The Language Teacher

Creative Course Design - Edited by Daniel J. McIntyre
Reality Bites: Structuring A Fourth Year Reading Class

Elizabeth Forrest

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Finding suitable employment can be distracting for serious students and educators alike. This installment describes a course designed to give students who will soon graduate and join the working world the opportunity to study seriously. It also seeks to accomodate the rigors of the ritual job search. The premise is that this can be accomplished by integrating alternatives and autonomy into the syllabus.

Teaching fourth year university students in Japan confronts teachers with the frustrating reality of the inevitable periods of high absenteeism that accompany the annual job-hunt. This is an impediment particularly during the first semester, when teachers are trying to get courses off to a flying start. Seniors, meanwhile, are under inescapable pressure to attend company seminars and interviews that are held without regard to their educational commitments. In large classes, the teacher's tasks of becoming familiar with the students and developing lesson continuity are compounded by constant coming and going. At the same time, students still need to be challenged, but not over-burdened. Teachers should be able to expect a fourth year level of performance. The question is, how can one provide appropriate opportunities for students, both present and absent, to accomplish valid senior-level course requirements? The approach I used was reasonably successful with large, multi-level fourth year reading classes. However I believe the basic principles could also be applied to speaking or listening classes.

Course Structure And Organization

The fundamental component of this course was the presentation of classes as independent units, each containing a short presentation by the teacher followed by a reading and exercises. These were completed in a 90-minute period. The syllabus was non-cumulative. In other words, there was no attempt to tie lessons into two or three week units. This meant that if a student missed one or two lessons, she was not at a loss when she returned, and she could keep up with the requisite number of assignments by completing the appropriate handouts. A schedule of classes was given out at the beginning of each semester so she could refer to the date missed in order to obtain the applicable handout. This procedure quietly handed the students the responsibility for keeping up with their course work, and they responded rather well.

The syllabus was divided into three parts, addressing various levels of reading competence and interests: 1) Focused reading classes that used student purchased newspapers; 2) Reading skills classes, in which an intermediate textbook was used; and 3) Reading for fluency which consisted of an out-of-class extensive reading assignment for the whole year. The rationale for these separate areas was to provide a variety of reading material and assignments that would accommodate various student levels, and also offer a measure of independent choice as to what they could read (in the newspaper or in extensive reading texts). As a supplement, an in-class examination at the end of each semester provided at least one occasion when everyone's reading ability could be tested under the same conditions.

Consistent with the pedagogical style of this course, evaluation of students' reading progress was mainly based on written assignments. With the handouts providing a specific goal, they could focus on the reading task, then organize and express their thoughts efficiently. At the same time writing skills per se were not stressed in this class, which allowed them to write fluently without worrying about making spelling or grammatical errors.

The Syllabus

The following description of each part of the course will clarify further how this three part syllabus was implemented.

Focused Reading

Focused Reading or "newspaper classes" as they were called, were scheduled bimonthly, alternating with Reading Skills sessions. Using newspapers had several goals: to use authentic and topical reading material in the classroom, to expose students to the structure of an English newspaper, and to provide them with more challenging vocabulary and syntax in a relatively short text. Reading the newspaper offers a different style of reading in which scanning for articles of interest is a significant part of the experience. This is an empowering process, reinforcing independence and individual choice on the part of the students. Another significant advantage of using newspapers is that students usually have some background knowledge of current events, often enabling them to predict the contents of an article and more readily guess at word meanings.

Lesson topics covered in these classes were diverse, and variations on these themes were repeated during the year. Subjects of newspaper classes included such items as determining the various sections in the newspaper and their order of placement, prediction based on section headings and headlines, distinctions between opinion and straight news articles, the notion of bias and identifying bias in news reports and opinion articles, etc. The handouts usually contained a brief introduction to the lesson, often a vocabulary section in which students had to write definitions and sentences for five vocabulary items, and one or two long answer questions.

For example, in the " Opinion Articles vs. Straight News" handout (see Apeendix 1), there was a brief written introduction to the notion of factually reported news vs. opinion followed by an exercise in prediction. Given a series of actual headlines, students were asked to identify which seemed to be an opinion or straight news article. (Two examples are: "Suspected IRA car bomb injures hundreds" and "If Britain doesn't have peace, is it at war?"). This was followed by comparing some examples of language found in opinion and straight news articles about the same news item. Finally, students were given a brief exercise in which they were to locate an opinion article and answer such questions as "What section was it in?", "What was the headline?", "What was the news background of this article?", and "What was the opinion expressed?" Since the average newspaper lesson did not refer to one copied news article, the questions had to be general and allow students to draw their own conclusions. At times there were no right answers to be exacted, rather the focus was the student's ability to make judgements.

Reading Skills

For the study of Reading Skills, an intermediate textbook (see Appendix 2) was selected. The textbook offered exposure to a variety of short literary forms (short stories, magazine articles, essays ) rendered in abridged form to meet the needs of less advanced students. Uncluttered reading passages, were accompanied by back-of-the-book exercises including cloze or true-false questions, covering skills areas such as reading speed, comprehension, vocabulary, and skimming and scanning for information. These were usually supplemented with teacher produced handouts in which items such as making inferences, writing summaries, remembering what they had read, and expressing opinion were addressed.

Extensive Reading

For part three of the syllabus, Reading for Fluency, students were to read books of their choice, with the target number of "adjusted" pages set at 1000 on their own time (see Appendix 3). They were encouraged to select books that were not too difficult for them, from graded readers to full-length authentic texts. It was strongly recommended, but not compulsory, that they hand in book reports at stipulated deadlines dispersed throughout the year. At the beginning of the year, a Book Report Format sheet was distributed to provide guidelines for their reports and students were expected to follow these fairly simple instructions, carefully.

Unfortunately, teachers often experience problems of verification with book reports, and these groups were no exception. Was it the book or the movie she's describing? The Japanese translation or the original which she'd read? To encourage honesty, students were required to copy a page from the book, underline a relevant passage and explain it's significance in the story.

There are still questions about the validity of independent extensive reading but, I am sure that good students did read English books and derive satisfaction from the process and their reading fluency noticeably increased. Significantly, in these groups there were a number who read a full-length book in English for the first time.

Preparing And Digesting The Bites

Some readers may be wondering about the course load from the teacher's point of view. No doubt, initial handout preparation and marking took time, although the preparation becomes lighter in subsequent years (see appendix 3). Marking can also be reduced by grading only selected assignments in detail. Other assignments may be scanned and allotted an " OK" or "incomplete."

Some cautions should be observed. The teacher should ensure that the reading assignment can be completed within the allotted 90 minutes, and that pressure to finish on time doesn't compromise quality. Also being well-organized is important; this system works well if you consistently bring extra copies of previously missed assignments to class, making them available upon request.

Conclusion

The approach described here does not pretend to be the perfect reading course, but rather a solution to a real problem which most teachers of seniors experience here in Japan. At present the author is planning a fourth year speaking course which will follow the same idea of making each class an independent entity.

The majority of absent students were conscientious in obtaining handouts for missed classes and handing in the assignment at a later date. Although some of the students said completing the assignment was at times more difficult outside of the class, this factor might have acted as a deterrent against absence for frivolous reasons. Various aspects of the course received positive reactions from the students. According to the structured feedback, they considered the study of newspapers quite beneficial, citing increased interest in current issues and the development of more confidence in reading English newspapers. In the reading skills classes, the variety of reading material available in the textbook seems to have been a positive factor and the text material was at an appropriate level of difficulty for most of the group. As for the extensive reading assignment, although many students felt initially that it would be burdensome, they were often surprised at how much they enjoyed reading the books that they themselves had chosen. Some students commented that they became more relaxed reading English books. Others said that the assignment taught them something that was useful for their life.

Overall, I believe this type of structure offers a satisfactory means to enable students to undertake a varied and reasonably challenging fourth year syllabus, without the worry of missing significant week to week unit-based classes. It is an approach that accepts the reality of the job-hunting phenomenon and respects the majority of students' desire to learn and be challenged, despite the hurdles facing them at this time in their lives.

Notes

1. Intermediate Textbook used was Reading Faster and Better by ShoichiAndo and David Sell, Seido Language Institute. Other recommended reading skills texts include: Ways in to Reading by David Peaty, MacMillan Language House, and Openings, Language through Literature, An Activities Book by Brian Tomlinson, Penguin English, which contains unabridged material.

2. "Adjusted pages" refers to a technique of counting pages read which accounts for the size of the type and the number of words on a book page. A large type book with smaller pages might contain about .7 of the number of words found on an average sized book page, while a densely printed book may have a value of 1.2 or more. It is useful to make up a handout illustrating this principle clearly. For book reports, students are requested to calculate the number of adjusted pages in the book by multiplying the number of pages times it's value and use this figure when keeping track of the number of pages they have read in the assignment.

3. A simpler approach to creating newspaper assignments successfully used and recommended by a like-minded colleague, involved the use of a standard format for the newspaper reports, consisting of a vocabulary section, followed by a recap in their own words of the article, their opinion and finally a bias check.

Appendix 1

Senior Reading Name ___________________ # ________

Class 4 5 (circle one)

Opinion Articles vs. Straight News Introduction

The purpose of Newspapers is usually to provide factual accounts c)f news events. These fact-based articles usually try to describe events as they happened. We'll call such articles "straight news" articles. However, newspapers usually express some kind of basic philosophy, which generally represents the opinions and world view of the owners of the newspaper. Therefore, it is generally understood that newspapers promote certain points of view. These points of view are openly expressed in a particular SECTION HEADING of the newspaper that is reserved for expression of opinion. Straight news articles are generally printed under different section headings.

Scan your newspaper and try to find two or three examples of SECTION HEADINGS that contain only straight news articles. Write them here.

Scan your newspaper and try to find two or three examples of SECTION HEADINGS that contain only opinion articles. Write them here.

Exercise 1 Predicting Content from HEADLINES-- Opinion or Straight News?

Identify which of the following are clearly opinion articles and which seem to be just "straight news"?

"UN chief tipped to hold on" _____________

"Time for a new U. N. Secretary General" _____________

"Boutros-Ghali has outstayed his welcome" _____________

"U.S. must do more than wait for Netanyuhu to define himself" _____________

"Suspected IRA car bomb injures hundreds" _____________

"If Britain doesn't have peace, is it at war?" _____________

(The answers are at the bottom of the next page.)

Exercise 2 The Language of Opinion vs Straight News

Now let us take a look at the way an opinion is written and compare it to a "straight news" article. Both articles were in the Sunday, July 18, Daily Yomiuri.

Article (A) Boris the Bountiful Bounces Back

. . . "Six months ago you could have been forgiven for thinking that the grand old man of the Kremlin had been sucking on the bottle. But not these days. He's off the vodka, fit, sprightly, and fighting the campaign of a lifetime. He uses fair means or foul and it appears to be working. How quickly fortunes change."

Article (B) From Hospital to Campaign, Yeltsin Makes Comeback

"At the start of the year, Russian President Boris Yeltsin's policies were discredited and his behaviour ridiculed. He was written off by many opponents and friends as yesterday's man. Six months later he is a very different man energetic, inspired and determined to win a second term as president. It's been a remarkable comeback . . .

Compare the two headlines and contents of Article A and Article B and answer the following.

1) What differences in writing style do you notice between these two articles . . .

2) Which is opinion and which is the straight news article.

Article A ___________ Article B ___________

Exercise 3 On your own . . .

Using your newspapers, and answer the following questions .

1) Name of the newspaper _________________________

2) Date _______________

3) Choose one article which is an opinion article. What is the Section Heading? What is the Headline?

4) Quote three examples of statements the writer makes which show his opinion in the article. For each quote, explain what he means in your own words.

When you are finished attach the article to the back your sheet and hand both sheets in together

Answers Ex 1. l. straight news 2. opinion 3. opinion 4. opinion 5. straight news 6. opinion

Appendix 2

Senior Reading Name ________________________ # _______

RF&B Passage 7 - The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe

Making Inferences

When reading you must often make inferences in order to fully appreciate what is happening in a story. An inference is a guess which fills in information that is not stated in the text. When reading in your own language you make inferences almost automatically as you read. However, when reading a foreign language text, one often lacks the cultural background knowledge which most "native readers" have, and this makes it more difficult to make inferences. So you have to rely on your common sense and your imagination. In this story by l9th century writer Edgar Allen Poe, we will practice the skill of inferring the significance of some lines in the story.

Read the passage once through at a comfortable speed. When you are finished, answer the questions.

1) What kind of "injuries" might the writer have "accepted" from Fortunato? How do you think the narrator had reacted to these "injuries" in the past?

2) "In painting, Fortunato like his countrymen was ignorant -- but in the matter of old wines, he was sincere." -What does this comment tell you about the narrator's character? About Fortunato?

3) "... during the madness of carnival season .... He had on a tight-fitting striped suit, and on his head was a party cap and bells." What kind of carnival would this be? Why was Fortunato wearing these clothes?

4) What is Amontillado? What do you think is so special about it? What clues can you find that show its value? (Here you can quote from the book.)

5) What is Fortunato's opinion of Luchesi?

6) What is the "excellent jest" Fortunato laughs about as his companion entraps him in the cellar?

7) The writer says "his heart grew sick" (page 27 line 29). This, together with the last sentence in the story tells you something of his feelings now (fifty years later) about his crime. How do you think he feels? In your opinion, has he truly gotten revenge?

8) What is your opinion of this story?

Appendix 3

Senior Reading-Book Reports

Keep this guide permanently in your notebook for reference. Please write your report on A4 paper, single-spaced, length approximately 1.5 pages. (Deadlines: end of May, mid-July, mid-September, and mid-December). A regular weekly reading schedule is strongly recommended.

Please do not choose books that have been recently made into movies.

Grading of the book report will be based on the quality and completeness of your report.

Book Report Format

1) Your Name ______________________ The Date ______________

Your Student Number _________________

2) Title of the Book ________________________________________

3) number of pages x adjustment factor = #of Adjusted pages

Total #of pages I've read in the yearlong extensive reading assignment _________

Number of pages left to read this year (approximate) _________

(see Reading Course Introduction handout for how to calculate adjusted pages)

Choice

4) Why did you select this book? Examples of answers: "I read through a few pages and it seemed interesting," "A (friend) (teacher) recommended it to me." etc....

Content

5) Describe the content of the book. Do not express your opinion here.

For Fiction

When does the action take place? Where does the action occur? Who are the main characters? What happened? Describe the events briefly. Is there an overall moral or theme?

For Non-Fiction

When was the book written? What is the theme of the book? What main points does the author make?

Opinion

6) Write briefly what you thought of the book. Would you recommend it to your classmates?

A Sample Passage

7) Select one passage no more than one page in length, from the book. Choose a passage that you particularly liked because of a scene or character it describes, OR that is a "key" scene in the action, OR one that expresses an important idea for you. Make a photocopy of the page where the passage appears. Paste it at the end of your book report. Underline the passage and explain why you think this is an important scene or description in the book.