Reading Lesson Plan

Background Information:

Learning Objective

Materials

Warming Up

(5 minutes)
Teacher tells the students that they will first read an article entitled ÒAmerican English: A World LanguageÓ and will then answer the questions which are designed to check on their comprehension. Students will also learn to use in this class period such reading skills as finding the topic sentence, recognizing phrases, and guessing the meaning of words from affixes or root and context in order to increase their reading speed.

Presentation

1. Teacher briefly explains the main idea of this article (2 minutes);
2. Teacher teaches the students how to find the topic sentence, how to recognize phrases, and how to guess the meaning of words from affixes or roots and context (reading techniques) (8 minutes);
3. Teacher asks students to read the article in 10 minutes (timed reading);

Evaluation

Discussion

1. Students discuss about the main idea of the whole article, main idea of each paragraph, some difficulty points, and any questions if they have with respect to this article.
2. Students discuss about if they used any fast reading skills and if so, what reading techniques they used in their reading.
3. Students discuss the impact of English on themselves and how they feel about it.

Application

1. Distribution of handouts;
   It takes about two minutes to distribute the handouts to be used in this class period.

2. Warming-up
   Before we begin our class, let's talk about the English language itself. We all know that Americans speak English and the British speak English. Therefore, we have British English and American English. Who else speaks English in the world? In which countries besides the United States and England is English spoken as an official language? Ok, we have Canada, Australia and New Zealand. In South Africa, people speak both Afrikaans and English and in some parts of Mexico, people speak English. However, people all over the world in non-English speaking countries are studying English now for different purposes. Some study English in order to come to the United States or go to other English-speaking countries; some study English in order to find a better job with a higher salary in a foreign company; some study English in order to be able to travel around the world without any language problems; some study English in order to learn the advanced technology of those English speaking countries; some study English in order to be able to read English books, magazines and understand English movies. English has virtually become a must to most of the people living in this modern society. In fact, wherever you go or wherever you look, you will find English words or advertisements in English. If you do not know English, you will be in a sense ill informed. In a word, English is important to a lot of people in a different way. Don't you agree?

3. Introduction
   Today, you are going to learn some reading skills which can be used to help you improve your reading speed. You will then study an English article entitled "American English: A World LanguageÓ. You will read it first and then you will be asked to answer the questions which follow the text which are designed to check on your comprehension of the content of this article. After that, you will have a little discussion about what is the main idea of this article, the main idea of each paragraph, any questions that you may have regarding this article, and what impact that English has on your lives.

4. Presentation

When reading this article, we can use the following reading techniques such finding the topic sentence, recognizing phrases, and guessing the meanings of words from affixes and contexts. As we know, almost every article has a topic sentence. The topic sentence is usually the first sentence of the article or the paragraph. Sometimes it can also be found at the end of the article or paragraph. But It rarely occurs in the middle of the article or paragraph. That is to say, the organization of the article is either in the shape of a triangle standing straight or an inverted triangle. Being able to locate the topic sentence helps you a lot in comprehending the whole article. We all know that an article is made up of paragraphs and paragraphs are made up of sentences. Sentences consist of phrases and phrases consist of words. Instead of reading the sentence word by word, we may identify some phrases and read the sentence phrase by phrase, which is an easier and faster way to read. It helps you to increase your reading speed. In reading an article, one may inevitably come across some new words which may hinder the speed and comprehension of your reading and it takes time to look them up in a dictionary. Therefore, the best thing to do is to skip it if doesn't affect your comprehension. If it does, you can guess the meaning from the affixes or the root of the word and the context in which it appears to help you understand the meaning. For example, "Many people living in remote areas are illiterate. They can not read and let alone writeÓ. Let's assume that you do not know the word "illiterateÓ, but you can certainly guess the meaning of it by referring to the context and Ôliterate' is the root which means Ôbeing able to read' and the prefix -ill which means Ônot'. So, you know Ôilliterate' just means a person who has received no formal education and therefore can not read or write. Try to use the above techniques in your reading. Now begin your reading and try to finish it in 10 minutes.
The reading materials are as follows:

"The mushroom growth of English medium schools should be checked, as they will be a source of trouble..." That was the warning last month in Lahore, Pakistan, in a Pakistan Times article on the problems of illiteracy in the country and the fact that more and more Pakistanis would rather be literate in English than in Urdu, the country's official language.It is pretty much the same almost everywhere in the world.

Almost 800 million people now speak English as a first or second language Ñ an increase of about 40 percent in the past twenty years. The language of the British and the Americans -- American English is now the driving force - - has become the language of communication among national elites, the language of people who want to "get ahead,' the language of technology, science, trade, diplomacy and of an internationalizing popular culture.

In this smaller world, you have to know English to 'keep up' with modern developments --- something like 80 percent of the world's technical papers are first published in English. If you want to know--- now!---what is happening in computers or aviation, in accounting or rock music, you have to know English.In the Soviet Union, more than half the country's high-school students are studying English- - and most of them seem to stop American visitors on the street to practice the language. The same thing happens again and again to Americans in China.

And people, in Pakistan and other places, are learning it on their own, to get ahead. So, Pakistan is worried about preserving its own language and culture --- the country's leaders worry that American ideas and habits are traveling with American words.

There has never been a world language to match modern English. Latin in its time, Italian in the 16th and 17th centuries and French in the 18th and 19th centuries did not come close to the penetration and pervasiveness of English today. Or the growth--- it seems likely that by the year 2000 there will be more non-native English speakers than native.

Much of the world would like to stop that spread. There are anti-English programs in the Philippines and Taiwan and other unlikely places. There have been some successes in reducing the use of the language --- in Vietnam and Iran, for example.

But there is only so far a country can go in denying the language of modernity. U Ne Win, the ruler of Burma, forbade English instruction in his country for years- until his own daughter was refused admission to British medical schools because of an English language deficiency. Now, English is a mandatory subject in Burma from kindergarten through college.

All of that, obviously, means a lot more to Americans than just making it easier to travel almost anywhere these days. There has not been a great deal of study done about the cultural, social and political impact and implications of the "mushroomÓ spread of a language --- this is a new situation --- but if "the medium is the messageÓ and the medium is our language, then it may follow that the message that gets through will be our message."

Evaluation

Answer the following statements: True or False

1. An interesting number of Pakistanis would rather be illiterate in Urdu than in English.
2. Forty percent of the people in the world have begun to speak English in the past twenty years.
3. British English rather than American English is preferred among the most intelligent people in the world.
4. The majority of the world's technical papers are first published in English.
5. Over fifty percent of the high-school students in Russia study English.
6. The reader can infer that English is not taught in the schools in China.
7. According to Richard Reeves, ambitious people in Pakistan and other countries are teaching themselves English.
8. French, at one time, was as popular a language in the world as English is today.
9. By the twenty-first century, there will be fewer native speakers of English than non-native speakers
10. English has always been a required language in the schools in Burma.

Multiple Choice:

Read the following excerpts from the reading selection. Choose the appropriate meaning for each underlined part of the sentences. Use the context --- what comes before and after a word, phrase, sentence, etc. --- to help you choose the correct meaning.

1. "The mushroom growth of English medium schools should be checked, as they will be a source of trouble..."
   A. The vast number of average English schools should be discouraged.
   B. The rapid increase of schools in which subjects are taught in English should be stopped.
   C. The increasing number of English middle schools should be ignored.
2. "The language of the British and the Americans... has become the language of communication among national elites, the language of people who want to 'get ahead' ..."
   A. be successful
   B. travel
   C. earn a living
3. "In this smaller world, you have to know English to 'keep up' with modern developments --- something like 80 percent of the world's technical papers are first published in English."
   A. be intelligent
   B. stay up-to-date
   C. communicate with young people

Discussion

1. "So, Pakistan is worried about preserving its own language and culture - the country's leaders worry that American ideas and habits are traveling with American words."
2. "There has not been a great deal of study done about the cultural, social and political impact and implications of the 'mushroom' spread of a language...but if 'the medium is the message' and the medium is our language (American English), then it may follow that the message that gets through will be our message."
   *(Hint: Do mushrooms multiply rapidly? What does "medium" mean in this context?)

Then, teacher asks the students discuss the main points of each paragraph and the questions they have with respect to the comprehension of the text.
After that, teacher asks the students discuss the reading techniques they have used.
Finally, ask the students to discuss why English has such a great impact all over the world and what impact English has on their own lives.

Application

At the Diamond Headache Clinic in Chicago, migraine patients use imagery to stop headaches. They are trained to close their eyes and vividly picture their hands over a hot fire or radiator. "Raising hand temperature with the mind is very effective,Ó says Seymour Diamond, M.D., Director of the clinic. "Why or how, no one knows for sure.Ó One theory is that it changes blood flow. It diverts blood away from the head to the arms and legs. Another is that is causes a "neural reflexÓ in the nerves that control the blood vessels in the head. What is strange is that only heat created by the mind does the trick. When patients' hands are heated by placing them in hot water, headaches aren't stopped.

1. What is the general topic of the paragraph? (Using a short phrase)
2. List two supporting details that explain "why or how" this technique might work.
3. Fill in the blanks below to complete the main idea of the paragraph.
   ---- (who?) have successfully used----- (what?) to----- (do what?).
4. Is the main idea stated in a topic sentence? Which sentence is the topic sentence? Is it at the very beginning of the paragraph?
5. How can you use the guessing technique for the words "imagery" and the word "migraine"?
6. How do you identify phrases in this short paragraph?