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Geoff Tranter
Geoff Tranter has been involved in German and English language teaching for many years in a number of further and adult education institutions both in Britain and Germany. For nearly thirty years he was Head of Department at the College of Adult and Further Education (Volkshochschule) in Dortmund, West Germany. He has been involved in language examinations for over 25 years and was a member of the team that produced the revised specifications for the European Language Certificates (TELC). Since 2002 he has been a full-time member of staff for the WBT, responsible for the development of examination materials, examiner and teacher-training, implementation of the CEFR in testing and teaching. One of the main areas is the development of TELC School - tests for pupils still in full-time education, for which he is Product Manager.
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Authenticity and Reading Skills - Train or Test?
When you come to think of it, the classroom is probably the only place in the world - apart from the doctor's or dentist's waiting room - where people can't choose what they want to read. They are most often condemned (!?!) to reading what they are given to read. So how authentic is that? Teachers nowadays usually have authentic texts - thanks to the internet access to all kinds of text materials is hardly a problem. But what do we do with the text? And the way people are expected to read the texts they haven't chosen to read is very often not the way they would read texts outside the classroom. Is this a good basis for training and motivating people to read? The aim of this workshop is to look at the differences that occur between reading in the classroom and outside the classroom and look at some techniques and activities that can help to improve learners' reading skills. |