LLAS Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies

Teaching textual analysis in modern languages
Event date: 13 November, 2009
Location: University of Bath, Building 8 West, Room 2.8

Texts in translation
Event date: 31 January, 2008
Location: Humanities Research Institute, Douglas Knoop Centre, University of Sheffield, 34 Gell Street, Sheffield, S3 7QY

Routes into reading (20 Oct 05)
Event date: 20 October, 2005
Location: Room 329 and 330, School of Advanced Study, University of London, Senate House, Malet Street

Postcards from favourite places - reading and writing exercise (German)

In this learning object exercise you will read a postcard that was published by jetzt.de in June 2007, learn some new expressions that are typical for the region it was sent from, answer some questions and finally write your own postcard. This learning object has been subject to peer review and editing.

Spanish: processing instruction
These materials set out the principles behind processing instruction. Processing instruction materials are reading and listening activities. The aim is to design tasks such that learners have to show that they have attended to the meaning of specific target features when they are reading or hearing sentences in the target language. These target features are those which a) appear to be slow to be acquired in production, b) have differences with the learners’ L1 and/ or c) are likely to be ‘ignored’ by learners when they normally hear or read the languages because the features are communicatively redundant (i.e. there are other clues in the input which communicate the same meaning, e.g. intonation, syntax, lexical items).

Spanish: Material for Spanish oral classes
This pack contains beginners, intermediate and advanced classes. Each section includes: instructions and information for the teacher, the topic and learning objectives of the lessons, how to organise students and to conduct each activity, the role/s of the teacher; summary of grammatical points which will be used in the activity or indications of those which need to have been seen before carrying out the activity; suggestions about how to explore the topic of the lesson further by practising other language skills (writing, reading, etc.); and teaching material (ready to photocopy).

Arabic: Learning to read Arabic - a beginners' guide

This instructional booklet is for students who wish to learn to write Arabic. It is designed for independent study using a step-by-step approach. Each manageable unit has plenty of references to other materials. Dr Randal Holme, University of Durham Language Centre, directed the project.

REAL Reading and Listening for Adult learners of Dutch, Greek, and Swedish
A suite of reading and listening materials developed as part of an EU Lingua Project and in association with the TELL Consortium. Reading: Integrated suites of reading exercises, each containing a number of independent units based on an authentic text in the target language. Available in Dutch, Greek, and Swedish. Listening: Integrated suites of listening exercises similar to Reading Units and in the same languages, except that each exercise is based on an authentic audio passage in the target language

French: Reading French 2000
A web-based independent learning course for French for students at the University of Calgary but freely accessible to anyone who wishes to study the course autonomously and online.

Chinese: Language skills for Britain: dissemination of best practice
Over two years, from 2000 to 2002, within the framework of the FDTL 3 programme of the Teaching Quality Enhancement Fund, Oxford's Institute for Chinese Studies has developed an experimental approach to non-intensive teaching of Mandarin Chinese. It goes counter to conventional teaching strategies by isolating particular skills and focusing a teaching programme exclusively upon each one. The aim has been to learn through experience how much can be achieved with volunteer beginners in each distinct skill, and to devise materials which can contribute flexibly to teaching or learning regimes serving individual needs. The four-phase project has dealt with three basic skills – reading, speaking, listening – followed by the needs of native Cantonese speakers embarking on spoken Mandarin. In each case a pedagogical specialist from China, Taiwan or Hong Kong has spent a month in Oxford developing material, and a student-teacher from China or Taiwan has spent four months in Oxford working with a class of volunteers. Achievements and results have been monitored through systematic testing, and the whole programme kept under regular review at the national level by a seminar of professional Chinese language teachers

Spanish: El problema del agua, de la seguía y el Plan Hidrológico Nacional
WWW material covering the topic "El problema del agua, de la seguía y el Plan Hidrológico Nacional" which includes personal photographs with texts, links to other www sites relevant or relating to the topic, and exercises aimed at year 2 students to develop reading/summary writing skills and to increase knowledge of this topic.

Spanish: accelerated reading and writing in Spanish
The materials are devoted to the development of lexical structures in Spanish. They contain explanations, descriptions and exercises which will help the learner build up a solid lexical structure. The coursebook is made of 15 dual units (Spanish-English) for accelerated vocabulary acquisition. During the first 10 units the most productive processes for word recognition and word derivation are presented. The second 5 units add more advanced passages, taken from the literature of the Spanish-speaking world, and present vocabulary of high frequency and practical use. The materials in the course go from survival to Advanced Creative Spanish. The first 10 units consist of a Basic Passage, based on survival lexicon and intercultural issues, followed by a Reading Passage connected in topic but at a higher level. The last 5 units present a more literary style followed by practical exercises aimed at using this type of structures and vocabulary.

Spanish: Contemporary Language and Culture

This is a specialist online language and culture course for students who have achieved an advanced level in Spanish because they are in the final year of their University degree, have spent time in a Spanish-speaking country or are false native speakers. The course has been devised to reinforce and develop the language through reading, writing and speaking. The materials in the components follow each other closely and complement vocabulary expansion with development of linguistic structures. The contents of the course cover contemporary cultural issues such as TV, cinema, family and work, and linguistic minorities in the Spanish-speaking world. The cultural-linguistic diversity of Spain and Latin America is exploited through a selection of authentic materials showing different styles, accents and media. The course is structured to develop transferable as well as language skills through hands - on experience of IT use and language activities. The materials can be easily adapted to meet the requirements of students in secondary schools, sixth form colleges or Higher Education. The website also contains pages to help teachers to adapt their own materials or to produce their own courses.

Mono- and multilingual reading circles

This paper aims to: describe the research and findings; explore issues around this type of task in HE; describe a small-scale research project to encourage students to read and discuss extensively outside class time.

Subject Centre publications