Preparation of Materials
I generally start with a paragraph containing between 125 and 150 words; 8-12 sentences. I try to insure that around 10-14 words will be unfamiliar vocabulary. News stories usually work best, but it is useful to eliminate some specificity from the text; dates, names, and so on; to make it as generic as possible. Since preparing the materials requires some considerable investment of time and effort, this will permit the material to be relevant for some time to come. A news story that can be used to generate follow up discussion, debate, or a writing assignment is an added plus; themes such as moral issues, global topics, popular culture or problems related to cross-cultural communication work particularly well. A sample paragraph follows: