Match the activity to the material

So you’ve got yourself some authentic material meant for the users of whatever language you want to learn. In other words, you have a book of some sort—dead tree, electronic or audio. Maybe even a movie . . . comic . . . whatever.

Now what?

Well, it’s not going to be ideal. It’s not going to be perfect. It will be at a level that’s too high for you, or too low. It may not be in an area that you’re interested in. It may be too ‘newsy’ or too ‘chick lit’. Again . . .  whatever.

But that’s okay.

The way to work around this problem is to match whatever activity you do with the material that’s at hand. So you do something suitable with it. Everything is suited for something.

You need to choose what you do to achieve the right balance of a number of factors. (Draw a Venn Diagram if you want.)

Choose what to do with what you’ve got so that . . .

• You process a lot of language: amount
• You minimize the effort: easy
• You maximize the results: effective
• You make it fun: enjoyment

This way, you won’t waste time waiting for the prefect resource to come along.