Assignment 3 Language Skills
Assignment 3: Language Skills
Rationale for using the authentic text
The authentic teaching material I have chosen is ‘Welcome to London – information to start your visit’ for use in a Language Skills Lesson to the pre-intermediate level class. This material, produced by Visitlondon.com, is to provide visitor information on public transport and useful tips for visitors. As Harmer (2007) notes that extracting meaning is an active process requiring a degree of engagement, in my proposed lesson, I would particularly focus on the engagement of students. There are some new vocabularies relating to travelling and public transport. The main aims of this lesson are: 1. to enable students gain receptive skills in reading. Specifically, there are two receptive sub-skills could be practiced: skimming (reading for gist) and scanning (reading for detailed); 2. In relation to the subject of the material, productive skills like speaking will also be practiced. The functional use of target language would be ‘asking for direction’.
The reason why this text has been chosen is due to the following: 1. This text is updated and practical for the English learners and enables them to deal with the real-world situations (especially for the new comers in London). For instance, “asking for directions”, “reading maps and transport signs” are areas to explore as students will pick up a few words used in visiting a new place. 2. The material is presented with a number of London photos and highlights, which would be visually appealing and culturally vivid to the students. To this extent, ‘authentic texts expose the students to cultural features generates a deeper understanding of and interest in the topic’ (Kelly, et al. 2011).
3. This material is appropriate to the pre-intermediate students because the length of text was not too long and there are not too many difficult words. Presumably, students should have the knowledge of vocabulary relating to tourism and transport.
Rationale for using the authentic text
The authentic teaching material I have chosen is ‘Welcome to London – information to start your visit’ for use in a Language Skills Lesson to the pre-intermediate level class. This material, produced by Visitlondon.com, is to provide visitor information on public transport and useful tips for visitors. As Harmer (2007) notes that extracting meaning is an active process requiring a degree of engagement, in my proposed lesson, I would particularly focus on the engagement of students. There are some new vocabularies relating to travelling and public transport. The main aims of this lesson are: 1. to enable students gain receptive skills in reading. Specifically, there are two receptive sub-skills could be practiced: skimming (reading for gist) and scanning (reading for detailed); 2. In relation to the subject of the material, productive skills like speaking will also be practiced. The functional use of target language would be ‘asking for direction’.
The reason why this text has been chosen is due to the following: 1. This text is updated and practical for the English learners and enables them to deal with the real-world situations (especially for the new comers in London). For instance, “asking for directions”, “reading maps and transport signs” are areas to explore as students will pick up a few words used in visiting a new place. 2. The material is presented with a number of London photos and highlights, which would be visually appealing and culturally vivid to the students. To this extent, ‘authentic texts expose the students to cultural features generates a deeper understanding of and interest in the topic’ (Kelly, et al. 2011).
3. This material is appropriate to the pre-intermediate students because the length of text was not too long and there are not too many difficult words. Presumably, students should have the knowledge of vocabulary relating to tourism and transport.