Target skills and materials
The hand-out is based on technical texts and pictures adopted from http://www.taunton.com/finewoodworking. Original texts were shortened and simplified to be appropriate for teaching/learning purpose and language abilities of young learners. The key information was left in the texts, the redundand one was removed. The basic range of topic areas creates the logical order following the wood/furniture processing. The ability to extract information from written text includes a variety of skills connected, above all, with the content of a reading course. Among the most important is the capability to understand the main idea of a passage (skimming). Further skills involve the ability to find quickly specific information (scanning) and intensive reading to get details.
Language functions
There are three functional areas in the hand-out:
Static description includes the use of language to describe properties, characteristics or attributes of materials, devices, technologies and systems: “Drill presses are precision tools, capable of boring holes in exact locations at carefully controlled depths.”
Dynamic description involves the description of relationships between a series of events or processes: “It does not matter how many screws you use, or how much glue you put into a joint. If a piece of furniture is constructed without taking wood movement into consideration, it finally might break.”
Instructions entails mostly language to describe the correct order of furniture processing: “Lift the part off the bit after it touches the far stop.”
Within the above described categories, the occurence of certain language functions in written technical materials deserves special linquistic attention. The following survey provides examples of some functions (types of exercises) covered in the topics/lessons:
Classifying: “There are two basic types of drying wood: kiln-dried and air-dried.”
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