Encouraging students to ‘wonder’ – even with exam reading texts!

Just because we’re doing an exam reading task with students, doesn’t mean that they have to stop ‘wondering’ and using their imagination.  Curiosity is a natural instinct, and is essential for learning.  Without it, perhpas students won’t explore on their own or even be motivated to learn.

I took a B1 Preliminary Reading Part 4 text (from the 2020 B1 Preliminary Handbook, available here) and added some ‘I wonder’ questions to start the ball rolling.

The way I’d use this:

1   Ask students to read the whole text.

2  Students discuss their answers to the three questions. 

3  Students write ‘I wonder’ questions for the other four boxes.  (They can do this individually or in pairs.)

4  Students ask each other their questions and discuss their impressions and opinions.

There are so many things we can do with a text, and we definitely shouldn’t just do an exam task and move on!