Task A: Gist reading

It’s student centred (their ideas help form the task itself)

It activates schematic knowledge on the topic

It encourages creativity

Students will be more engaged in the text

Students improve scanning technique (Scrivener 2011)

Task B: Detail task (see attached)

After the gist task, students should focus on the text in greater detail. Although the text is accessible to the students, the language is somewhat complex in parts (see text, line 12). With this considered, I have opted for a detailed task with more closed questions, where students can comprehend the texts in smaller chunks yet still infer from it. I have devised one question from each paragraph in the text relating to a different speakers experience.

Before the task, the pre-taught vocabulary would be:

Frying pan (Q6), corridor (Q3), irate (Q5)

I have designed these questions with specific challenges in mind. Questions 3, 7 and 8 are more ‘display question’ in style, as they are clearly answerable from the context given. Qs 1 and 2 are similar, though require knowledge of a lexical trigger (i.e. ‘loaf’ relating to bread, or ‘nowadays’ relating to current time). Q6 requires higher inference as the trigger (‘hands the size of frying pans’) is a sort of simile. Q5 would be answerable with the pre-taught vocab, and Q4 is a deliberately ambiguous question designed to prompt discussion.

Students would have 8 minutes to answer the questions. They would discuss in pairs (3 mins), then OCFB would be around 5 mins. The benefits of this task are

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