For Ch.2: Olympic spirit

 

For chapter 2 "Sports and Life"

 

(Post-Reading Material)

 

http://www.englishclub.com/vocabulary/sports-olympics-spirit.htm

 

This site is talking about the Olympic Game's spirit.

 

 

 

This site can be used as a good supplementary activity for the post-reading.

By introducing the Olympic game which the students are familiar with, so they can understand about the sports spirit more easily and deeply. Also this site is providing some difficult words' meaning and example of usage which can facilitate the reading activity for the students.

Moreover this site is providing information about the sports game, and sports vocabulary and quiz together so it can be a useful self-reading activity for students. 

For Ch.2: Hooliganism

 

For chapter 2 "Sports and Life"

 

(Pre-Reading material)

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hooliganism

 

This site is introducing the word hooliganism which is associated with violence in sports.

 

 

 

Make students read about this before reading the textbook and find what kind of side effect can be happened if people only think about winning in the game.

By reading the story about having a wrong value in sports students can think about the topic before they read in their perspective which also can activate their schemata so they can be more engaged and be ready to read.

For Ch.1: English learning by mobile apps!

 

For chapter 1 "English and My Dreams"

 

(Post-Reading Material)

 

http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2012/06/15-great-free-android-apps-for-english.html

 

In this link, it is introducing 15 great free android apps for English lagnuage learners.

 

 

After reading the textbook about the importance and benefit of English learning make students visit this site and read the ways for learning English in effective and fun ways with mobile apps.

Since the content of the site is about the mobile apps students might get really interest in it. Moreover students can think further about what they learned in the textbook and eventually implement the learning from the reading by using these kinds of apps.

 

 

For Ch.1: List of countries where English is an official language

For chapter 1 "English and My Dreams"

 

(Pre-Reading Material)

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_where_English_is_an_official_language

 

If you go to this link, you can see the list of countries where English is an official language.

 

 

 

After reading make students go to the sites and look through the long lists of the countries where English is an official language.
Make students imagine many things they can do by learning English, in many countries.

By this students can be more deeply aware of the importance and benefit of English learning by reading about the specific number of people or countries using English. This way would be more effective than just emphasizing the facts. 

Instroduction of Self-Acess Reading Resources for L2 readers

Target Students: intermediate high school 2nd grade students

 

Target Textbook:  Highschool 'English I' published by 능률교육


Chapter 1 English and My Dreams

Chapter 2 Sports and Life

Chapter 3 Challenging New Worlds

Chapter 4 The World of Korean Food

Chapter 5 World Cultural Heritage

Chapter 6 The Joy of Living Together

Chapter 7 Space and Technology

Chapter 8 Travel and Festivals

Chapter 9 The Beauty of Art

Chapter 10 Saving the Planet

 

Purpose: This collection of self-access reading resource is mostly focuesd on the out-of class purpose. In the class there isn't enough time to cover the texts only in the textbook. So instead of using this in the class time, this collection is recommended for using out of class. These resources are collected by chapter based. So all the reading resources are carefully chosen according to the main reading contents of each chapter. So the main purpose of the collection itself is to facilitate the access of studetns and teachers to self reading materials which can be used as the supplement materials for the textbook. Along with the reading resources there is the instruction to use the resources and expected effect(benefit) of it are suggested together. Since the purpose of this collection is supplement material for the textbook studying, so the materials are categorized according to the chapter of the textbook, so teachers and students can easily access. There are 10 chapters in the textbook, and 2 reading materials are povided for each chapter. There are one pre-reading material(A) and one post-reading material(B) for each chapter. Pre-reading material can be used to introduce unfamiliar topic of the textbook, activate students' schemata, or arouse students' interest before reading the textbook. Post-reading material can be used to help students understand further, broaden the knowledge on the topic, make students practice using reading skills or give students opportunity for the extensive reading. A and B are labeled in each title just to distinguish the pre-reading and post-reading materials.

Journal III

Highlight anything that you have learned through this course and discuss why this is meaningful for your learning and instruction?  

     There are many things I have learned through this course. I simply expected that I would be able to learn some methods for teaching reading for the students, but I think there were more things which would be useful to myself. As I could learn various useful tips in reading, at the same time I felt that there is still a long way to go for myself to teach someone reading. I guess I should be ready with better reading ability with various reading skills before standing in front of the students.

     Among many things I learned from the lesson the most meaningful thing to me is that I realized that most of the time I’m doing the intensive reading. To be honest, I haven’t been a kind of person who enjoys reading. Even sometimes reading seems difficult and stressful task for me no matter it is in English or Korea. I simply thought the reason for this was because I’m not used to reading since when I was really young. I always thought the reading habit can be established only when people are very young. However I was wrong. In this class I found the real reason for my problem. It’s because I’m doing intensive reading and even using lower-level processing skills when I read. All the drawbacks of intensive reading I learned in the class can be applied to me. The reason I don’t like reading is that my reading speed is very slow and at the same time it’s hard for me to concentrate on reading. As I learned in the class because I pay too much attention on forms and text comprehension, my reading is being interrupted often which reduces the speed. Also I care too much to do the good reading, so the reading itself doesn’t seem fun to me. Thanks to this lesson I could finally find out the real reason for not liking the reading, and my slow reading. Now I find the reason so I think I can fix my problem. Moreover, in the class there were many activities and exercises for fast reading and extensive reading also so I think I can apply them to boost my reading speed and enjoyment of reading.

     There were many things I learned from this course. For example, I learned various kinds of reading skills and also made an activity to use some of the skills for students. Also I learned how to make a pre-reading question to activate schemata in a correct way, and in the process after making 3 bad pre-reading questions I could finally come up with the one good question. I think now I would not make a mistake in making pre-reading question. I learned how the reading strategies and skills are different too. I learned many things, and thanks to trying activities instead of just reading about the definition and characteristics of all of the leanings I could understand and remember them better. As I said earlier through this class I realize that I need to improve my reading ability first before teaching students, and also this class show me the way to do this too. Using various reading skills I learned in the lesson I will be able to boost my reading ability. I will practice some activities and exercises especially in the fast reading and extensive reading chapters so I can enjoy reading more than before.

Journal II

Discuss readings skills that you have learned in this class, but have rarely used in your reading. Do you think they are really necessary ones for better reading? Why or why not?

     I learned various reading skills in the class. However, among them, there are several skills that I don’t usually use. I don’t use lower-level skills much in these days comparing to higher-level skills. I think it’s because most of my reading’s purpose is comprehension of the content. Most of my reading is for acquiring knowledge or information. So I don’t use some skills like rhyming words, root words, prefix and suffix. These skills are mainly related with analysis on the words in the content, which deal with words’ endings, structures, and meanings. To use these skills I had to dissect the passage which takes so much time. If I concentrate on too much on each small parts of the reading material, I easily get lost while reading forgetting the main topic of what I was reading. With these skills it’s hard to see the flow of the big story. So I think using these skills while reading is such a waste of time, and eventually they will make the reading boring.
 

     Other skills that I don’t usually use are related with the pronunciation such as pronunciation key.  I don’t see a point of caring about the pronunciation in reading in these days. I would say caring about the pronunciation would be necessary or important when students are young or beginning to learn English; however, in these days when I read I only focus on the content rather than any other things. So pronunciation is separated thing from the reading to me.

     Those skills are the ones that I don’t use when I read in these days. However, there are other many skills that I don’t use often comparing other skills too. I think kinds of reading skills I use are closely related with the purpose and content of the reading. In these days, I read the passage solely for the purpose of acquiring information. To do this I use skimming, and scanning skills very often. However, in daily life, I also meet with various styles of reading such as letters, instructions, and articles. So I all the skills related with these reading activities such as sequencing, follow directions, predict outcomes etc. However the frequency of using these skills is comparatively less than skills like scanning and skimming. In other words, there are many reading skills exist in the world, and at the same time there are various kinds of reading, so all the skills would be needed and used at some point. Each people have their own purpose of reading, so he or she has to choose the appropriate skill to use according to his or her purpose.
 

     Moreover with the purpose of the reading, I think level of English of the reader is also important factor for choosing the right reading skills. I think lower-level reading skills related with dissecting the passage and other skills related with the pronunciation can be helpful to other people in lower level in English. They might be able to learning vocabularies and practice pronunciation with reading passage which can be very helpful to them. So when the readers’ level of English is low, they might use these kinds of skills to improve their reading and English, and then they would choose other reading skills as their level improve. So I think all the reading skills are necessary at some point for better reading.