Short and Sweet 2. [antikvár]

INTRODUCTION This book brings together two simple yet powerful ideas: • that short, complete texts can be highly productive in foreign-language teaching • that there is a set of generalizable exercise types which can be applied to virtually any text. By bringing together a collection of texts with a set of procedures, a very large number of varied language activities can be generated. Why short texts? There are many advantages in using short, rather than long, texts: • Students can read them relatively rapidly and can then get on with the activities with a minimum of delay. • A larger number and range of texts can be offered in the limited time available. • When carefully chosen, they use relatively simple language but often contain mature and complex ideas. This offers one way round the problem of students who have a modest level of language competence in Enghsh combined with cognitive and affective maturity in their own language. • Their very concision demands interpretation and expansion, if they are to be fully understood. This work in interpreting texts can focus both on the thinking and the feeling sides of the student's personality. Students are encouraged to relate the text to their own lives and previous experience. Minimal input leads to maximal output. What are generalizable procedures? The current multiplicity of language-teaching techniques is potentially confusing for teachers. An attempt has been made here to put these detailed techniques into larger, more generalized groupings each of which is characterized by a key feature. For example, the category Reconstruction requires that a defective or incomplete text be restored to a coherent or complete state. This can be done in all sorts of different ways including jumbled items.