From easy stories to the Bible

Abstract

This portfolio aims to help Christian teenage learners to facilitate reading the Bible in English and interact with one another by using comprehensible graded stories. As churches are trying to reach out to the public for missionary work, they are involved in community activities such as education programs. I started this project with the hope to contribute to teaching materials to meet their educational and religious needs. Target learners are 16+ year-old Korean learners who want to learn English through Christian stories and share thoughts in a group. They have Korean linguistic background with some religious knowledge about Christianity and cultural knowledge in that they are accustomed to reading the Bible in Korean version. Their proficiency level ranges from Intermediate Low to Intermediate High according to ACTFL (American Council of Teaching Foreign Languages). As they are likely to find it difficult picking up the biblical contents with contextual knowledge in English, they need the help with vocabulary and reading strategies for their comprehension. The class consists of four to eight students of mixed gender in a private learning community or church community. The 2-hour lesson divided into 3 stages takes place once or twice a week. As they develop decoding skills through rereading, the focus on individual and intensive reading would further critical thinking and speaking for group activities. At the first stage, it might seem teacher-centered but teacher-student-centered at the last stage due to interaction. They would not only be able to internalize content but also promote further learning through meaningful dialogue by sharing opinions.