In the last post we looked at different attitudes to work. Today’s challenge is to reconstruct famous quotations that reflect different attitudes towards work.
Don’t forget to read the instructions! Answer key below.
text reconstruction
Reconstructing Chomsky on Language
Recently in class Chomsky’s name came up in discussion as the most widely cited author, but not many students knew his name or why he is so well-known.
The following video outlines Chomsky’s ground-breaking theory of language.
Before you watch the video, discuss with a friend the following questions.
- What makes human language different from animal language?
- Is language learned, or are we born with it?
- How is it possible that small children learn languages so quickly?
Watch the video and then attempt the text reconstruction activity at the bottom of the page.
Sentence Repair Man
Several posts on GuruEAP feature sentence unjumbling tasks. Here you have an opportunity to enter your own sentences to unjumble.
Teachers can also print activities for use in class! Continue reading
Cloze your books!
An app that converts any text into a total cloze – a text in which all the letters have been blanked out – which you can then reconstruct, word by word!
Enjoy! Continue reading
IELTS Task 1 and plastic waste
The IELTS test does actually produce quite a lot of waste, and some of it probably ends up in the ocean.
Look at the graph and then try to reconstruct the text – without looking at the text!
(Similar activities here, here and here.) Continue reading
Mind the gap
A fun tool that converts any text into an interactive gapfill.
Go ahead and test yourself! Continue reading
Text reconstruction with ReText
This was going to be a suite of apps, with a fancy title, bundled together. But a lot of this stuff is really useless as stand-alone apps – they have to be integrated within a post to have any pedagogical value. And so they’re here, available via menus, but I don’t – at the moment – feel they deserve to be packaged and marketed in any way.
If anyone wants to use these as WordPress shortcodes, you’re welcome – please either email me or comment below this post.
The apps include:
- Cloze your books (Converts any uploaded text into a total cloze, which you can then attempt to reconstruct online, one word at a time).
- Sentence Repair Man (Shuffles words in sentences, which you can then attempt to reconstruct online, or print for classroom use).
- Mind the Gap (puts gaps at every Nth word in a text, with the option to print for classroom use).
- Linkin’ Text (Highilights 4 types of (spoken) link between words in a text).
- AWLizer (Highlights words from the Academic Word List in a text).
Enjoy!
Reconstructing work through automation
- Think about – or better still, chat to a friend – about the nature of work.
- What is work? Why do we work?
- If humans are replaced by machines in the workplace, what are we going to do with all our free time?
- Watch and listen to the video. Then attempt to reconstruct the text using the app below.
Reconstructing consumerism with Skidelsky
- Think about – or better still, chat to a friend – about consumerism. Why do we love shopping so much? (
Indonesians check out the difference between consumeristic and consumptive!) - Watch the video and listen to what Robert Skidelsky has to say about consumerism.
- Then attempt to reconstruct what Skidelsky says using the app below. Watch the video again if necessary!
Reconstructing music competitions
Do the winners of music competitions deserve to win?
Do we choose winners based on their musical performance or based on how they look? Continue reading