Written communication: lesson notes

                                                                                                                                       2-12-2013

ASSESSING READING TASKS

Balancing our assessment

There are different questions as:

1. Literalà 20%, these questions are the easiest.

·         Wh-questions à scanning the text.

Ex. What’s the name of the main character?

      What did Anne say to John after their meeting?

       How many hours a day is Anne at school?

2. Inferentialà 60%, these questions reflect understanding.

·         Multiple choice à it’s not said in the text but beyond lines

·         Vocabulary activities à meaning in context

·         To complete using the information

3. Evaluativeà 20%, these are the most difficult and more personal (using the text and previous knowledge about the topic)

·         Wh-questions

·         Do/Does – questions

·         Using modal verbs

Ex. Would you..?

       Could human beings..?

·         Creating an opinion /an argument/ narration /descriptions

This kind of questions depends on stage, level and age.

Some other assessing activities:

-          Underline the right answer (according to the text)

-          Convert false statement into true ones (or viceversa)

-          Word recognition using:

è the context

è morphology

è syntax

è grammar

-          Finding synonyms / antonyms / suffixes / compounds

-          Matching  adjectives / nouns / verbs / non-completes sentences.

-          Gapped Text :

è fill in the gap

è close text and clues

-          Re-arrange jumbled:

è letters

è words

è sentences

è paragraph

è instructions

-          Read the following sentence and… deduce:

è preceding one

è next one

-          Summarizing

-          Taking note

-          Contextualize

-          Extra reading

·         From the following text, create literal, inferential and evaluative questions:

Banks are places where people can keep their money. Most people use banks to save money in their savings accounts and to pay money from their checking accounts. Today, when a person earns money from their job, their pay check is often electronically deposited (put) into their savings or checking accounts. Then, he or she can pay their bills by writing checks from their checking accounts or pay online where their bills are electronically connected to their bank accounts.

Banks also give loans to people. Banks use the money that their customers deposit to lend to people to buy new houses, cars, or to start businesses among other reasons. The bank makes money from lending by charging interest. In other words, people have to pay back more than they borrowed. This amount depends on how risky the bank thinks the borrower is and how fast the loan is paid back among other things.

Literal :

-          Where do people get their money from?

-          How can people pay their bills?

-          How does a bank make money?

-          Do people have to pay back more money than they borrowed from the bank?

-          Using the context describe “bill”

-          Look for words with this cluster...

Inferential:

-          Complete: People borrow money to the banks for…

a)

b)

c)

-          Complete: Banks earn money from...

a)

b)

c)

-          It is free having a bank account?

-          How can people get money not only with checks?

-          Find an antonym of “sell”

-          Find a synonym of “client”

-          True/false: Banks lend the money from some clients to others to buy new houses.

Evaluative:

-          What would you like to buy with your money?

-          Would you ask for a loan?

-          Write down a short essay about the text.

4th – December – 2013

POST-READING TASKS

What do we do after reading?

1.       A single reading

2.       Several readings / helping to read

3.       Literary readings

·         Them all are readings but they have a sort of different purposes or we search a different goal.

Activities: promote reading enabling skills (skimming/scanning).

-          Short in time

-          Day to day activity

Activity means a single act of learning / acquiring (depending on the age). It is something isolated that you promote, so students can skim (general) or scan (specific) information in the text.

Tasks: encouraging the act of reading and methods of reading

-          Whole experience act of reading book

Tasks are several functional acts of learning limited in time (a week, a didactic unit…)

Projects: long time unit of planning

-          Creative writing

-          Textuality

When we use that sort of material our readings in our mainstream lesson. The goal in that piece of reading which is short in time is consider activity (what you use to activate something else).

FUNCTION OF LANGUAGE

1.       Metalinguistic

2.       Referential

3.       Directive

4.       Conative

5.       Oral canal

6.       Phatic

7.       Poetic

We attach a photo with an example with an excerpt of "Treasure Island":