The subscribers section
Welcome to the subscriber's section of readbangkokpost.com. Here you will find hundreds of lessons and hundreds of vocabulary items, all based on real content from the Bangkok Post. This section of the site is never really "finished" because new material is added almost every day. Since you have obviously already arrived at the "Getting started" section, lets take a brief tour of the other sections.
Building your vocabulary
You have probably noticed that the words featured
in Words in the News
disappear after one day or, in the case of the weekend, they disappear
on Monday. Well, they don't really disappear. They all come here. You
can find any word that has ever been posted in Words in the News,
by clicking on the appropriate letter at the top of each page in the
section.
There
are also activities and quizzes to help you better understand and
remember the words. These activities and quizzes have been produced in
various formats, depending on how you want use them. If you just want
to view them as an ordinary web page, choose the html format. If you
want to print them them out, the pdf format is probably best. Or, if
you want a more interactive format that gives you an instant grade,
many of the exercises offer that option too.
General reading practice
This
is probably a good place for you to start reading actual stories from
the newspaper, especially if you don't have much experience doing so.
Here you will find a wide variety of stories. There are two levels of
difficult, easy and normal, i.e., "normal" in the sense they are
typical of the stories you will find in the Bangkok Post. Almost all of
the stories have mp3 soundfiles accompanying them.
Some of the easy stories are very short, as short as a single paragraph. Others are a bit longer. The stories in the normal section are more challenging, but most are very interesting, so you will likely want to read them.
Choose a story or two from each level and see which is most appropriate for you. Then come back as often as you can before going on to other sections. You should be able to finish a lesson from the easy section within ten minutes or so. Lessons from the normal section may take a bit longer.
Reading the news section of the Bangkok Post
The
news section is really the heart of a daily newspaper like the Bangkok
Post, so you might consider this to be the heart of the subscribers
section as well. It is here that you can very quickly learn to read
stories covering the topics most often covered in our
newspaper.
Notice that the stories are organised by topic. Many topics will have ten or more stories in them, so you will soon become familar with what they typically cover and the vocabulary they typically include. This is known as "narrow reading" and it is a particularly effective way of building your reading skills.
Try it. Choose a topic within the section that interests you and pick a lesson. When you finish, pick another and then another. Many of the stories are actually about a single developing news event, so they will seem easier and easier as you go through them.
You can also do this with the Bangkok Post itself, of course. Find a story that you know will continue for more than one day. Read it and then watch for new developments the next day.
Opinion and analysis
The news section tells us what happened. The opinion and analysis section goes further, analysing why it happened and often suggesting what needs to done about it. The style of writing is therefore quite different and far more opinionated than news writing. Indeed, many of the columns are articles are much like argumentive or persuasive essays.
Reading features
Features
stories are often provide some of the most interesting and entertaining
content in the newspaper. The language can be quite challenging,
however, because writers have much more freedom in how they write. The
news style of writing follows a very clear and predictable format. The
feature-writing style —
if there is one —
does not. Thus, you will notice tremendous variety in how stories are
written.
One reason, of course, is the content. You would expect a feature story about how disaster victims are coping with their situation to be very different from a story about a popular pop star.
As you gain experience, you will find the most difficult part of a feature is often the opening paragraphs. That is where the writer tries to catch the reader's interest. Once you get beyond the first few paragraphs, things tend to get easier. This section provides you with many different examples to practice with.
Teachers' corner
Teachers'
will be happy to find many lessons ready to go. Our instant lesson section
is our fast foods for teachers. Just copy a entry for your class, pass
it out and let the lesson begin —
great for those days when you have had time to plan. In addition, there
is a large set of lesson plans that you can use to teach lessons found
in many of the sections of the subscriber's site.
The daily newspaper itself, however, is a wonderful source of teaching material. Its biggest advantage is its timeliness and here our public site — with its weekday lesson plans — is a great resource. The best lessons, however, are the ones teachers design themselves. For ideas on producing your own, try the teachers-corner section entitled model lessons. Here you will find detailed instructions for developing lessons in a variety of formats.
Reading about business and technology
For people interested in a business career, this is probably where you will want to spend most of your time. Like the news section, the lessons are organised by topic. Unlike the lessons in the news section, however, the lessons here are extremely comprehensive, ideal for those of you already in business or those of you who are attending university or upper secondary school. You will find a set of questions for each story which is answered in full at the end of the lesson. You will also find loads of business-related vocabulary. The stories deal with both local and international business news, but they are all relevant to business in Thailand.
Reading about sports
The
Bangkok Post sports section is
extremely popular and that is where many readers begin their day. It is
natural therefore that sports would have an important place in this
section of the website too. You'll find coverage of many different
sports, but football, the most popular sport here in Thailand, receives
by far the most attention. In fact, we have complete day-to-day
coverage of the 2006 World Cup in Germany. Once you finish, you should
be able to read just about any football story in
English.
Sports writing, incidentally, is some of the liveliest writing found
anywhere in the
newspaper. Indeed, many of the world's best journalists are
sportswriters. That is particularly true for major sporting events like
the World Cup where the writing is consistently of a very high standard.
Hey Kids
You might think that the Bangkok Post,
which is clearly written for adults, would have little of interest for
children. That's not true at all. Give them a newspaper to look at and
they will quickly be full of questions. The questions will largely be
based on the photos, of course, but that gives you a good
opportunity to go further.
The key to using the newspaper with children is careful selection and adaption. You will find many examples in this section, from short reading exercises, to picture-based activities, a play, and even a specially-written section on the life of His Majesty the King. The lessons are designed to be used with parents and children or in the classroom. Many of the lessons are also appropriate for adults who want some easy material to read. All lessons are accompanied by sound files.
Fun stuff
Reading the Bangkok Post is also a source of
relaxation and entertainment. That is the reason for lighter material
like comics and horoscopes. Since these columns are in English,
however, they take some getting used to and that is the main purpose of
this section of the website. Here you will find a complete guide to the
daily comics published by the Bangkok Post and plus some background and
suggestions on reading the daily horoscope column.
On-line courses
With an on-line course, you can work at your own pace. Everything is provided for you: reading and listening materials, Powerpoint presentations, practice activities and even tests. The only thing missing in our case is a grade at the end of the course. We'll let you grade yourself.
Since an on-line course takes a very long time to write, we only have one full course available at this time. The subject is a very useful one, however, and you might want to start your visit to the site there. It is an introduction to reading the Bangkok Post and it will provide you with the background you need to use our newspaper effectively.