Adapting a Text - Unit #2 - TESL 0130 -

TESL 0130 - Reading and Vocabulary - Unit #2

The link below is to a reading text and practice activities for teenagers.  The topic of this email is foreign exchange students adapting to life in a new school and living with a new family.  

LearnEnglish Teens - Reading Skills Practice: Foreign Exchange Emails

When working with adult newcomers to Canada, I would adapt the topic of this activity for interest, familiarity and functionality.  Since adults do not live in a school environment and are likely not living with a strange family, the language and situations of the above email activity would not be suitable or relevant.  I may change the email by changing the communication to between family members, one who is new to Canada, and one that is back home.  Perhaps the topic of conversation would be about the differences and challenges the newcomer is facing in Canada ie: grocery shopping, transportation, housing.  I would also include an aspect of social/emotional language, such as missing family and missing home.  

The activity and exercise that precedes and follows, however, is appropriate for an adult group once the topic is adapted and therefore this text is exploitable for english reading learning.  The readability is appropriate for a LINC level 4 class, as it's length of 3-4 paragraphs is sufficient and if we adapt for suitability, the familiar language would make this text LINC level 4.  

Now, if my population were international students in an EAP setting, I may edit the topic of the email to life on campus ie: registering for classes,  difficulty with school work, living with host families.  I could increase the readability level for this email for higher level students by swapping out more difficult vocabulary and grammar, adding elements with more abstract ideas and meaning and also increasing the length of the email to a page or two.  With higher level students, the activities could address implied meaning, connotation, and over all attitudes. 

In order to share this reading, we would need to look at copyright laws.  One useful resource is the Copyright Licensing Agency (cla.co.uk) where you are able to check the permissions on any given text.  Here is this link:     Copyright Permissions

Copyright User is another site that give guidelines to what is appropriate to share and use in an educational setting.   Here is the link:  Copyright User

I think this text is very adaptable.  It's a functional activity, as many students, old and young, are communicating through emails.  The topic can be adapted, as can the language and activities.  Some online tools that would be helpful for adapting the readability of this text are:

Snappy Words:  Analyses a text and provides synonyms.  

Readable.io:  Analyses a a text and provides readability levels across several assessment tools, identifies areas for adaptation.

I think this activity could springboard into a writing activity where students could practice writing emails to friends and family.  It could also be taken a step further and emails could be written/practiced addressed to businesses for job inquiries, emails to complain to a company, or any email or a more demanding nature.