Assignment 8.1

Developing Language Skills for Teachers and Learners

Selected Authentic Texts


Text 1: Tourist Information Leaflets (Entry 3 / Level 1)

Language Skills: Using organisational features to locate information (Rt/E3.5, Rt/L1.4); scan texts to find information (Rt/E3.7); obtain specific information through detailed reading (Rt/E3.8, Rt/L1.5); identify main points and specific detail (Rt/L1.3).

Pre-reading task: Elicit tourist attraction. Students discuss places they’ve visited in the local area.

1st Reading: Elicit questions people ask before they visit an attraction onto board. Students read leaflets and find as many answers as they are able to. Swap information in groups.

2nd Reading: Students read again to find one thing they like and don’t like about each attraction.

Post-reading: In groups, students compare the attractions and choose one place they’d like to visit.

Text 2: Article from GNER magazine – A Guided Walk around Newcastle (Level 1/ Level 2)

Language Skills: Identify the main points and specific detail, and infer meaning from images which is not explicit in the text (Rt/L1.3); use knowledge and experience to try out plausible meanings and check for sense (Rs/L1.1, Rs/L2.1); practise reading for detail (Rt/L2.3).

Lead-in Ask students if they’ve ever been to Newcastle. Do you like it? Tell your partner. Feedback and elicit things to do and places to visit in the city.

Pre-reading task Tell students they’re going to go on a guided walk around the city. Brainstorm common ways of giving directions. Hand out large maps from tourist office with route sketched in. In pairs, students orally direct themselves along the route.

Ist Reading Hand out jumbled-up description of walk. Using the directions from the pre-reading task to help, pairs put the stages of the walk in the correct order.

2nd Reading Hand out complete text. Students match definitions and synonyms to selected expressions (or match expressions to a jumbled-up glossary).

Post–reading: Students design a short guided walk around their hometown (or a place they know well).


Text 3: Bus Timetable (Entry 2)

Language Skills: Practise gist, skim and detailed reading skills (Rt/E2.1); identify common source of information (Rt/E2.3)

Pre-reading task Brainstorm kinds of public transport. Students talk about what kinds of transport they use and why. Feedback – ask students how they get to college.

Gist reading Elicit what time the lesson starts. Hand out bus timetable. Students read quickly and find out whether a student could take this bus to an ESOL lesson at college.

Detailed Reading A number of specific questions could be asked, either in true or false, multiple-choice or read and find the answer form. Students could be asked to find information about destinations, times of specific buses, prices, etc.

Post-reading task Students do a roleplay a practise planning a journey, asking about available buses, times, prices, etc. Students could also talk about a journey they take by public transport – where they get on and off, what number bus or what time metro they take, etc.

Text 4: Imagine (Level 1)

Language Skills: Practise listening for specific information (Lr/L1.1); follow and contribute to discussions (Lr/L1.6).

Pre-listening Students answer questions about music. Feedback and use as lead-in to The Beatles, John Lennon, etc.

Listening Hand out gapped text or change some lyrics. Students listen and change / correct.

Post-listening Students discuss whether they agree with Lennon’s idea of the perfect world. Groups decide on what they’d like to do to improve the world.


Lesson Evaluation (Tourist Information Leaflets)

The lesson was taught to a Level 1 class comprising 12 students from a mixture of nationalities (Iranian, Sri Lankan, Polish, Bangladeshi and Moroccan). The students were preparing for the Cambridge Speaking and Listening exam, in which candidates are often asked to discuss visitor attractions. The main focus of the lesson was to be able to understand and use a number of functional expressions for changing the subject, checking information and showing interest while listening. Subsidiary aims included giving gist and detailed reading practice while revising the subject of places to visit and planning days out.

The warmer and pre-reading tasks achieved the purpose of getting the students interested in the topic of travel plans, and leading-in to the introduction of the leaflets. The reading tasks were sufficiently challenging – the students were able to locate most of the answers to the questions I’d elicited on to the board.

In my opinion, the aim of the lesson was met: the students were all able to use at least some of the functional expressions in the practice activities, particularly when showing interest and changing the subject. The activities were varied and challenging, and allowed sufficient scope for the students to use a range of expressions. The listening itself – three native speakers discussing the attractions in the leaflets given to the students – was more difficult than I intended owing to the sound quality and the size of the room. However, giving the students the functional expressions prior to the listening, and encouraging peer-teaching, helped the students achieve the task. In the speaking activities, the tourist information was slightly rushed as I wanted to give the students free-er speaking practice. In future, I would give the students more time to prepare questions and locate information.

Despite the relative success of the lesson, in retrospect the listening and functional expressions might have been better used as a separate follow-up lesson to the tourist information leaflets. A reading lesson based on the leaflets could be expanded with each group given different leaflets and, after comparing information about their attractions, deciding on one place to visit, listing reasons and then attempting to persuade students from other groups. A subsequent activity could be to actually plan a visit to the attraction the students eventually decide on, perhaps using the internet.

Appendix


Authentic materials – written texts

A major advantage of ESOL teaching in the UK is the wide availability of authentic written materials at a teacher’s disposal. Printed materials include newspaper and magazine articles, advertisements (including residential property listings, lonely hearts and classified ads), public transport timetables, shop and mail order catalogues, tourist information leaflets, TV listings, maps, junk mail, tickets, posters, signs and notices, postcards, brochures, personal letters, official documents, short stories, novels, film and book reviews, cartoon strips and newspaper weather reports. In addition, the internet provides a wealth of authentic materials, including personal blogs, emails, online articles and the websites of newspapers, magazines and broadcasting companies such as the BBC.



Authentic materials – spoken language and listening texts

The internet also provides a large and ever-growing selection of authentic spoken language. Examples include song lyrics, podcasts, streamed broadcasts, audio and video news reports, and video footage from sites such as YouTube. A further important source of authentic spoken material is the radio, in the form of reportage, news broadcasts, phone-ins, weather forecasts, quiz shows, sports commentary and topical discussions – most of which can also be recorded from TV. Furthermore, advances in technology mean that language teachers can now record a wide sample of spoken discourse – from conversations to public address announcements – using voice recording devices, such as those built-into many Mp3 players.


Bibliography

Learning Teaching – Jim Scrivener (Heinemann, 1994)

Inside Teaching – Tim Bowen and Jonathan Marks (Heinemann, 1994)

The Practice of English Language Teaching – Jeremy Harmer (Longman, 2001)