd, and D.S. Messerschmitt. Washington, D.C.: TESOL.
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figure 1
| Subject matter: a new procedure, device, machine, or
product. |
| Information Categories: |
| antecedents |
how it was devised |
| definitions |
for special or unusual words |
| researcher, company |
who devised it |
| description |
how it works; characterstics |
| applications |
professional areas or fields |
| comparison/contrast |
conventional procedures. |
| cost |
production, operation |
| advantages |
compared with conventional procedures |
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or products |
| possible disadvantages |
technical, economic ,etc. |
| marketing strategy |
description and results |
| author's opinion |
author's point of view |
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| Subject matter: moral, social, or economic issues |
| Information Categories: |
| problem/dilemma |
identification, description |
| causes |
actual or potential |
| effects |
actual or potential |
| solutions |
actual or potential |
| statistics |
individuals and/or groups affected |
| experts' opinions |
about causes, effects, solutions |
| other opinions |
about causes, effects, solutions |
| authors' point of view |
about causes, effects, solutions |
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