Personal Letter

December 5, 20xx
Frank and Joan LeRoy
245 Mansfield Drive
Wiltshire, CT 06897

Dear Frank and Joan,

As David's first birthday approaches, I wanted to take this opportunity to write to wish YOU a
Happy Birthday as well.

While a child hardly realizes the significance of a first birthday, to the parents it is a wonderfully
joyous occasion as they pause and reflect on the events of the past year (and 9 months :-). I don't
have to tell you, but profound changes have taken place in your life such as lost sleep, sacrifice
of personal time, juggling of schedules, etc.

With all of these changes though, it is so wonderful to have and to hold a child created in the
image of God Himself. The Bible tells us in Genesis 1:26:

"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness..." What an awesome thought!
That we are created in the image of God!

He also assures us that He knows our future, and as a matter of fact has it all planned out if we
will only follow that plan. Jeremiah 29:11 - For I know the thoughts that I think toward you,
saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.

It is my hope that as the years pass, you will continue to make the church an important part of
David's life. This will serve to give him a foundation for the storms and trials that no doubt lie
ahead.

Again, Happy Birthday to YOU, and if there is anything I can do to help you, please don't
hesitate to contact me.

In Christ's Love,

Rev. Arthur Morrissey

 Personal Anecdote

Tim Costello, the chief executive of World Vision of Australia, discusses the ability of Rwandan
citizens to forgive and heal the terrible scars caused by the genocide in 1994. The genocide
include 100 days of frenzied violence and merciless killing that left more than 800,000
Rwandans dead. For the past 20 years, these events cast a dark shadow over the lives of
Rwandans. The survivors and perpetrators held 100 days of national mourning to commemorate
the 20th anniversary of the killings. Costello writes:

But I believe that the extraordinary progress Rwanda has made is equally due to the
extraordinary decision that Rwandans have made to forgive each other and themselves. You
dont have to have been in the country very long before you realise that this is the choice that
virtually every Rwandan has made whether they are survivors, perpetrators or their
descendants.

I met one such Rwandan last week. His name is Gaspard. Now 39-years-old, he was only 19
when he lost his parents and 10 siblings in the genocide. He quietly told me that he had chosen to
forgive his Hutu school friend who had savagely killed some of his siblings. This perpetrator
eventually confessed and was released from jail. This man took Gaspard and showed him the
grave where he had dumped their bodies.

Gaspard also told me he had rebuilt his parents family home and has two young children of his
own. Yes he remembers, but there is no trace of bitterness and he has embraced his familys
attackers. Gaspard, like most Rwandans, has taken to heart Desmond Tutus admonition: There
is no future without forgiveness.
We need use Reading Strategies

Language instructors are often frustrated by the fact that students do not automatically transfer
the strategies they use when reading in their native language to reading in a language they are
learning. Instead, they seem to think reading means starting at the beginning and going word by
word, stopping to look up every unknown vocabulary item, until they reach the end. When they
do this, students are relying exclusively on their linguistic knowledge, a bottom-up strategy. One
of the most important functions of the language instructor, then, is to help students move past
this idea and use top-down strategies as they do in their native language.

Effective language instructors show students how they can adjust their reading behavior to deal
with a variety of situations, types of input, and reading purposes. They help students develop a
set of reading strategies and match appropriate strategies to each reading situation.

Strategies that can help students read more quickly and effectively include

Previewing: reviewing titles, section headings, and photo captions to get a sense of the
structure and content of a reading selection

Predicting: using knowledge of the subject matter to make predictions about content and
vocabulary and check comprehension; using knowledge of the text type and purpose to
make predictions about discourse structure; using knowledge about the author to make
predictions about writing style, vocabulary, and content

Skimming and scanning: using a quick survey of the text to get the main idea, identify
text structure, confirm or question predictions

Guessing from context: using prior knowledge of the subject and the ideas in the text as
clues to the meanings of unknown words, instead of stopping to look them up

Paraphrasing: stopping at the end of a section to check comprehension by restating the

information and ideas in the text

Instructors can help students learn when and how to use reading strategies in several ways.

By modeling the strategies aloud, talking through the processes of previewing, predicting,
skimming and scanning, and paraphrasing. This shows students how the strategies work
and how much they can know about a text before they begin to read word by word.

By allowing time in class for group and individual previewing and predicting activities as
preparation for in-class or out-of-class reading. Allocating class time to these activities
indicates their importance and value.
 By using cloze (fill in the blank) exercises to review vocabulary items. This helps
students learn to guess meaning from context.

By encouraging students to talk about what strategies they think will help them approach
a reading assignment, and then talking after reading about what strategies they actually
used. This helps students develop flexibility in their choice of strategies.

Example of Oral communications