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BEd in Teaching English as a Second Language Assignment Cover sheet

Student ID number: 1034535

Module name and code: Literacy (ET 207) Module tutor: Dr Sophie Reissner-Roubicek Personal tutor: Dr. Duncan Hunter

Word count: 1987 words

Date due: 12 noon on 08/12/2011

Date submitted: 08/12/2011 Online Receipt attached (please delete as appropriate) YES

Work may be submitted before the due date; Work may be submitted after the due date if an extension has been granted in writing. Work submitted late without a written extension will be penalised at the rate of 5% per 24 hours (starting at noon on the day that the essay is due). Work submitted more than a week after the due date without written extension will not be assessed.

In completing the details on this cover sheet and submitting the assignment, you are doing so on the basis that this assignment is all your own work and that you have not borrowed or failed to acknowledge anyone elses work.

Please say if you agree to this statement

YES

Goodman (1967) describes reading a psycholinguistic guessing game in which the readers have to decode the language encoded by the writer to thought. In 1997, gathering from Shihs idea, Aebersold and Field present the influential combination of long and short-term teaching objectives. There are three sections to this essay. I will first briefly describe the Aebersold and Fields model. Then, I will introduce who are my target learners. Lastly, I will describe my lesson that based on the Aebersold and Fields model and following this is the explanation of which of the activities will promote learners short-term understanding and their long-term development as readers. The target students for my reading lesson are 26 students of a school in Perak, Malaysia whereby English is their second language. They are 15-year old students with low intermediate English language proficiency. The name of the school is SMK Raja Chulan and it is a co-ed school largely populated by students with Malay, Chinese and Indian background that come from medium income families. The duration for this lesson is 50 minutes out of the normal 60-minute lesson. The box below is my reading plan for the class and the worksheets as well as the reading text are included as appendices. Cinnamon (A Short Story by Neil Gaiman)

Objective(s) of lesson: 1. Help Ss in building their reading comprehension. 2. Enable Ss to monitor their reading comprehension. 3. Make Ss aware of the different reading strategies and able to adjust to different strategies if the strategy that they are using is not effective. 4. To arouse Ss' interest.

SWBATs: 1. To categorize words into different categories. 2. Use the vocabulary learnt to summarise the short story. 3. Recall some of the contents of the reading. Materials and Resources used by teachers and students: The short story 'Cinnamon' from the internet. The worksheets for Ss.

Procedure

Stage

Duration (minutes)

Steps

Pre-reading

1. T begins the class by asking Ss three background comprehension questions: a. Do you know any princess who comes from a small hot country? b. Do you have any friend who refuses to talk? c. Why would someone refuse to talk? 2. T allows Ss to think before Ss give their responses. 3. T writes down all the responses from Ss on the board.

Vocabulary 4. T provides Ss with the worksheets and Ss have to complete the vocabulary task that requires them to sort words according to different categories.

5. Ss compare their answers with their partners and decide which one is the best answer. While Reading 7 First Reading 1. Ss have a brief look at the authentic questions on the worksheet.

1. What is wrong with the girl in the picture? 2. What or who is Cinnamon?

2. Ss skim the text for answers. T stops Ss from reading precisely at seventh minute. 3. T instructs Ss to take a piece of paper and quickly answer the questions without referring to the text. 15 Second Reading 4. T gives new texts that have been divided into several sections with comprehension questions by the end of each section to Ss. 5. T calls upon two students to read their answers and writes them on the whiteboard. T repeats each sentence so that the rest of the class can hear the answer.

Post Reading

True/False 1. T collects the reading texts.

2. Ss answer the six TRUE/FALSE questions.

3. In groups of four, Ss discuss and check their answers. 15 Summary/Self-Assessment 4. Ss use the words in the pre-reading vocabulary activity to write a summary of the reading text. 5. Ss read their summaries to their partners to check for their comprehension.

Evaluation

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1. Ss get into groups of four and they discuss this question:

Suppose the plot of Cinnamon involved a prince who refused to speak. Do you think the tiger and the other people will come and try to make him speak? Explain you answer in detail. If you think the outcome would have been different, explain how and why.

A literary text in the form of a short story is chosen as the reading text. Students will intrinsically engage into it since they can learn different aspects of culture (Aebersold and Field, 2002) through it. Literary text to Collie and Slater (1987 in ibid.) offers valuable, authentic, and relevant materials that bring about cultural, and language enrichment besides interesting to students. This should be taken into account when students interest is one of the key considerations in choosing a text because it will determine students motivation to read (Hedge, 2000). I also believe that the text should be authentic. Grellet (2001) has recommended using authentic texts whenever possible. I choose to preserve the authenticity of the article because simplifying may change the original thought that the writer wants the learners to decode. My lesson plan is designed based on the Aebersold and Fields model. It is necessary to understand that in learning to read, different activities may create different long-term and short-term results (Aebersold and Field, 2002). This reading

lesson is teacher-centred. Dole et al. (1991 cited in Aebersold and Field, 2002: 85) discover through their studies, teacher-centred pre-reading exercise is found to be better than student-centred exercise as it can provide students with better comprehension level. During the pre-reading activity, I have included three background comprehension questions that will help to activate students background knowledge or the schemata. Pre-reading activity is essential in a reading lesson since it will help to lower the affective filter (Krashen in Mitchell and Myles, 2004) of students and therefore, motivate them to learn. Similarly, it can also help to engage students interest to read because it will help students to predict the lesson ahead. This activity is meant to be for short-term understanding since this questions only apply to the reading text and will no longer applicable in the students lives in the future. The second activity for pre-reading on the other hand, is meant to benefit students development in long-term. These words are productive vocabulary (Abersold and Field, 2002 139). Seeing that words for this vocabulary activity are also the keywords to the reading text, it is not surprising that this activity will be beneficial to students in long-term. Craik and Lockhart in Dole et al. (1991) have argued that information will be retained in long-term memory if the information is being processed deeper at different levels. With reference to this, this vocabulary activity does not only stop at the pre-reading but I will use the same vocabulary in the post-reading activity for thorough understanding whereby students will then have to use utilize them and practice those words in context through writing a summary. Moving on is my while reading activity. The focus of this activity is to help students in their metacognitive awareness. There are three main models in reading as proposed by Aebersold and Field (2002): 1) building reading comprehension 2)

monitoring text comprehension, and 3) adjusting reading strategies. For the first reading, students need to answer two authentic questions that emulate the questions that the students will ask themselves if they read the same article in the real world. According to Hedge in 2000, developing reading activities with consideration of real purposes for real reading has turned into standard practice in ELT teaching. For this activity, students need to skim the text to get the general dimensions of it text. This activity will introduce top-down process since students need to use their background knowledge to understand the text. The application of the strategies is evident in the second reading stage. Students are guided through an activity that will help to build their comprehension. In the worksheet, I have divided the reading text into comprehensible sections with guided questions. With reference to Aebersold and Field, these guided questions will serve as a platform for students to hear the kinds of questions that they should be asking themselves when reading the text or when they do not select the appropriate answer. To illustrate, students need to guess what will come next, make use of grammatical, logical and cultural clues. In fact, those questions also serve as checkpoint whereby students will monitor their comprehension and check whether the last sentence of each section confirms to their prediction and understanding. At this stage, students majorly rely on their skills to predict and guessing. Nonetheless, if they find that the answers suggested by their friends do not correspond to their prediction, they will have to adjust to another strategy to improve their comprehension. In both reading stages the first and the second are meant to have long-term development effects to students since even from the very beginning, it is evident that the main focus of the lesson is to facilitate comprehension through hypothesizing, testing, confirming and rejecting and does not depend exactly on

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accuracy. It is in fact true that students will grasp the text better if the text is taught discreetly through bottom up process but teaching comprehension will have a long term effect although the effect cannot be seen immediately. My post reading consists of a set of True/False questions and that every student need to write self-assessed summary. Grellet (2001) affirms that writing summary is theoretically practical in recalling ones memory. An emphasis on conciseness and accuracy is one of the prime goals and hence, students will need to condense all the information. When writing this summary, students must use the same elicited vocabulary that I have introduced to them earlier because students need to see a word many times in different contexts before it is learned (Aebersold and Field, 2002). Students will recall their comprehension of the text by writing. With the multiple exposures to the same materials, students will no doubt benefit a longterm development from this. Evaluation is essential in every lesson. Reading is an active process and it is also a critical process whereby texts are constructed in certain ways by writers in order to shape the perceptions of readers towards acceptance of the underlying ideology of the text (Hedge, 2000). The objective for evaluation is to encourage students to keep an open mind about what they have read and maybe reflecting and challenging the writers assumptions as well. Basing on Krashens comprehensible input theory, where learners current competence is i and the comprehensible input is i+1, then one way to evaluate students is to test them beyond their comprehension level (2004: 47). This stage will promote students long-term development since the question that I have given them is cognitively challenging. In this task, students will make hypothesis and inference on the possibility if the writer decides to use another

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character who differs greatly in term of gender. Students will have to consider how would culture and society influence how the story ends. In conclusion, contrary to popular belief reading is in fact an active process whereby readers need to employ strategies in order to turn a reading effective. Both terms are often used there is a fine line that distinguishes strategies from skills skills are innate where else strategies are acquired. The strategies and the models suggested by Aebersold and Field are the moving point in improving reading. Despite that, there are some points that I need to disagree. One of it is that Shih as well as Aebersold and Field agree that activating students background knowledge is vital for excellent reader. Logically, by activating their schemata students will be more motivated to learn the new topic. However, Dole et al. (1991) suggests otherwise. It appears that if students nascent knowledge is inaccurate, then activating I useless as it may only give debilitating effect on their text comprehension. This is one of the examples that really happens in reality whereby the students continue to make errors since teachers fail to monitor and rectify the errors even from the beginning of the lesson. There exist a term, individual differences. Probably to assume that every student will effectively absorb and employ the strategies is a little bit overrated. When Aebersold and Field outline their strategies and models, they only include several factors and overlook the other factors that might influence students ability. Students age are overlooked. Johnson and Newport in Mitchell Myles find a correlation between age and language acquisition (2004: 84). Young learners have their sensitive period whereby language acquisition is the most effective at that

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particular age. Hence, age should be a determining factor in planning a reading lesson too. Overall, there is a saying that you can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink. We can always come out with new strategies and ambitions to help students but in the end, everything will depend on the students. We can never cure laziness. We can never cure reluctances. We can only give them the way but there will always be two roads and it is up to the students whether they will choose the safe road or the road not taken. Reference

Aebersold, J. A. and Field, M. L.(2002). From Reader to Reading Teacher. UK: Cambridge University Press. Dole, J. A., Valencia, S. W., Eunice, A. G. and Wardrop, J. (1991). Effects of Two Types of Prereading Instruction on the Comprehension of Narrative and Expository Text. Reading Research Quarterly, 26(2), pp. 142-159. Gaiman, N. (2005). Cinnamon. [online] available from http://neilgaiman.net/cinnamon/page1.htm [27 November 2011] Goodman, K. (1967). Reading: A psycholinguistic guessing game. Journal of the Reading Specialist, Volume 6, pp. 126-135. Grellet, F. (2001). Developing Reading Skills. 19 ed. UK: Cambridge Language Teaching Library. Hedge, T. (2000). Teaching and Learning in the Language Classroom. UK: Oxford University Press. Mitchell, R and Myles, F. (2004). Second Language Learning Theories. 2nd ed. Britain: Oxford University Press.

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Appendices Pre-reading Background Comprehension 1. Do you know any princess who comes from a small hot country? 2. Do you have any friend who refuses to talk? 3. Why would someone refuse to talk? Vocabulary Sort the following words into groups and see what each group has in common.

While Reading First Reading 3. What is wrong with the girl in the picture? 4. What or who is Cinnamon? Second Reading Read the short stories in stages, stopping every now and then to predict what will happen next.

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Cinnamon was a princess, a long time ago, in a small hot country, where everything was very old. Her eyes were pearls, which gave her great beauty, but meant she was blind. Her world was the colour of pearls: pale white and pink, and softly glowing. Cinnamon did not talk. Her father and her mother -- the Rajah and Rani -- offered a room in the palace, a field of stunted mango trees, a portrait of the Rani's aunt executed on hardwood in enamels, and a green parrot, to any person who could get Cinnamon to talk. The mountains ringed the country on one side, the jungle on the other; and few and far came the people to try to teach Cinnamon to speak. But come they did: and they stayed in the room in the palace, and cultivated the field of mango trees, and fed the parrot, and admired the portrait of the Rani's aunt (who was quite a celebrated beauty in her day, although she was now old and crabbed and pinched with age and disappointment), and, eventually, they went away, frustrated, and cursing the silent little girl. STOP - What made the people went away? Now continue reading One day a tiger came to the palace. He was huge and fierce, a nightmare in black and orange, and he moved like a god through the world; which is how tigers move. The people were afraid. "There is nothing to be frightened of," said the Rajah. "Very few tigers are man-eaters." "But I am," said the tiger. The people were much amazed at this, although it did nothing whatsoever to quell their fear. "You might be lying," said the Rajah. "I might be," said the tiger. "But I'm not. Now: I am here to teach the girl-cub to talk." STOP - What was happening?

15 Now continue reading The Rajah consulted with the Rani, and, despite the urgings of the Rani's aunt, who was of the opinion that the tiger should be driven out from the city with brooms and sharp sticks, the tiger was shown to the room in the palace, and given the enamel painting, and the deeds to the mango field, and he would also have been given the parrot, had it not squawked and flown to the rafters, where it stayed and refused to come down. Cinnamon was shown into the tiger's room.

"There was a young lady from Riga," squawked the parrot, from high in the rafters, "who went for a ride on a tiger. They came back from the ride with the lady inside and a smile on the face of the tiger." (Although, in the interests of historical and literary accuracy, I am obliged to point out here that the parrot actually quoted another poem, much older, and a little longer, with, ultimately, a similar message.) "There," said the Rani's aunt. "Even the bird knows." "Leave me with the girl," said the tiger. STOP - How would Cinnamon react when she realised that she was alone with the tiger? Now continue reading And, reluctantly, the Rajah and the Rani and the Rani's aunt and the palace staff left the beast with Cinnamon. She pushed her fingers into its fur, and felt its hot breath on her face. The tiger put Cinnamon's hand into his. "Pain," said the tiger, and it extended one needle-sharp claw into Cinnamon's palm. It pierced her soft brown skin, and a bead of bright blood welled up. Cinnamon whimpered. "Fear," said the tiger, and it began to roar, starting so quietly you could scarcely hear it, working its way up to a purr, then a quiet roar, like a distant volcano, then to a roar so loud that the palace walls shook.

16 Cinnamon trembled. "Love," said the tiger, and with its rough red tongue it licked the blood from Cinnamon's palm, and licked her soft brown face. STOP - What was the tiger trying to do to Cinnamon? - What will happen next? Now continue reading "Love?" whispered Cinnamon, in a voice wild and dark from disuse. And the tiger opened its mouth and grinned like a hungry god; which is how tigers grin. The moon was full that night. It was bright morning when the child and the tiger walked out of the room together. Cymbals crashed, and bright birds sang, and Cinnamon and the tiger walked towards the Rani and the Rajah, who sat at one end of the throne room, being fanned with palm fronds by elderly retainers. The Rani's aunt sat in a corner of the room, drinking tea disapprovingly. "Can she talk yet?" asked the Rani. "Why don't you ask her?" growled the tiger. "Can you talk?" the Rajah asked Cinnamon. The girl nodded

"Hah!" cackled the Rani's aunt. "She can no more talk than she can lick her own backbone!" "Hush," said the Rajah to the Rani's aunt. "I can talk," said Cinnamon. "I think I always could." STOP - What made Cinnamon refuse to talk?

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Now continue reading "Then why didn't you?" asked her mother. "She's not talking now," muttered the Rani's aunt, wagging one stick-like finger. "That tiger is throwing his voice." "Can no-one get that woman to stop talking?" asked the Rajah of the room. "Easier to stop 'em than start 'em," said the tiger, and he dealt with the matter. And Cinnamon said, "Why not? Because I had nothing to say." "And now?" asked her father. "And now the tiger has told me of the jungle, of the chattering of the monkeys and the smell of the dawn and the taste of the moonlight and the noise a lakeful of flamingoes makes when it takes to the air," she said. "And what I have to say is this: I am going with the tiger." "You cannot do this thing," said the Rajah. "I forbid it." "It is difficult," said Cinnamon, "to forbid a tiger anything it wants." And the Rajah and the Rani, after giving the matter a little consideration, agreed that this was so. "And besides," said the Rani, "she'll certainly be happier there." "But what about the room in the palace? And the mango grove? And the parrot? And the picture of the Rani's late aunt?" asked the Rajah, who felt that there was a place for practicality in the world. STOP - What will happen to the room in the palace, the mango grove, the parrot and the picture of the Ranis aunt? - What will happen next? "Give them to the people," said the tiger. And so an announcement was made to the people of the city that they were now the proud owners of a parrot, a portrait, and a mango grove, and that the Princess Cinnamon could speak, but would be leaving them for a while to further her education. A crowd gathered in the town square, and soon the door of the palace opened, and the tiger and the child came out. The tiger walked slowly through the crowd with the little girl on his back, holding tightly to his fur, and soon they both were swallowed by the jungle; which is how a tiger leaves. So, in the end, nobody was eaten, save only the Rani's elderly aunt, who was gradually replaced in the popular mind by the portrait of her, which hung in the town square, and was thus forever beautiful and young.

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Post Reading True/False Questions Decide if these statements are TRUE (T) or FALSE (F). Cinnamon was a deaf princess. The Rajah and Rani offered a room in the palace, a field of stunted coconut trees, a portrait of the Ranis aunt executed on hardwood in enamels, and a green parrot, to any person who could get Cinnamon to talk. The tiger did not eat people. Cinnamon was happy when the tiger roared. Cinnamon did not want to talk because she had nothing to say. Cinnamon would leave the people for a while to further her education.

1. 2.

3. 4. 5. 6.

Summary 1. Without referring to the actual short fiction, look at the following words. Write a summary of the story based on the words given the below. Jungle Love White Fear Lady People Father City Girl Pink Mother Town Pain Brown Aunt 2. When you are done, swap your summary with the person next to you. Compare and comment on your partners work. Evaluation Answer this question. Suppose the plot of Cinnamon involved a prince who refused to speak. Do you think the tiger and the other people will come and try to make him speak? Explain you answer in detail. If you think the outcome would have been different, explain how and why.

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Cinnamon by Neil Gaiman Cinnamon was a princess, a long time ago, in a small hot country, where everything was very old. Her eyes were pearls, which gave her great beauty, but meant she was blind. Her world was the colour of pearls: pale white and pink, and softly glowing. Cinnamon did not talk. Her father and her mother -- the Rajah and Rani -- offered a room in the palace, a field of stunted mango trees, a portrait of the Rani's aunt executed on hardwood in enamels, and a green parrot, to any person who could get Cinnamon to talk. The mountains ringed the country on one side, the jungle on the other; and few and far came the people to try to teach Cinnamon to speak. But come they did: and they stayed in the room in the palace, and cultivated the field of mango trees, and fed the parrot, and admired the portrait of the Rani's aunt (who was quite a celebrated beauty in her day, although she was now old and crabbed and pinched with age and disappointment), and, eventually, they went away, frustrated, and cursing the silent little girl. One day a tiger came to the palace. He was huge and fierce, a nightmare in black and orange, and he moved like a god through the world; which is how tigers move. The people were afraid. "There is nothing to be frightened of," said the Rajah. "Very few tigers are man-eaters." "But I am," said the tiger. The people were much amazed at this, although it did nothing whatsoever to quell their fear. "You might be lying," said the Rajah. "I might be," said the tiger. "But I'm not. Now: I am here to teach the girl-cub to talk." The Rajah consulted with the Rani, and, despite the urgings of the Rani's aunt, who was of the opinion that the tiger should be driven out from the city with brooms and sharp sticks, the tiger was shown to the room in the palace, and given the enamel painting, and the deeds to the mango field, and he would also have been given the parrot, had it not squawked and flown to the rafters, where it stayed and refused to come down. Cinnamon was shown into the tiger's room. "There was a young lady from Riga," squawked the parrot, from high in the rafters, "who went for a ride on a tiger. They came back from the ride with the lady inside and a smile on the face of the tiger." (Although, in the interests of historical and literary accuracy, I am obliged to point out here that the parrot actually quoted another poem, much older, and a little longer, with, ultimately, a similar message.) "There," said the Rani's aunt. "Even the bird knows." "Leave me with the girl," said the tiger.

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And, reluctantly, the Rajah and the Rani and the Rani's aunt and the palace staff left the beast with Cinnamon. She pushed her fingers into its fur, and felt its hot breath on her face. The tiger put Cinnamon's hand into his. "Pain," said the tiger, and it extended one needle-sharp claw into Cinnamon's palm. It pierced her soft brown skin, and a bead of bright blood welled up. Cinnamon whimpered. "Fear," said the tiger, and it began to roar, starting so quietly you could scarcely hear it, working its way up to a purr, then a quiet roar, like a distant volcano, then to a roar so loud that the palace walls shook. Cinnamon trembled. "Love," said the tiger, and with its rough red tongue it licked the blood from Cinnamon's palm, and licked her soft brown face. "Love?" whispered Cinnamon, in a voice wild and dark from disuse. And the tiger opened its mouth and grinned like a hungry god; which is how tigers grin. The moon was full that night. It was bright morning when the child and the tiger walked out of the room together. Cymbals crashed, and bright birds sang, and Cinnamon and the tiger walked towards the Rani and the Rajah, who sat at one end of the throne room, being fanned with palm fronds by elderly retainers. The Rani's aunt sat in a corner of the room, drinking tea disapprovingly. "Can she talk yet?" asked the Rani. "Why don't you ask her?" growled the tiger. "Can you talk?" the Rajah asked Cinnamon. The girl nodded "Hah!" cackled the Rani's aunt. "She can no more talk than she can lick her own backbone!" "Hush," said the Rajah to the Rani's aunt. "I can talk," said Cinnamon. "I think I always could." "Then why didn't you?" asked her mother. "She's not talking now," muttered the Rani's aunt, wagging one stick-like finger. "That tiger is throwing his voice." "Can no-one get that woman to stop talking?" asked the Rajah of the room.

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"Easier to stop 'em than start 'em," said the tiger, and he dealt with the matter. And Cinnamon said, "Why not? Because I had nothing to say." "And now?" asked her father. "And now the tiger has told me of the jungle, of the chattering of the monkeys and the smell of the dawn and the taste of the moonlight and the noise a lakeful of flamingoes makes when it takes to the air," she said. "And what I have to say is this: I am going with the tiger." "You cannot do this thing," said the Rajah. "I forbid it." "It is difficult," said Cinnamon, "to forbid a tiger anything it wants." And the Rajah and the Rani, after giving the matter a little consideration, agreed that this was so. "And besides," said the Rani, "she'll certainly be happier there." "But what about the room in the palace? And the mango grove? And the parrot? And the picture of the Rani's late aunt?" asked the Rajah, who felt that there was a place for practicality in the world. "Give them to the people," said the tiger. And so an announcement was made to the people of the city that they were now the proud owners of a parrot, a portrait, and a mango grove, and that the Princess Cinnamon could speak, but would be leaving them for a while to further her education. A crowd gathered in the town square, and soon the door of the palace opened, and the tiger and the child came out. The tiger walked slowly through the crowd with the little girl on his back, holding tightly to his fur, and soon they both were swallowed by the jungle; which is how a tiger leaves. So, in the end, nobody was eaten, save only the Rani's elderly aunt, who was gradually replaced in the popular mind by the portrait of her, which hung in the town square, and was thus forever beautiful and young.

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