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TitleReading for Key Information: Where to Eat?
SourceCASLS Activity of the Week
Body

This activity requires students to read about food trucks in Portland on Yelp and do some browsing of the websites to decide where they want to eat this week based on certain criteria (including food preferences and dietary restrictions). In order to complete this activity, learners must be focused on using language in authentic, meaningful contexts.

Learning objectives:

  • Students will be able to pick out relevant information to help them decide where they should eat given certain criteria.

Modes: Interpretive Reading

Materials neededHandout, Yelp link

Procedure:

  1. Introduce the topic, perhaps talking about restaurants where you like to eat and why.
  2. Give students the handout and review instructions; students will pretend that they are trying to eat lunch at a food cart in Portland Monday through Friday. They need to mark them in order of preference. When they pick the food carts they need to keep in mind the constraints on the handout.
  3. As students complete the handout, have them focus on language patterns that the notice. For example, they may identify different instances in which non-standard language is used in online review forums. 
  4. Debrief on answers and linguistic observations as a group.

Notes: Though Portland, Oregon is featured in this activity, it can be easily adapted to other locations. Also, given the inherent dynamism of language used on social internet platforms, educators may wish to revisit the activity at a later point in the year to examine how/if the language used has changed.

Publishdate2017-09-11 02:15:02