Your question is – how do you teach ESL students to summarize?

Teach ESL students to summarize by providing them with a model, discussing key points, and encouraging them to use their own words.

And now, in greater depth

Teaching ESL students to summarize can be a challenging task, but it is crucial for their language development and academic success. According to Reading Rockets, “summarizing is one of the most important academic skills students can learn… it helps students understand the main idea of what they’re reading.”

One effective way to teach ESL students to summarize is by providing them with a model. This can be a short text or article that you have already summarized. It is essential to highlight key points and model the use of transition words and phrases.

Another strategy is to discuss the essential points of the text with the students, highlighting important information and ideas. As the students become more comfortable summarizing, they can first attempt to summarize smaller chunks of the text and then work their way up to more extensive passages.

To encourage students to use their own words, it is helpful to emphasize the importance of paraphrasing and avoiding direct copying. It is also essential to provide students with feedback on their summarizing skills and to praise them for their efforts.

In the words of journalist and author, Ernest Hemingway, “All good writing is about making things easy to read, easy to understand, and easy to remember.” This quote highlights the importance of summarizing skills in effective communication and academic success.

Here are some interesting facts on the topic:

• According to a study by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), only 17% of eighth-grade students in the United States could effectively summarize a text.
• Summarizing skills are essential for ESL students who need to comprehend and communicate complex ideas in English.
• The ability to summarize effectively is a valuable skill in many professions, including journalism, law, and business.

Table:

This video has the solution to your question

In this video, Miss Bullock teaches students how to summarize a story using the five fingers in five words or less. This method is easy to follow, and if a student is able to do it in less than five minutes, their summary is considered to be short and in order.

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Follow these steps when summarizing a paragraph:

1. Read the material you want to summarize.
2. Identify the main controlling idea for the whole writing.
3. Identify the main supporting points.
4. Identify key words and phrases.
5. Write a summary that repeats or paraphrases key words and the main ideas.

Here are three tips:

• 1. Teach concise writing One of the most difficult points for ESL students to grasp is the idea of concise writing.

Take turns reading a short selection as a class. As they read, instruct pupils to underline the most important points. Once students have completed their annotations on their texts, begin the discussion of summary paragraphs. Give an illustration of your point. Discuss the various points of view. Concentrate on five essential points.

Instruct students to look for signal words such as therefore, in conclusion, or in summary. Have them verbally summarize the nonfiction piece to a peer. Then, have them reread the text and write a summary paragraph. In the summary, students should state the text’s main idea in the first sentence and include the most important information.

More interesting questions on the issue