Reading for Pleasure with Magazines, News, and the Web

Abstract

Reading for Pleasure is designed for middle school students who want to use English both fluently and accurately. They are from 15 to 16 years of age (2nd and 3rd year middle school) and their English proficiency level is B1, mid –high intermediate level (ACTFL ). This book focuses on improving reading skills—skimming and scanning for comprehension and vocabulary—and solidifying grammar knowledge with speaking. The class meets 4 hours twice a week in a private institute. Each unit is ideal for 8-hour classes. It consists of 10 units based on topics that would interest teenagers—articles from newspapers and magazines. Each of the units in this book is divided into 5 parts—Pre-reading, Vocabulary, While reading including comprehension check, Post reading activity like discussion, and Grammar and writing—that aim to help students develop reading skills and grammar as well as vocabulary. Students have been learning English for about 4-5 years in English private institutes with English native speaker teachers or Korean teachers who can speak English fluently. Students and teachers can use only English in class, even in grammar lessons. Students’ listening ability is relatively better than their reading ability and their speaking ability is good enough for them to communicate with English speakers. Even though students can communicate with peers and teachers in English, however, their spoken vocabulary is limited. Also, up to now, they have only been exposed to basic grammar patterns by focusing on spoken fluency so they need to solidify their grammatical foundation for accuracy. In addition, according to several students in interviews, students are exposed to reading storybooks as the main textbook, but they tend to depend on guessing from pictures and a large amount of support from the teacher, as they do not fully understand what is being read to them. Students have not had any experience living in English speaking countries except traveling or short-term language programs – 1 or 2 months. Some students have had private lessons for talking with native speakers. The target students’ English learning has since tended to focus on speaking and listening fluency, and they have not learned grammar systematically. Therefore, students’ reading skills and knowledge of grammar are somewhat rudimentary. As a result, after taking placement tests in public school, students’ reading and grammar scores are lower than those for listening and speaking. So, they need to improve reading skills such as skimming and scanning to find the gist of a passage and specific details in a given context. Through reading, they need to solidify their knowledge of grammar. Also, they need to build up vocabulary by reviewing words they already knew and acquiring new words without ignoring speaking. Both students and parents expect this to naturally help them prepare for examinations they may face such as the NEAT and summative tests in school as well as confidently and comfortably use English in real life settings by getting opportunities to practice speaking constantly.