Learning language from reading texts

This is the first paragraph of the introduction in “Utility Privatisation in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Case Study of Water, Kate Bayliss, The Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol. 41, No. 4 (Dec., 2003), pp. 507-531”. A student has highlighted a number of words and phrases that might be useful in her writing.

The last two decades have witnessed a transformation in development policy, as state-led practices have become increasingly discredited and growing emphasis has been placed on the private sector. As part of this trend, privatisation has become a cornerstone of reform programmes which are adopting a ‘market-oriented’ policy agenda. Despite the realignment from structural adjustment to poverty reduction as the focus of the development framework in the late 1990s, privatisation remains a core policy throughout sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). While many governments have taken steps to implement privatisation programmes, progress has been slower than was anticipated in the early 1980s, and for a long period such programmes only featured smaller-scale enterprises. Now, due in part to donor pressure, governments are beginning to privatise larger enterprises and address the more contentious sales.

The student has used a dictionary to make notes on these words and phrases.

Notice that the student has noted many of the types of information about words or phrases which you saw in the Language Focus activity in Week 2.