11/30/09 4-5 p.m. LRC Lounge

Student Workshop: Reading Strategies for L2s Examine the mental processes involved in successful reading, and explore both low-tech and high-tech strategies for improving your reading skills in your second language(s).

General Strategies

• Don’t lose the forest for the trees. • Reflect on reading in stronger languages; generalize strategies to L2s. • Build fluency and decoding skills: o Repeated oral reading. o Read extensively at a comfortable level. • Play off your language and learning strengths. • Read (and think) actively. • Organize your thoughts.

“High-Tech” Tools for Reading

Reading Websites

• Word Champ Web Reader: http://www.wordchamp.com

Reading and Annotating

• Acrobat Reader v 9 offers the option of adding markup and comments to a PDF file if and only if the original PDF was saved in Acrobat Pro with comments enabled. Then Reader provides a bar of comment tools. • PDFVue allows you to upload a PDF file, annotate online and then download or save a link: http://www.pdfvue.com/ • Windows only: PDF XChange viewer on the PC is that will allow you to alter and annotate PDFs: http://www.docu-track.com/home/prod_user/PDF-XChange_Tools/pdfx_viewer • Mac only: Preview allows you to open, annotate and save PDF files. There are also other free available, such as “Skim.” • On iPod Touch/iPhone, try “Aji Annotate” (not free, but only $5).

Free Concept Map Software

• CmapTools: http://cmap.ihmc.us/ • VUE (Visual Understanding Environment): http://vue.tufts.edu/

Screen Readers or “Text-to-Speech” Software

MHC Language Resource Center Spring 2009 11/30/09 4-5 p.m. LRC Lounge

You have two sides, one out in the field and one in. Each man that's in the side that's in goes out, and when he's out he comes in and the next man goes in until he's out. When they are all out, the side that's out comes in and the side that's been in goes out and tries to get those coming in, out. Sometimes you get men still in and not out. When a man goes out to go in, the men who are out try to get him out, and when he is out he goes in and the next man in goes out and goes in. There are two men called umpires who stay all out the time and they decide when the men who are in are out. When both sides have been in and all the men have been given out, and both sides have been out twice after all the men have been in, including those who are not out, that is the end of the game!

MHC Language Resource Center Spring 2009