Language Focus: Previewing Texts

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Do curso por University of Pennsylvania

English for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics

596 classificações

University of Pennsylvania

English for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics

596 classificações

Welcome to English for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, a course created by the University of Pennsylvania, and funded by the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, Office of English Language Programs. To enroll in this course for free, click on “Enroll now” and then select "Full Course. No certificate." If you want to get a Coursera Verified Certificate for free, please fill out the Financial Aid form. This course is designed for non-native English speakers who are interested in improving their English skills in the sciences. In this course, you will explore some of the most innovative areas of scientific study, while expanding your vocabulary and the language skills needed to share scientific information within your community. In unit 1, you will learn how to preview texts and practice some of the language used to make comparisons when talking about global warming and climate change. In unit 2, you will examine the chemistry of climate change and the language of cause and effect. In Unit 3, you will learn about some of the impacts of Climate Change and the language used to describe these effects. In Unit 4, you will learn reading strategies that can help you explore the science behind some new energy systems. In the final unit, you will investigate practical advances in Nanotechnology that help slow down climate change, while developing your own research skills in English. Unless otherwise noted, all course materials are available for re-use, repurposing and free distribution under a Creative Commons 4.0 Attribution license. Supplemental reading materials were provided by Newsela, which publishes daily news articles at a level that's just right for each English language learner.

Na lição

Unit 1: Is the Earth Getting Warmer?

Is the Earth Getting Warmer?5:09

Language Focus: Previewing Texts6:27

Unlockable Achievement 10:09

Warming Experiment (Part 1)4:46

Warming Experiment (Part 2)5:59

Conheça os instrutores

Jack Sullivan
Director of Programs
English Language Programs
Alyssa Swanson
Intensive Program Manager
English Language Programs

Welcome to Unit 1, Language Focus, Previewing Texts.

In this video, we will discuss how to preview informational texts

about scientific research.

The main job of most scientist is to do research.

Research is the careful study done to find and

report new information about something.

Some of that research is done through their own experiments.

But a lot of the research is done by reading about other

people's ideas or experiments and there is a lot to read.

In fact, there are so many written texts about scientific research,

we don't have time to read all of them completely.

So how do we know which ones might be the most helpful for

us without having to read everything word for word?

We preview the text.

That means we quickly look through our source before we give it a full reading.

It helps us quickly learn what a text is about and improve our understanding.

Previewing is a really great way to prepare to learn something new.

Let's try previewing a reading that we will do later in this course.

We will preview the text in four steps.

Looking at the title, the pictures and

the captions, subheadings, and the first paragraph.

Let's get started.

The first thing we look at is the title.

In this example article,

the title is Salting away renewable energy for future use.

We need to ask ourselves a very important question,

what do I already now about this topic?

For example, we may see renewable energy and think

this is about a new type of energy that we won't run out of like the wind or the sun.

Or perhaps, we can't make a guess and that's okay.

In any case, by looking and thinking about the title,

we're learning about the article in preparing to understand it better.

Next, we look for pictures and their captions.

A caption is the words or

sentences right below a picture that gives more information about the picture.

In scientific text, you'll also find text captions under other figures such

as tables, charts and graphs, together with the title.

Pictures and

the captions can help us make a guess about the overall idea of the text.

This process, using small pieces of information from previewing

to make a guess about something in the whole text is called predicting.

Let's look at one picture and caption from our example text to try out the strategy.

We see a drying of what looks to be some type of system.

The caption for this picture says sunlight heats salt

to power steam generators to produce electricity.

The caption explains that this is a drawing

of how this new renewable energy system works.

It uses sunlight to make salt that is under the ground, very hot.

That creates steam and the steam is the power needed to make electricity.

In addition to pictures, we should pay attention to any subheadings in the text.

Subheadings are small titles that introduce different sections of the text.

In our text, we see the subheading, how does it work?

We can predict that the text will explain how the system makes electricity.

Now, comes our last step in previewing text.

Informational text often give the most important information, first.

So let's look at the first one or two paragraphs.

We see two phrases, how to store electricity from the sun and

uses molten salt as a medium for long-term energy storage.

Even if some of these words are new for us, we should be ready to combine

what we know about the title, the pictures, the captions,

and the sub-headings to predict the main idea of the text.

The main idea is the overall, general message of the text.

In our example, we could guess that there is a new system for

storing energy that uses sunlight and salt.

To summarize, we previewed a text by looking at the title,

pictures and captions, subheadings and first paragraph.

We thought about what we already know about the topic and

predicted the main idea of the text.

After previewing, we can decide if we want to read the text more carefully.

If we choose to read the text,

previewing has prepared us to understand the text much more successfully.

Next, we will play a short game about previewing.

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