Identifying where to find information. · Step 1. Survey introductory and concluding paragraphs, and identify the core ideas of the passage

· Step 1. Survey introductory and concluding paragraphs, and identify the core ideas of the passage.

· Step 2. Skim the rest of the passage to make sure.

· Step 3. Scan the text to find the correct wording of its main idea, the topic, and the purpose, write out the key words from each paragraph.

· Step 4. Skim the text for examples of descriptions, step-by-step explanations, directions, comparisons and contrasts, analyses, analogies, and definitions.

a/ The main idea is what the author has in mind when s/he is writing a text. Which one of the sentences given below most closely renders the main idea of the text?

1. Lingua franca is a vehicular language, i.e. a language for communication.

2. Lingua franca is potentially more neutral than regional or national languages since they are not directly connected to the primary lingua -culture of any fixed speech community.

3. ELF should be viewed as a flexible mode of communication rather than as a fixed code.

4. Being a variable intercultural adaptation based on English, ELF is determined by accommodative strategies between the speakers.

5. ELF is not bad or deficient English – it is different in form from native speaker English and serves different functions.

b/ The topic is the subject area the author chooses to bring her/his idea to the reader. Identify the main topic of the text.

1. Intercultural communication.

2. Equal communicative rights for all English language users.

3. The intercultural communicative situation..

4. Accommodative strategies between the EFL speakers.

5.Historic development of the most prominent lingua francas.

c/ The purpose of the text is what the author wants the reader to believe in. Does the writer want you to believe that:

1. ELF speakers are not merely learners striving to conform to native-speaker norms but primarily users of the language?

2. Non-native speakers largely outnumber native speakers?

3. The Crusades used a mixed vehicular language?

4. Esperanto is an agglutinating language, largely based on Romanic, but also on Germanic and some Slavic elements?

5. ELF is a ‘contact language’ for people of different first languages for whom English is the chosen means of communication?