John Mullens

Each of the 15 activities was created using Hot Potatoes software. They were created for intermediate to low advanced students. The activities will help students practice with their reading comprehension. They will be able to utilize different reading strategies which include, but are not limited to skimming, scanning, using contextual clues, and taking educated guesses. All of the activities focus on the job acquisition process, which is very cyclical. In the remaining sections, you will be given advice on how to teach the 15 activities and the set as a whole. Have fun!

Vocabulary Preview
You will have some freedom to choose how you want to introduce new vocabulary to your class. You may want to introduce new vocabulary before beginning the activity or choose to introduce vocabulary as they first occur within the lesson. If you choose to introduce vocabulary before each activity, here are a few suggestions:

1. Ask students which vocabulary words they already know, then have them to explain them to you and the rest of the class in their own words.
2. Introduce vocabulary that is unfamiliar to students and ask them to make guesses according to the various contextual clues in the reading passage.
3. Practice using the new vocabulary as a class or in small groups. For a whole group discussion, ask students to create at least one sentence using each vocabulary word. The same can be done for small groups. Encourage students to use a monolingual dictionary and not bilingual dictionary in order to have more practice with the language.

Timed Readings
A few activities utilize timed readings. You need to explain to your students what a timed reading is if they do not already know. The timed readings will challenge all students. Better students have the opportunity to see how fast their reading comprehension is, while slower students have the opportunity to gauge how they are improving their comprehension by attempting the activity as much as needed to complete the task.

ACTIVITY TYPES

Multiple Choice (JBC activity on Hot Potatoes)
There will always be a reading text accompanying any multiple choice activity. Each multiple choice activity will have 5 questions, having between 3-4 choices to choose from. Almost always, there will only be one correct answer per question. (One question has four correct responses in order to encourage because of a correct answer) Students may be tempted to begin attempting the questions without first reading the passage, but try to discourage this because they may only be guessing in order to quickly finish the activity. Emphasize to students that they can find the answers within the reading. Also students should know that after each response is feedback. With incorrect responses, the feedback will be clues to help them figure out the answer on their own. They will have more than one opportunity to find the correct answer, but with each incorrect response, points will be deducted. I highly advise not to record their grades because the purpose of the activities is for students to learn without the pressures that come with a graded activity. Reiterate to students that the activities are not testing their knowledge; rather they are enhancing their knowledge.

Fill-in-the-Blank (JCloze activity on Hot Potatoes)
Students must read the passage in order to know what to place in the blanks. This activity allows students to use contextual clues and practice making educated guesses. The Word List at the bottom of the passage shows students what words should be used in the blanks with each word only being used once. Dictionary use should only be limited to monolingual dictionaries. Students should be instructed to only use the words in the Word List, exactly as they are listed.

Crossword Puzzles (JCross activity on Hot Potatoes)
Of the fifteen activities, three are crossword puzzles. Students should read the passage in order to find the correct responses. It is important to note that whatever response they give will be used to fill in the crossword; therefore, if an incorrect response is given it may seem to them that they have guessed correctly. They will know if they have responded correctly by checking their score and by noticing if all their responses are still spelled correctly at the end of the exercise. Many of the clues come directly from the passage so students should be instructed to look carefully at the reading passage. The directions on the exercise also do this, but it will not hurt to reiterate the point.

True/False (JQuiz activity on Hot Potatoes)
Students should not have many problems with these activities. If they do give an incorrect response, feedback is given to help students understand why their response was inaccurate. Once again the reading passage will help students choose whether the statement is true or false. I choose to not give any hints to help the students since they have a 50% chance of answering correctly even if they just guess.

Short Answer (JQuiz activity on Hot Potatoes)
This activity was extremely difficult to create. I wanted to end the activity set with a challenging activity; hopefully this one will not be too challenging. Students are to answer the questions with answers generating specifically from the reading text. They should be strongly encouraged to use the reading passage to generate a correct response because there are specific answers to each question, and anything other than that answer will not be considered a correct response. The reading passage will provide the exact wording for the responses.

Matching (JMatch activity on Hot Potatoes)
The last type of activity that will be encountered by students is matching exercises. The purpose of this activity is for students to be able to choose between several selections as to what definition corresponds with the correct word. Some students may be able to choose the correct definitions without reading the passage, but some students may not have this ability; therefore, the passage is mainly used as an extra aid for students. This activity is actually testing knowledge that students should already have, but in case they have either forgotten or do not have the background knowledge, they should easily be able to find the help they need in the reading. Once again, each word will have only one correct definition.

The last activity directs students on what should be done if they are in the process of looking for another job; they should complete the process that has been described to them through the previous 14 activities. I hope you have as much fun teaching these activities as I have had creating them. Any suggestions that I should include for future teachers wanting to teach the 15 activities please send to [email protected] or just click on my name at the TOP of the page.