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現代教育通訊 73期

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現代教育通訊 73期：The backwash effects of BCA: Guiding principles in the teaching of reading and writing in the primary school

本期教訊目錄

The backwash effects of BCA: Guiding principles in the
teaching of reading and writing in the primary school

◎

Dr Ina Yuen-mei Siu, Lecturer
Department of English,
Hong Kong Institute of Education

Dr. Siu in the MERS Teachers' Training Workshop
for Yaumati Catholic Primary School (28/06/04)

The Basic Competency Assessment (BCA) launched in 2004 aims at giving schools a picture on their students' performance in the four English language skills and thereby provides useful feedback to the teaching and learning of English in schools. The sample items published in the government website give teachers some ideas about the format of the papers, the skills being tested and the marking schemes. This article focuses on discussing the reading and writing papers of the BCA and sheds light on how teachers may, through effective teaching methods, prepare students for the assessment.

Characteristics of the items on reading and writing and the corresponding teaching approaches

A large number of text types are included. In the lower primary reading and writing paper, there are riddles, poems, letters, order forms, book covers and contents pages. Students are asked to read and then make appropriate responses to the above text types. In the upper primary paper, similarly a large number of text types are included. They encompass stories, advertisements, poems, riddles, short plays, letters and instructions.

A variety of reading materials with different text types
is essential in teaching and learning English

Therefore, in the teaching of reading, exposure to a variety of reading materials is essential and students' attention should be drawn to the features of the different text types so that appropriate responses could be made. For example, in responding to riddles and poems, students' active imagination is involved. Answers to questions on riddles and poems may require not only factual information based on the text, but also the use of background and general knowledge related to the theme of the text. Similarly, writings related to story endings, poems and other literary types also demand creativity and imagination. However, in responding to book covers, contents pages, order forms and instructions, usually exact information needs to be extracted. Therefore, in discussing riddles, poems and other creative texts, teachers should encourage and allow creative responses. On the other hand, it should be made clear to students that accurate responses based on the reading materials are required when reading instructions and order forms. Students should understand different responses are expected and different skills are used when the text types vary.

Non-verbal responses to reading texts are required especially in the lower primary papers. Reading involves an active collaboration between the reader and writer in creating the world established through the written symbols. It is, therefore, appropriate to ask young learners to express their understanding of the written symbols through choosing appropriate pictures. Benton and Fox (1985, p.18) argue that 'reading a story is an imaginative collaboration between reader and author from which a secondary world is created?

In this regard, the shared reading approach using big picture books is conducive to helping young learners to decode the meaning of written symbols and develop 'visual literacy'. Teachers should employ the shared reading approach where appropriate to support the English curriculum and help students enrich their responses to texts through responding to pictures or creating pictures based on the texts.

Information transfer is practiced. After reading a text, the response could be transferring the information into a flow chart, a picture, or a schedule (Sample 7 of the lower primary reading and writing paper). These tasks model what happens in real life after reading and we typically do not answer reading comprehension questions after that! In real life, after we read instructions on how to apply for the passport, we would fill in a form, and after reading a long reference book, we would jot down the main ideas in point form.

The ability of 'reading between the lines' is tested. In traditional reading comprehension papers, the main type of questions asked is factual questions. Veteran examination candidates learn to pass the paper through matching words that appear in the questions with those in the text and checking out the correct answers with only minimal understanding of the actual meaning of the text. However, with the new examination format, students are required to infer the meaning from the text and the information required in the answer may not appear in the same format in the text. For example, in Sample 3 of the lower primary papers, it is stated in the text that 'We'll [i.e., the Chan family] be in the zoo from 1pm to 4 pm.' The question asked is 'How long will the Chan family stay in the zoo' In this way, students cannot find the exact answer from the text and have to do a simple calculation to supply the answer that the Chan family will stay in the zoo for three hours.

The skill of inferring is one of the critical reading skills. Other critical reading skills include evaluating the intention of the writer, distinguishing between fact and fantasy, arriving at personal evaluation of the text read, etc. Inferring is best taught through the supported reading approach, where the teacher reads an extended text with the students, stops at appropriate points, checks understanding and then continues reading with the students. Reading activities, like analysing the characters of the story read and giving adjectives to describe the characters, are useful activities to develop inferring skills. Through these activities, students have to collect evidence from the text to support their conclusions on the nature of the story or the characters. Inferring is thus practiced.

Sample 5 of the upper primary paper on reading and writing demonstrates the use of the supported reading approach. A parallel lower primary paper is Sample 7 of the lower primary paper. The supported reading approach is found on the philosophy of teaching and not for testing reading. In supported 'reading, an extended text is divided into parts and students' reading and comprehension of each part are guided by the teacher, asking important comprehension questions after reading each part. In this way, students' understanding of the passage is assured. This approach can be used in the teaching of long texts and together with the teacher, students will find out where and how the correct answers can be found. Comprehension is taught and not tested. Similarly, meaningful tasks can be worked out after each session and by checking the progress of students in each task, the teacher can also help them in understanding the text when needed.

Reading helps students develop
their intergrated language skills,
thinking skills and critical literacy.

Teaching of reading and writing should be integrated. The writing tasks in the BCA papers typically involves reading a text and then supplying an ending; reading a letter and then replying; studing some pictures and then translating the information in the pictures into instructions. This approach should provide positive backwash effects on the teaching and learning of writing in schools. Instead of having writing lessons, students?writing is based on the texts they have read. This ensures that students have adequate language input and some background exposure to the topic through reading before they attempt the writing task. In this way, reading will prepared them for writing and this also saves them a lot of useful time for other learning activities.

In the lower primary marking scheme on writing, students are not penalized for spelling or grammatical mistakes that do not interfere with communication of ideas. However, the upper primary writing marking scheme demands a fair degree of accuracy to get a good mark. This reflects a reasonable demand on students' grammatical accuracy in writing as their proficiency improves. This demand can be addressed through the process approach of teaching writing in the upper primary classes. In process writing, through the process of discussing common errors, revising and
editing ones' work, students' awareness of grammatical accuracy is enhanced.

In a gist, the writer believes that BCA will provide some positive backwash effects on the teaching and learning of English reading and writing. Teachers should examine their English curriculum and ensure that they have done the following:

‧	Include a variety of text types in the teaching of reading;
‧	Employ the shared reading approach in lower primary and help develop the visual literacy of students by helping them to understand pictures and respond to texts through pictures;
‧	Design information transfer activities for post- reading where appropriate;
‧	Teach critical reading skills, e.g. inferring;
‧	Employ the supported reading approach in the teaching of extended texts;
‧	Integrate the teaching of reading and writing;
‧	Emphasize the development of grammatical accuracy in upper primary through the process writing approach.

Bibliography

Benton, M. & Fox, G. 1985. Teaching Literature: Nine to Fourteen. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Fredericks, A.D., Blake-Kline, B. & Kristo, J. (1997). Teaching Integrated Language Arts: Process and Practice. New York: Addison and Wesley Educational Publishers, Inc.

Curriculum Development Council. (2004). English Language Curriculum Guide. Hong Kong: Government Logistics Department.

本期教訊目錄