This is another entry in my quest to define all the terms I use on this blog.
"Orientation to the text" usually occurs after the lead-in. The purpose is to clarify for the students all the variables of the reading or listening text. So, for example, for a listening text, some of the variables could be: Who are the speakers on the audio? What is their relationship to each other? Where are they? What are they talking about? etc
In the past, I've often confused the lead-in with orientation to the text. And, I hate to say this, but if you search my archives of materials on this blog, you will find several examples of a lesson stage that is labelled as "lead-in" but is actually "orientation to the text".
But I had the opportunity to work with a CELTA tutor a few years ago, and he set me straight on the difference. And going forward, I'm going to try to be more precise in my terminology.
The difference is that a lead-in is supposed to be a brief conversation prompt that allows the students to relate their own life to an aspect of the reading or listening text. So, to continue the example of parties that I introduced in the previous post, for a listening text on parties, the lead-in might be, "talk to your partner about a party that you enjoyed."
However, the orientation to the text would be: "You are going to listen to a conversation between two people. They are brother and sister. They are talking about a party that they went to last night."
As always, as much as possible, this should be done through eliciting. Most textbooks nowadays have will have some sort of photo that shows the people, so use the photo. "What can you see? Who are they? What do you think their relationship is? What do you think they are talking about?"
If the textbook doesn't have a suitable photo, you can usually find some sort of approximate photo on Google images that you can appropriate.
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"Orientation to the text" could also be a time where you clarify any background information that the text assumes, but that may not be known to the students.
A good example of this is a lesson I taught recently in Reflect Listening & Speaking 5, Listening 1: How to Structure a Good Story p.4-8. The listening text was on story structure. Romeo and Juliet was used as an example to illustrate the stages of a story. The assumption behind the text was that the students were already familiar with the story of Romeo and Juliet, and the purpose of the listening text was to use this pre-existing information as an example of the 3 act story structure.
However, in my case, I knew not all of my students would be familiar with the story of Romeo and Juliet. So before we did the listening, I briefly went over some of the key plot points of Romeo and Juliet.
I did this by showing them some Youtube clips from the Romeo and Juliet movies. See HERE.
And once again, it's best to elicit as much as possible. (To once again quote As J.J. Wilson from How to Teach Listening, you don't want to do a listening before the listening.) So instead of narrating the clips myself, I played the movie clips without the sound on, and got the students to describe to me what was happening. I added clarification as necessary, but for the most part the students were able to get the main parts themselves.
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