finding a good spre article

SPRE article question | Eleni Oikonoe | January 18th, 2005

Hi everybody!

I hope you had a good time during the holidays. It was quite enjoyable and I managed to get some studying done. But I must admit that I am stuck with producing things. I am doing the FND and among other things I am trying to find a short article for the SPRE task, but the articles I have read until now are pretty long and analysis is quite complicated. Have you got any ideas about how long it must be and if it has to be about EFL classroom? Could it be about teacher training?

Any help/advice is welcome.

Thanks,

Eleni

Re: SPRE article question | Martin Lovatt | January 18th, 2005

Hi Eleni,

Yes, I know what you mean about finding a short enough article. I used an article by Gibson, R. E. (1975 TESOL Quarterly Vol. 9, No. 2: 149-154), which was relatively easy to analyze. However, Julian said that even that was a bit long for the portfolio task.

And teacher training is very relevant to TESOL, isn't it? So I don't see why there should be any problem with using an article about training or other similar topics. It appears to me that they just want you to be able to identify the SPREE pattern in an article of your choice, which is in some way vaguely connected to our profession!

No doubt I'll be corrected if I'm wrong so please watch this space for a couple of days before deciding on your next step.

Hope this is of some use. Good luck with FND.

Martin
Fukuoka, Japan

PS: And forgive me, Eleni, it's a SPRE task not a SPREE task. (That was my shopping at Christmas...)

Re: SPRE article question | Yvonne Beaudry | January 18th, 2005

I am doing the FND and among other things I am trying to find a short article for the SPRE task, but the articles I have read until now are pretty long and analysis is quite complicated.

I just finished FND last week and I had a similar problem, in fact, I mentioned it in the evaluation.

A friend and I both found articles on the Internet TESL journal. It is not peer reviewed and the writing quality varies enormously but some are good and they are about the right length.

Have you got any ideas about how long it must be and if it has to be about EFL classroom? Could it be about teacher training?

The module referred to the Kerr article as short so I took that as a starting point and looked for one with a similar word count. I forget now how many that was.

Yvonne

Re: SPRE article question | Simon Humphries | January 18th, 2005

Hi Eleni,

I used a newspaper article from the Daily Yomiuri (English language paper in Japan). The article was about helping students with the TOEIC test. It was very short (only one page). I think it is the analysis that counts the most, and of course the ability to spot SPRE in the first place. I did worry after I sent it in - would it be long enough and should it have come from a journal etc... - But Julian seemed pleased with it.

Simon

Re: SPRE article question | Maria Leedham | January 18th, 2005

Hi Eleni and all,

I chose a (one side of A4) page article from English teaching Professional magazine. That seemed long enough to pick out all the SPRE features. Good luck.

Maria

Re: SPRE article question | Kevin McLeod | January 18th, 2005

Hi Eleni and all

I found my article (one side of A4) in a copy of the IATEFL Issues newsletter, but I also saw a few useful articles in the English Teaching Professional magazine that weren't too long. Good luck with your search!

Kevin McLeod

Re: SPRE article question | Paul Raper | January 19th, 2005

I would suggest looking in magazines such as English Teacher Professional.

They usually have some good articles.

Paul

Re: SPRE article question | Eleni Oikonoe | January 19th, 2005

Thank you all for your response to my SPRE question

Best wishes,