Monthly Archives: October 2023

• Introducing “Short, High-Interest Articles for Extensive Reading” (#1 “For More Happiness, Keep Your Good News Secret for a While.”)

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(This posting includes a handout LINK AT THE END OF THIS POST which you are welcome to use with your students.) *

Beginning with this post, I plan to share short, high-interest articles that you can use with your ESL students for extensive reading. I’ll be adding them to the right-hand column: ESL Reading> Short, High Interest Articles for Extensive Readings

The driving force behind these articles: I wanted to motivate students to want to read. By focusing on high-interest topics no matter what the subject area, I believe that I’ve accomplished that goal.

In addition, these have been successfully used these with students at many different reading-skill levels. There is a research-based reason why this has been possible. A group of researchers investigated the factors that helped students remember what they had been reading. They found that how interested the students were in reading the passage was thirty times more important than how “readable” the passage was.

Options for using these materials with students.

  • You can make these available to students who would just like to read more.
  • You can assign the brief True-False Comprehension Questions that are included at the end of the articles.
  • You can assign the short Paraphrasing Exercise that is also included.
  • You can have students write the brief Reflection Exercise, also at the end.

Here is the first article. You can download the article for your students by clicking on the link at the end. 

For More Happiness Keep Your Good News Secret for a While

1 You just received a letter in the mail from a college that has been your first choice to attend.  The letter will inform you whether or not you have been accepted. Nervously, you open the envelop. The letter begins, “It is our pleasure to inform you that you have been accepted to our college.” You smile hugely with overwhelming happiness. Immediately, you want to share this great news with your family and best friends. But wait. To really experience this feeling of joy, according to research, you should keep this news to yourself for several minutes.

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• Making a Connection With Each Student: Research-Based Technique

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(This posting includes a handout link at the end of this post which you are welcome to use with your students.) *

Early in one term, I was starting a conferencing session with a new student, Anja. As she was sitting down next to me, she said, “David, I heard that you grew up in Chicago. I just had a homestay there!” I noticed that I immediately felt a connection to Anja that stayed with me from that day on.

There is some amazing research that explains how we make connections with others. And best of all, there are ways that we can apply this to building positive relationships with our students.

In their book Click: The Power of Instant Connections the authors, Ori and Rom Brafman, describe some enlightening experiments. In one study, some people volunteered for a made-up study about creativity. The researchers secretly set it up so that as half the volunteers left the researchers’ lab, someone wearing a badge with the same first name as the volunteers approached them asking for a donation to a charity. For example, if Cindy had just left the lab, she would be approached by a charity worker wearing a name tag that showed that her name, also, was Cindy.  Likewise, Susan would meet someone named Susan. The other half of the subjects were approached by someone with no badge. Now this is what I found remarkable. The first group whose same first names were on badges donated twice as much as the second group who saw a badge with a different name.

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