Humanising Language Teaching
Year 5; Issue 2; March 03

Text Attack - Taking the Text Beyond the Page

by Marijana Vucic, Helga Kraljik and Nine Vukovic, Croatian Military Academy, Zagreb.

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Exploiting new texts with our learners has always been a challenge. Spending hours choosing the article which will best intrigue them often ends up with half a class interested and the other half bored (If we're lucky!). The fact that most of the EFL / coursebook texts are usually followed by the notorious comprehension questions does not help at all. The issue that seemed to be neglected for a very long time was the one of helping our learners cope with new words and the new amount of information presented. Classroom methodologies have primarily been concerned with products of comprehension rather than exploring and encouraging the processes.

The team of 8 teachers from the Croatian Military Academy attended the syllabus and materials design course at Marjons, in Plymouth. The course was a part of our training as members of the Peacekeeping English Project supported by British Council. This is where we first learned of the “text attack” approach. We quickly picked up on what seemed to be a great combination of learner independence and task-based learning. It opens new doors of understanding a text with its appeal to primarily visual and kinaesthetic dimensions. It also exploits diverse learning strategies and makes learners more aware of the cognitive and metacognitive in obtaining and retreiving new information.

Text easification is the method through which the reading is made more enjoyable, more relevant and above all – more realistic. It offers a range of different techniques of helping second-language readers cope with the vocabulary load by defining, illustrating and simply providing clearer context for reading. This is a circular approach to texts as opposed to a linear one that is partly a habit acquired and partly imposed on learners in the classroom. Our previous experience has taught us that we have been boxing in our learners with predetermined texts. By applying this approach, the text is coming to the learner and lends itself to all the heterogeneity that exists in the classroom.

By introducing numerous different tasks around the text, learners can “attack” it in whatever way they feel like, instead of the usual and prescribed top-to-bottom way. (needless to say, any military strategy expert will tell you that full frontal attack is 'history') This holistic approach enables learners to work in groups, pairs, or individually, discuss the issues raised, prepare dialogues, write letters, follow and give instructions, compare, advise, elicit…simply put, they can take any desired direction with it. Text in this way extends beyond the page, becomes personalised and varied interests are taken into account.

Although designing easified texts may sometimes be time consuming, our experience in applying it in the classroom proves to be a very rewarding one. Learners comment that in this way the text reads more easily, tasks are more interesting and relevant and they appreciate the freedom of choice. There is no longer a hovering feeling that the text is but a load of information which will be followed by a set of test-like questions. Learners are given the opportunity to make their own choices which tasks to complete and in which order. It caters for different interests and different levels of your learners. And, in essence, we're not about teaching texts, we're about creating an environment to acquire new strategies and improve language skills.

We first began by “easifying” the text, using some of the easification techniques which included cutting and pasting, enlarging parts of the text, explaining more difficult words, and highlighting idioms and collocations. Aftenumbering the lines we placed the text on a larger size paper which made it more 'user-friendly' and also gave us extra space on the margins. We added visuals to help students understand the words and to make the worksheet more attractive and colourful.

EASIFICATION TECHNIQUES add white space (make it part of a larger space or put it on a larger piece of paper) add a gloss in the margins (explain difficult words; focus on certain areas, etc.) number the lines separate the paragraphs add sub-headings highlight words, sentences, paragraphs add visuals use colours to aid memory change the font size, enlarge the text, etc. add comments or questions add somebody else's text to it translate difficult words provide pronunciation of unfamiliar words using the IPA

The next step was designing tasks around the text. The task types we used were mind-mapping, matching, listing, comparing, classifying, guessing, preparing and conducting an interview. In completing the tasks, learners were encouraged to use their dictionaries. We personalised the text by eliciting opinions and asking questions referring to the learners' previous experience or attitude. Extension work, assigned for homework, included visiting the suggested website and/or working on a project. There is, in fact, no limit to how to exploit the text. Bearing in mind that the choice of texts and the tasks is guided by your learners' needs, experience and interests.

We've found this approach really motivating for both ourselves and our learners. We hope you'll have a go at it yourselves and would welcome any feedback.

Marijana, Helga and Nine are teachers in Foreign Language School at the Croatian Military Academy in Zagreb. We discovered 'Easification' on a teacher training course on 'Syllabus and Course Design' at Marjons in Plymouth in summer 2001 and our approach to teaching reading has been transformed as we think you will understand through reading this article. We are members of the British Council/UK MOD PeaceKeeping Project English team in Croatia involved in a number of projects such as testing, syllabus design and self-access. If you would like to know more about the PeaceKeeping English Project please take a look at www.britishcouncil.org/english/pep marijana_vucic@yahoo.com helga_kraljik@yahoo.com nine.vukovic@zg.hinet.hr