Known words  

Starter

On the handout, students have to highlight all the words they know in the text.

This simple task does not require a full understanding of the whole text, but focuses the students’ attention upon those parts of the text with which they are familiar. Too often, students will reject a text whose overall meaning is beyond their understanding. This task is aimed at making them look instead at those parts of the text that they can understand. From this information, they should be able to make intelligent guesses in response to the questions set.

The text is based upon the fixture list for the French team, Paris St Germain, in the 2003/2004 football season. Having highlighted or underlined all the words they are familiar with, students should attempt to answer the questions listed. More able students may be set the questions in French with the expectation that they must also answer in French, but this may well obscure the teaching objective and should only be considered for exceptionally able students with a very good command of the language.

Plenary

Discussion topics include:

• Finding cues and key information in texts
• Tackling texts whose overall meaning is not fully understood
• Using what you know as a key to tackling what you do not know
• Strategies for coping with difficult texts
• Making ‘intelligent’ guesses.

Known words handout