Reading Aloud Allowed?

Abstract

Reading aloud is still a very controversial issue in language teaching, especially in the field of TESL. Many teachers in different parts of the world use the technique of reading aloud every day and an oven greater number of students adapt to it quite readily. Sheila Been, for example, describing the teaching of English in her country writes:

In the third year of English... the reading-to-learn stage has been reached.... The first reading is usually done aloud by the teacher; this is followed either by reading aloud around the class or in response to comprehension questions the answers to which can be lifted directly from the text (1979:93).