Inside Fashion

Abstract

Most high school students in Korea have studied English most of their lives, and having taught this target group for many years, I have realized that, by the time they reach secondary education, classes purely focus on preparing for the reading and listening sections on the Korean Scholastic Assessment Test (KSAT). The skills required to succeed on the test become such an obsession that, much to the detriment of the student’s language learning, students miss developing real communicative competence in English (Choi, 2008). This Portfolio is, therefore, designed to motivate high school students to read more and develop the reading and listening strategies, which will in effect help them with the KSAT. By reading authentic magazine articles and watching video clips related to various social issues that will appeal to their demographic in the world of fashion, students will be required to use the input to think critically and share their ideas on controversial topics via speaking in pairs and groups. Students will also work towards developing their writing skills, culminating in a final project, in which they make their own magazine. Ultimately the goal of this Textbook is to take learners from the passive role, to which they are accustomed, to a more active role in which they become autonomous learners who will not only better their receptive skills, but they will also have ample opportunity to improve their productive skills. This book is intended for intermediate-high students, according to ACTFL, and they are girls from 17 to 19 years old. They are able to understand basic information in the texts, notice the main idea and some details, and they also know basic text structure. They are able to write a short paragraph in texts such as letters, journals and summaries. Methodology This Textbook focuses on the Intensive Reading and Listening strategies students will need to be equipped with in order to be prepared for the KSAT; however, this will be done by integrating a Communicative approach (CLT). According to Nuttall (2015), in order to improve reading skills, skill-based and text-based teaching should be carried out in the classroom. The target learners will do strategy building activities such as: sequencing, inferring, summarizing, identifying the main idea, as well as answering comprehension questions and vocabulary building. Strategies can help learners to comprehend the text efficiently, process it effectively, and monitor their understanding. While learners are reading the text, they will employ the target reading strategies, consequently becoming more skillful readers (Janzen, 2002). They will simultaneously learn content, in this case social issues related to fashion in magazines, in the text-based lesson, and they will be encouraged to identify the main social issues while enjoying the text. After studying the texts, students will be given opportunities to practice the language functions or lexical chunks taught in reading passages by completing communicative tasks. Students will be engaged in meaning-focused communicative tasks such as: problem solving, doing role-plays, sharing information and structured writing activities (Hamer, 2007). In order to complete writing tasks, students will be guided through process writing, while practicing how to generate ideas, select ideas, compose a text, revise and finally publish the final text (Tribble, 1996). While doing these communicative tasks, students will be encouraged to work collaboratively on tasks as a member of a pair or group, to develop communicative competence through interactive activities and see the benefits of writing together rather than only individually (Richard and Rodgers, 1986). While the target students have confidence in class, and an interest in English, most remain relatively unmotivated; therefore, much consideration has been given to the topics and themes relating to ‘fashion magazines’. The goal is to catch the interest of learners and encourage them to think critically about what they wear every day. Magazine articles have been selected as the main source of written input in the Textbook since they can be more interesting contemporary materials than that which is found in traditional reading textbooks; the goal is to generate a lot of interest as well as to motivate the target students (Alan and Loren, 1985). Fashion is a topic quite familiar to young ladies studying in this program; however, this Textbook challenges them to think beyond their daily routines of getting dressed each day. For example, on the topic of ‘Shoes’, in the Sample Chapter, students will be challenged to think about how shoes can symbolize the personality of the wearer as well as how having shoes can influence the lives of the children living in the poorest nations. Before reading, learners will watch advertisements for shoes and discuss the types of shoes they wear, and why they buy them. In addition, they will learn new vocabulary for many different styles of shoes. While reading, students will practice reading strategies such as identifying the theme of the text, comprehending the content of the text, posing questions about the text, summarizing information, guessing the meaning of a new word form context, checking comprehension, and critiquing the text. After reading, they will reflect on what they have learned from the text and discuss the main idea. They will write short magazine articles to express their own ideas and thoughts relating to shoes. The magazine articles will be published through online magazine maker, Madmgz.com. Expected Outcome and Conclusion By studying with this Textbook students should have built up reading and listening strategies while reading and watching video clips about stimulating topics surrounding the world of fashion. While these students will inadvertently be preparing for the KSAT, they will also become more active learners who will be better equipped to express their opinions while interacting with their peers and teachers. They will be encouraged to develop the critical thinking skills needed to contemplate how their daily apparel can be understood from a different viewpoint. In addition to building up their receptive skills, they will have many meaningful opportunities to speak about the topics and at the end of each unit they will make their own magazine as a final written project.