Magnolia Moog Assignment 3

SECTION A

1. I found the text interesting and amusing for two reasons. The first is that while I was reading, it stirred my curiosity about how a 10,000 yen note made its way into one of Lance Auckett s school books. The second reason is it brought back childhood memories of when I tried to use Monopoly money to buy toys at a department store. The subject addresses the topic of money which is one of the topics that students should learn how to deal with in English. With regard to its length, 1000 words are enough for a story. 2. Jeremy Harmer warns that students have low expectations of reading and predict

that the whole experience will be frustrating and de-motivating. To introduce the article without biasness and to motivate the students, a fitting lead-in will start with getting them to go on a scavenger hunt around the room to find bills (fake) in a currency they ve never seen and having them discuss what they would do with it. The answers to be elicited from them are how to check its authenticity and what they would buy with it if it was real. This activity prepares the students for what to expect in text when they step into the shoes of Lance Auckett because the motivation covers their visual, auditory, and kinaesthetic sensory preferences. This combination of sensory

preferences is recommended by Scrivener in Learning Teaching to maximize student responses (p. 85). 3. The article contains the following words that students at the upper-intermediate level may not be able to interpret alone: i. ii. iii. iv. v. vi. vii. viii. Repercussions Envisaged Verification Conversion rate Monopoly Intended Defraud Declined

Magnolia Moog Assignment 3

4. The idea behind skimming is to search for clues to the overall idea and skip irrelevant words, so teachers have to set the task for skimming in the form of a general question (Scrivener, p. 265). Getting students to skim text is a way for them to learn how to find the main idea of a text quickly. A comprehension task for gist reading is to have the students find out where the 10,000 yen note really came from and whether the money is real in relation to the lead-in activity (Appendix A). The questions will be boarded for the students. The time limit for this task is two minutes. 5. As a comprehension task for scanning, the students can be divided into two groups for jigsaw reading (Scrivener, p. 401). Each group is given a questionnaire with four different items to answer by scanning (Appendix B). After reading for the answers within a time limit of four minutes, members from Group A pair up with members from Group B to discuss their answers in four minutes. When students scan text, they are learning to locate a specific piece of information without reading the whole text (Scrivener, p. 265). This helps students to develop a skill needed in searching references, address books, inventories, etc. without having to read every single word. 6. To get the students to read for details, comprehension questions are used to check how much they understood (Scrivener, p. 264). Reading for detailed understanding involves concentrating on everything written so as not to miss important information. Jeremy Harmer states that this skill is better suited for reading instructions, directions or scientific procedure (p. 202). For this specific task, the students can use the answers shared in the scanning task to compose a short summary of the article in ten minutes. 7. The current TP students at IH Bangkok are at the elementary level; therefore, the article is too advanced for them because of the number of words that they won t be able to understand or deduce from context. Having observed the performance of each student during reading tasks, the ones who will have the most trouble understanding the text are Karthi, Chandru, and Girl. In general, some of the barriers encountered by readers are lack of vocabulary, reading every word, comprehension of a sentence, or retention of interest in the subject matter (Harmer, p. 264). For this reason, the article is best suited for intermediate to upper intermediate learners who are at least familiar with most of the words and won t be so focused on deciphering each word.

Magnolia Moog Assignment 3

SECTION B
1. The adaptation of Four Corner Debate from Education World will be used as the basis

for a speaking task in the extension stage (Appendix C). This activity was chosen because it encourages the students to work together to share points and to regroup until a consensus is reached with the majority of the class. The groupings are made according to their responses to a controversial statement using a Likert scale. The rest of the activity exercises their ability to make use of language to defend their points and persuade members of other groups to join them. All content of the discussions will come from the students, so the activity makes good use of student talk time. According to Jeremy Harmer, the teacher s role as prompter, participant, and feedback provider are relevant to the speaking task (pp. 275-276). Although teachers aren t supposed to intervene in an extension activity, there are exceptions when a student has dead air or is groping for words. In such cases, the teacher can subtly offer support. Another role that teachers play in this activity is one that offers correction if there are misunderstandings of the task. Since this is a debate where students are free to express their opinions and change their minds, teachers should take a back seat during group discussions; however, there are points within the activity where the teachers participate to give direction in the next phase of the activity.

Word count: 954 words

Magnolia Moog Assignment 3

Bibliography

1. Scrivener, J. (2011) Learning Teaching: The Essential Guide to English Language

Teaching. (3rd Ed.) Oxford: Macmillan.

2. Harmer, J. (2001) The Practice of English Language Teaching. (3rd Ed.) Cambridge: Longman. 3. Hopkins, G. Four Corner Debate. Education World. http://www.educationworld.com/a_lesson/03/lp304-04.shtml