It's all about skimming

Or so it seems.
Welcome to the IELTS (low) class, where we patronise students with study skills they already have, or they have already learnt about because they have been on the course for so long that they've seen all that could possibly be seen.
The problem is, they still don't get it.
So, first of all we have an open discussion to brainstorm good ideas and bad ideas to apply on the reading part. Among the good ideas, we have things like:
- see if the title can give some information on what the article will be about (i.e. activate schemata, and there goes the spidergram on the board);
- read the first sentence of every paragraph;
- use illustrations to help you understand.
Among the bad things, we have:
- underline names and dates (that is scanning, my dear, not relevant or useful here);
- get stuck on unknown vocabulary.

So, everything is clear, they look almost bored when they tell me the do's and dont's, and so we proceed to do the reading, where I give them 3 minutes to skim the text (literally 30 lines) and produce a sentence that summarises it. It's about Malcom X and MLK, and some differences and similarities, so it's pretty clear, and you know what happens next?

They all get stuck on unknown vocabulary.
The all underline, no, worse, CIRCLE names and dates AND the unknown vocabulary.
The even start looking for translations in their evil electronic dictionaries.
And three minutes later, they haven't got a clue of what the article is about...but have a whole list of words to ask me!

And tomorrow: WRITING! Are you ready?

On the other hand, morning class: a gem. Dictogloss: a success. But this will be another story - LSA3, background assignment, is calling...