Pep up your students’ interest in reading
Teaching tip
There’s lots of stimulating reading material in Refresh Now A2. Just look at the last two Focus on pages in every unit.
The second and third Focus on pages in each unit look and read like a magazine. They’re attractive, interesting and present an assortment of reading texts – just like in a magazine! The theme follows on from the topic of the first half of the unit, but presents a new slant or a quirky approach to the subject. All of which will help your students’ reading fluency to improve.
To download the free sample Units 2 and 10 from Refresh Now A2 and have a look especially at the last two Focus on pages in these units, click here.
Just look at Unit 2: On page 19, Job interviews has Interview tips and a short quiz about permissible interview questions. In the article The grey workforce on page 20, there are bullet points, a graph and a text. These are just the sort of reading texts that will engage your students, making them feel that reading is fun and fascinating. And on each page there are exercises for students to complete – a text with numbers on interesting facts under The grey workforce and a personalisation exercise below Job interviews.
In Unit 10 the second and third Focus on pages cover the topic of plans: A new start about making and breaking resolutions on page 83 and Weekend breaks covering hotel theme weekends on page 84. There are additional exercises to complement the reading, including one on blend words like chocoholic and glamping (turn to page 84 to find more of these combination words).
Most of the texts have audio support on the accompanying CD, so students can read and listen, to help them with pronunciation and intonation. There is vocabulary support in Words and phrases on the last page of each unit although the material on the Focus on pages has a glossary, so that students feel supported when reading. As you can read on the bottom of the Focus on pages, You can enjoy this page at home or in class, so if you find yourself short of time, these pages can easily be completed for homework. For teachers who want to use the last two Focus on pages in the lesson, there is a Class task on each of them, an added activity for partner or group work. And for students who are enjoying these Focus on pages at home, there is an extension online search exercise on one of them. And, of course, they can find the key to the other exercises at the back of their coursebook.
So whether your students read (and listen to) the second and third Focus on pages from Refresh Now A2 in the classroom or at home, they will find entertaining material which will capture their interest and improve their reading fluency.
Extra activity: The grey workforce and the aging population
- Tell your students that everyone celebrating their 100th birthday in the UK receives a letter of congratulations from the Queen (or King). They are also sent to those people celebrating their 105th birthday (and then every subsequent birthday).
- On the board write: 1917, 1952, 2011 and ask students to guess how many letters of congratulations the monarch sent out to people celebrating their 100th birthday in these years.
Key: 1917 – 24 messages; 1952 – 255 messages; 2011 – 9,736 messages - Check the answers in class and ask students what the rising figures tell us about the ageing population. Ask students whether they know anybody over the age of 100, or whether they know anybody who is still working in their eighties (or nineties!).
> Teaching tip "Refresh your learners’ knowledge at A2 level"
