Attempting to complete an SLO at a different college, I create a timed information search. This can be done with any type of reading with a lot of numbers. I usually time students 3-5 minutes. Before performing this activity, you need to teach questions and key words in questions (for example: When was she born? students search for a #/day with the keyword born). Who, When, How much Directions: Pass out the reading face down. […]
Category: Reading: General Handouts
ESL 235 Practice Final
<<ESL 235 annotated practice final>> <<ESL 235 Practice Final>> This is the Practice Final I created for Level 3 Integrated Skills this semester. It’s based on older finals that incorporated more reading, because as a department we decided that (only) writing finals may not be the best assessment of integrated skills. I gave them another practice final with added writing practice to do as homework before this, and then they had an entire class time […]
ESL 235 Homework Practice for Final
<<ESL 235 Homework Practice Final>> This is an assignment I just made, so haven’t tried yet (feel free to suggest improvements). The integrated skill finals will include more reading this semester, so I made up a practice that involved a similar format with a reading and questions, but added some extra writing work. Even though they won’t have (?) a writing task on the final, I thought it’d be good for them to practice, and […]
World English 2 Unit 12 reading handout
<<WE2 un12 Starting a new tradition>> I used this about halfway through a semester in ESL 235/535: level 3 integrated skills. We had already done some practice with reading and finding main ideas in readings (what is a main idea vs supporting detail). I made a handout of the reading from World English 2 “Unit 12” to encourage students to take notes on readings (specifically I modeled highlighting where answers are in the text) and then […]
Reading Homework – beginning
This is a handout based on a reading from World English 1 second edition, pg.74-75 “The Cradle of the Inca Empire”. I was using it as homework in a high-beginning integrated skills course, earlier in the semester. I took it out of the book to better encourage students to write on the reading, and added tasks to the reading based on what students had been learning (emphatic adjectives and past tense). I wanted them to practice annotating […]
Reading Demonstration – comprehension and vocabulary in context
Reading Demonstration – Importance of Context in Comprehension This reading demonstration was taken from Dimensions of Literacy, by Stephen B. Kucer (page. 142, Table 6.2). The purpose of the exercise is to help students examine their own reading process and strategies used to gain meaning. Use this as an opportunity to discuss and share out reading strategies used by your students and share you own. Distribute the reading to students asking them to […]
Reading Practice: Jobs, Level 1
This is a reading adapted from Readworks.org that is a nice accompaniment to World English Intro, Unit 2: Jobs Around the World. This reading takes place ideally after students have been taught how to look up words in a dictionary. After students have done World English Intro, Unit 2, p. 16, students are given the reading handout and advised to look up the meaning of the words in the back (words 2-6). Then, students read […]
I Have a Dream by Margaret Davidson
This is material that I used in my low intermediate ESL class. I used this book in addition to other things I was doing in the class. We dedicated part of the class to do activities related to the book, have discussions, and write about the themes. I already wrote about this on my blog, so click here to read more about this material. CLICK HERE to download prereading activities and then activities for […]
Vocabulary Graphic Organizer
VocabularyChart – Click Here Have students select ten survival words, that is words that would be necessary to discuss the topic. Survival words enhance comprehension and teach students vocabulary relevant to a topic. The form is then filled out by writing down the word; Copy the complete sentence in the text in which the survival word is used. (This teaches students the specific context in which the word is used which would determine meaning of […]
SPUNKI Form
SPUNKI Use this form for each reading assignment to enable students to interact personally with each writing. I generally have students write a complete sentence using the specific words; e.g., I was surprised that…It was surprising to me…., I was puzzled by….It puzzled me that…. Francesca Hulin