MIDTESOL Matters
Winter 2003
A Publication of Mid-America Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages


TEACHING TIPS AND MEMORABLE METHODS
Corner Editor: Ayse G. Stromsdorfer

Valerie Meyer is a professor and the Reading Program Coordinator at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE). Prior to joining the faculty at SIUE she taught grades 5 through 12 and worked extensively with adults experiencing reading difficulties. She has published two books and over 15 articles regarding adult literacy.

Paul's Strategy

By Valerie Meyer

We call this strategy "Paul's Strategy" after O. Paul Weilin who first shared it with us. The idea is to combine visualization with writing and speaking.

1. Begin by gathering several colorful pictures from magazines. (There should be no text on the photos.)

2. Distribute the pictures to individuals or small groups.

3. Ask the learners to study the pictures for a few minutes and to "put themselves into the scene."

4. Then invite learners to complete the following sentence stems in writing:

I see __________

I hear __________

I taste __________

I smell __________

I touch __________

I feel __________

5. Invite learners to share their sentences either in small groups or with the entire class.

6. If desired, the sentence stems may then be combined to form short paragraphs.

The method above was presented as part of Reading Strategies class and reported as very successful by Dr. Meyer's students who tried them in other classes.

Look for more such teaching tips from Dr. Meyer in our future issues of MIDTESOL MATTERS.