Preface & Introduction to Short Texts from Oz

Short Texts From Oz
Preface

This little collection of texts has been written for intermediate to advanced learners of English. The texts are of varying difficulty and length, but can be easily edited down or expanded by a competent teacher. One of the nice things about short texts is that they are easy to create, and easy to change for different student needs.
The general background to the material is Australian English and Australian society. However, most of the content is applicable anywhere in the English speaking world. Those texts that deal with Australian instutions (e.g. the tax system) can be usefully contrasted with the situation in a student’s home country. Some excellent discussion can be built around such comparisons.
The author has tried to keep a fairly light touch, so that the learning process is pleasant, or even amusing. Learning a language is hard work. There is no doubt about that, but if we get too serious, the learning can become inefficient. This seems paradoxical, but our brains are designed to remember things that have "emotional colour". The teacher who can wiggle her ears, or the story that makes you laugh, will be remembered long after "serious" text books are forgotten. Therefore, use this book often, but stop when you are no longer having fun! Finally, the author must acknowledge a deep debt to R. O’Neill for his classic text, English in Situations (Oxford: OUP 1970) which has served as both a model and an inspiration for much of what follows.
Thorold May
Wuhan, 1998

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Introduction

Some Ideas & Principles Behind "Short Texts from Oz"

1. Uses of Short Texts

a) Short texts can be presented orally and fairly quickly: they don’t exhaust the attention span of marginal students.

b) Short texts force an author/teacher to present an idea clearly and succinctly.

c) Short texts can be held in memory, discussed and analysed by a class in a single session of controlled length.

d) Short texts can be used as a vehicle to target specific objectives. They might contextualize a grammatical usage, demonstrate an argument form or introduce a topic. There are myriad applications.

2. Fluency

Short Texts from Oz is designed to improve language skills, especially fluency. All competent language users need fluency, so language teachers must have a fairly detailed knowledge of what actually signals fluency in language use.

Fluency is measured by ....

a) the speed of a student’s comprehension and response

b) the precision of comprehension and response

c) the amount of information the student can hold in consciousness at a given time.

3. Learning

For most of us, the hardest part of study is not the content of a topic itself, but managing the learning process. Successful learning is often controlled by whether information is mentally digestible, or can be made digestible. Students will only learn and retain ...

a) what they can hold in short-term memory .

b) what they can grasp conceptually.

c) what has some "emotional reality" for them

4. Teaching
This book will be used by both teachers and students. Teachers are a resource, but they don’t know everything, and they can’t do the job of learning for anyone else. The best way to teach and be taught is to start with a clear understanding of what the teacher can offer. A teacher is more than a trainer, but less than a god. Dogs are trained, and angels know it all anyway. Mere human beings have to be coaxed with cunning and laughter to do their best.

a) Teaching is more art than science. Nobody anywhere really knows how the human brain learns, least of all a language. We do know that memory works best for things that are strongly felt.

b) Short Texts from Oz is not a tesh~isa| rok< rut yt0is tesiwnud0fr0txe0tucxnycql purpsu f0tra~s}ittynw |a~guawe0s{i|ls.0It shu|d0bu taugxt0humqnuly, with0a~y0a}ount f0extra0a~esdtu vrm0txe0tuashur0a~d0stute~ts.0Prastycql pep|e0are0nqturql|y0attrastud0t thu ydua0ov teqcxi~g0fr0cmpete~cu. We0hqvu to0rumumrer xowever thuwh0txat q so}putent human being is more than a machine, and does not learn best in a machine-like way.

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