Hello Readers,
"You are not dumb," says Director N as she begins the class and establishes a context: English as a skill. Like other skills such as swimming or driving, English skills can be effectively honed through constant practice in different situations ( fostered by the class ). Seeing English with this lens makes learning it more concrete, physical, and manageable for ESL learners ( not so abstract ).
With this encouragement and empowerment, Director N lectures on the Reading Process ( plenty of teacher-talk to set up framework is often necessary in the beginning ). Her lecture was a good review on the act of reading involving decoding the meaning and interpreting codes using background knowledge ( after all, we're not tabula rasa/empty slates to be filled as in Paulo Freire's Banking Concept ). Other strategies were discussed such as predicting ( using title and author ), skimming ( for general understanding ), scanning ( for a specific answer ), and more.
Most of the activities mentioned above are completed "before" reading the meat of the text, hence "pre" reading. For a better understanding of this term and for vocabulary development, the class made a list of words beginning with the prefix "pre": pre-history ( before written history ), prenups ( before marriage agreement ), preface ( before the actual story ), etc. And a class clown added "pretty" ( before the "tty" ).
After the vocabulary boost, a mini lesson in World Geography ensued locating English speaking countries ( first Native Speakers and second ESL Speakers ). Segue waying into linguistics, idioms, and puns, Director N introduced/reviewed Philippine English and other English variety ( such as Indian English, Nigerian English, Singaporean English, et. al. ). A minor talk about word connotations and polite usage of different words ended the class.
The context established throughout the class period using philosophy (Freire's), reading strategies, word breakdown, geography, linguistics, pop culture, and anthropology, made for a more interesting and well-connected background to approach English ( maybe far more efficient than the isolated methods of learning parts of speech first? ).
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