Mr. Murat Kador, a PSC lecturer, delivered a presentation titled, “Enhancing Reading Skills in Two Genres” on 21 November 2023 at the PSC Multi-Purpose Room as part of the ongoing staff professional development activities of the Centre.

The presenter initiated the session by providing an overview of the concept of reading. Subsequently, the various stages of reading were reviewed to ensure comprehension among the audience. As part of the discussion, Mr. Murat raised a question to the teachers regarding their approach to timing students during reading exercises. The majority of the teachers expressed that they indeed time their students. In response, the presenter proposed allocating a maximum of 2 minutes per question in reading exams. This suggestion aimed at enabling students to answer all the questions efficiently without unnecessary time consumption. Following that, Mr. Murat proceeded to introduce the various genres of texts and engaged the teachers in a discussion about the genres commonly encountered by the GFP students at UTASA. 

For the interactive segment of the workshop, the presenter distributed two (2) reading passages to the teachers and instructed them to select a paragraph from each passage and visually represent their understanding of it through drawings. Subsequently, the teachers shared their drawings with each other, and each teacher was tasked to inquire about the paragraph that their peer's drawing represented. 

The underlying objective of this activity was to redirect the teachers' focus towards an alternative approach to reading for gist, in contrast to the conventional method of merely answering a few gist-based reading questions. By engaging in this creative exercise, Mr. Murat aimed to encourage the teachers to adopt a similar approach with their students, thereby fostering motivation for reading while simultaneously making it enjoyable and preventing boredom. The teachers expressed keen interest in implementing this approach in their classrooms, acknowledging its potential to engage and inspire their students during reading activities.