View Content #19944

Stephanie Knight is the Language Technology Specialist for CASLS at the University of Oregon. This activity was developed in order to meet the needs students in her International Diploma Programme Spanish course.

This activity aims at developing critical thinking, critical reading, and presentational writing skills. It is appropriate for intermediate-low, intermediate-mid, and intermediate-high students and is designed to go along with this week’s Topic of the Week focusing on activating prior knowledge and building schemata to understand unknown content. In completing this activity, students are engaged in listening, reading, and speaking skills and will consider the positive and negative characteristics of Oportunidades, an anti-poverty program in Mexico.

Modes: Interpretive reading, presentational writing, interpersonal speaking

Objectives:

• Students will be able touse previous knowledge and build schemata for previously unknown vocabulary words.
• Students will be able to refine their understanding of vocabulary.
• Students will be able to read for detail.
• Students will be able to compare and contrast texts.
• Students will be able to collaborate with peers to discuss government assistance programs.
• Students will be able to use persuasive language to justify opinions.

Resources: Procedure for teacher, Spanish article and student handout in Spanish (an English versions of the activity  and of the article are included, but the article is not the same as the Spanish version).

Procedure:  Download the procedure here.

Notes: This activity is easily adaptable to different proficiency levels given choice of vocabulary, choice of text, and post-reading activities. Make sure to use some cognates and shorter texts for students with lower proficiency levels. Students at higher proficiency levels can have texts of considerable length, though it is important to choose vocabulary that would activate some prior knowledge (root words or linguistic patterns, for example). Also, depending on the text that is used, it may be better to complete this activity with one section of the text only.