Press Matters

"Press Matters: Reading Skills for Lower-Intermediate and Intermediate Students" is a textbook written by Dorothy Brosnan, Kristine Brown, and Sue Hood. Here is a comprehensive overview of the book:

Key Themes

• Reading Skills: The book focuses on developing reading skills for students at the lower-intermediate and intermediate levels. It includes various techniques and strategies to enhance comprehension and vocabulary.
• Language Teaching: The authors emphasize structured language teaching, which is presented before, after, or during composition. This approach helps students understand and apply language skills effectively.
• ESL Literacy: The book is designed for English as a Second Language (ESL) literacy students, addressing common experiences such as migration and human experiences of pain and joy.
• Social Constructs: The text includes discussions on social constructs like racism and sexism, encouraging students to reflect on these issues in their reading and writing activities.
• Health and Wellness: The Health unit materials in the book are designed to practice reading strategies for whole texts and excerpts, as well as personal writing tasks such as writing recipes, informal letters, and information posters. Topics include women's self-image after menopause and private versus public health insurance.

Plot Summary

The book is structured into various units, each focusing on specific skills and themes. The units include:

• The Past Experiences Unit: This unit provides stimulus texts for personal writing, taught through process writing techniques like brainstorming, planning, drafting, and redrafting. The texts are often written by other ESL Literacy students, sharing common experiences of migration and human emotions.
• The Health Unit: This unit primarily practices reading strategies for whole texts and excerpts. It also includes material for personal writing and suggestions for other genres like writing recipes, informal letters, and creating information posters. Topics allow for discussions on social and health issues.
• The Diary and Study Skills Units: These units introduce diary writing as a way of using language and provide study skills to help students manage their time and materials effectively.

Critical Reception

While there is no specific critical reception available in the provided sources, the book's focus on structured language teaching and its emphasis on practical reading and writing skills suggest it would be well-received by educators and students looking to improve their ESL literacy. The inclusion of diverse topics and the use of real-life scenarios make the book a valuable resource for teaching reading and writing skills in an ESL context.

Additional Information

• Publication Details: The book was published in 1985 by Cambridge University Press (CUP) .
• Availability: The book is currently out of stock and not available for sale, according to Blackwell's .

Overall, "Press Matters" is a comprehensive textbook designed to enhance the reading and writing skills of lower-intermediate and intermediate ESL students, with a focus on practical applications and real-life scenarios.