Comments on: More Ways to Use Authentic Texts

By: englishwithjennifer

englishwithjennifer — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 18:34:26 +0000

1. Because I’ve been working one-on-one with advanced students who wish to increase their oral fluency, I’ve focused more on oral summaries than written. However, our lesson plans often include a gapped text that summarizes the key points of an article. I usually try to elicit new vocabulary through this task, but you could create larger gaps to elicit whole ideas/ whole phrases. Perhaps the skeletal structure of a gapped text will make the task less intimidating for students who are too easily overwhelmed by the simple direction: Summarize the article. With no prompts provided, some students might not know where to begin or get lost in the midst of delivering a summary. For oral summaries I usually list 2-4 questions to guide their efforts to recall information.

2. As for main ideas and purposes of paragraphs, have you read my other post on using authentic texts?
http://englishwithjennifer.wordpress.com/2010/07/07/getting-the-most-out-of-authentic-texts/
Here’s one more, in which I suggest having students create questions for classmates.
http://englishwithjennifer.wordpress.com/2011/09/29/reflecting-on-how-we-ask-students-to-read/

By: janice

janice — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 21:31:56 +0000

Actually, I do have another idea of how we can use such articles. Depending on our students’ language facility and the purpose of our class, we might want to work on identifying main ideas in paragraphs, or writing summaries of paragraphs or entire articles. I’ve just about given up trying to teach this to students, because it seems to be very, very difficult for students, and I’ve often been frustrated at how little success I have with this as a teacher. But maybe, m a y b e , if I modeled it with students on the first few paragraphs of the article, they might be able to get the hang of it better.
Do you have any methods for teaching these skills that have worked well?

By: englishwithjennifer

englishwithjennifer — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 20:17:53 +0000

Hi Janice,
I’m glad you picked up a few ideas. If you think of others, feel free to share them.
Best wishes to you!

By: janice

janice — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 15:29:52 +0000

Jennifer, this is SO helpful — especially for someone like me who teaches relatively high-level ELL adults, and who likes to bring in authentic articles like these that will be engaging and provocative to those students. I’ve been collecting this type of article for a couple of years, but you’ve given me great ideas for building on them. Thank you!