he purpose of post-reading activities
Post-reading activities give students the
opportunity to review, summarize, and react
to a reading passage, and activities such as
debates, role-plays, games, and discussions
take place in small and large groups, as well as
with the entire class.
Some post-reading exercises also assess how
well the students have comprehended the
reading material, and they often consist of a
text followed by questions that check the comprehension
of specific details, main ideas, and
inferences. The following techniques are often
used for this purpose:
1. A multiple-choice question is a statement
or question usually followed by four
options, of which only one option—
the key—is correct; the remaining three
options are called distractors. Quality
multiple-choice questions are difficult to
construct because to properly assess comprehension,
the three distractors must
be plausible, and double keys or options
that are too easy must be avoided.
2. A true/false question contains a statement
that learners mark as either true or false.
True/false items are less difficult to construct,
but they need to be balanced with
other types of items since a student has a
50 percent chance of guessing the correct
response.
3. A short answer question requires the learner
to produce a brief response to a question,
usually ranging from one word to a
couple of sentences. Short answer items
are also fairly easy to construct; however,
a student’s incorrect answers may
be attributable to the complex language
of questions that add an additional comprehension
problem.
4. Summary writing requires the students
to express in writing a text’s main ideas
and conclusion in a specified number
of words or paragraphs. Depending on
the level, this task can be difficult for
students, especially if they have to write
in their L2.