Learning Reading and Writing with Newspaper Articles

Abstract

Although the purpose of the current national English curriculum in Korea is to help students to develop their communication skills, most Korean EFL classrooms emphasize on memorizing vocabulary and grammar rules because the classrooms focus on preparing students for the university entrance exam (Lee, 2011). A teacher asks students to translate the text from English to Korean, and simply check answers without attempting to teach any effective reading strategies. These teaching practices lead students to become de-motivated (Na, 2007). In addition, test driven class at middle school does not provide students with enough opportunity to read various passages. So, not only do students not know practical vocabulary and sentences, but also they do not have chances to expand their background knowledge on current issues or explore different text types(Na, 2007). To become a good reader, students need to experience reading various texts, and increase effective reading strategies from them. Grabe (2000) defined a good reader as someone who is able to actively engage in texts using various strategies, and activate prior knowledge in appropriate ways. According to Pang (2008), readers who are aware of various reading strategies and are able to consciously use them are more proficient readers than those who are not. Also, good readers are better able to monitor their comprehension, are more aware of the strategies, and use them more flexibly (O’Malley & Chamot, 1990). Newspapers are a good material to encourage students to increase their social interaction through interesting and authentic topics. English newspapers contain a variety of topics such as news, entertainment, interviews, history, editorials, current issues, etc. Students are able to not only understand text structure but also language features. Chon (1999) defined Newspaper in Education (NIE) as a teaching method to improve educational effects in the classroom using newspapers. Tadakoro (1994) said reading newspapers fosters future readers, and develops a critical conscience. Therefore, the purpose of this text book is to motivate students to enjoy reading using authentic materials; to teach students to use appropriate reading strategies and skills for different text types; finally to help students become aware of how to carry out these strategies effectively and independently in their future reading. This book is designed for students, ages ranging from 15 to 16 years old, attending after school programs in Seoul public middle schools. They seem to have confidence in reading and grammar rather than speaking, listening, and writing because they have focused on reading and grammar for tests. However, outside of class, they do not know how to use reading strategies and skills from texts because of this reading strategy. So, students attending this class will learn reading strategies using authentic materials could be more motivated. The class meets four times a week for fifty minutes, over the course of 6 months, and consists of 16 students. According to ACTFEL guidelines, they are lower intermediate level students who can get the gist of reading a simple text and express their ideas using basic sentences, but may not fully understand the detailed information presented in the text, because of their limited knowledge of vocabulary and structure. To develop students’ reading skills at this level, they need to read a lot, be motivated with interesting topics, and teach reading strategies