How do EFL writers avoid Plagiarism?(2)

As a student, the most difficult thing about paraphrasing is that sometimes I do not understand sources and so I cannot find my own words to replace the originals. Whenever I feel difficult to paraphrase I try to read over and over again until some clues come up in mind, and then I write sentences, because I have never been educated how to read effectively using context clues.

I am an English teacher for kindergarteners and use various stories which came from abroad. Storybooks are very good for children. Children learn a lot including social, linguistic, creative things through books and English as well. Whenever I read storybooks to them, I introduce authors and illustrators and explain how much they are important people before reading. During reading, I try to ask many questions to encourage students to think deeply. After reading, young students are asked to retell or rewrite or redraw the story, as an author or an illustrator. Those after-reading activities are very helpful to understand stories especially for young EFL learners.

After reading Yamada’s paper, I think those story activities can be the background knowledge for their future paraphrasing and inference skills to avoid plagiarism. So I will keep doing this in class. Nowadays we can see a lot of multimedia sources, and people read books or texts less than the past, but reading is a pleasurable activity and gives lots of information. My students still like my story reading more than watching DVD!

Yamada, K. (2003). What prevents ESL/EFL students from avoiding plagiarism? : Analyses of 10 North American websites. System, 31, 247-258.