The following should be seen as basic preliminary tasks when preparing to use a text in class:

1. Decide what you want students to be able to do at the end of the teaching cycle (debate, role play, summary, essay, etc). This will ensure work at intermediate stages builds up effectively to these activities, that the informational ground is adequately prepared and that the necessary vocabulary and structures are identified and practised. 'Starting at the end' in this way can also avoid wasted effort, since some texts may not lend themselves to full exploitation.
   
2. With longer texts which are to be treated intensively in class, break the passage up into sections and exploit each section separately - see 8.3.6 and 8.4.3 below).
3. Mark the source and date of each text on the page itself, not only for your own quick reference but also to help readers place the text in its general context.
4. For the same reason, but also to aid prediction of content (see 'Pre-reading phase'), retain visuals, such as pictures, illustrations, tables or diagrams, that accompanied the original text, as well as all titles, headlines, sub-headings and use of emboldened type.
5. When not using a textbook, number the lines of a text before it is copied. This will facilitate work in class, allowing students to locate specific parts of the text much more quickly.

One can usefully distinguish three phases in the process of working with L2 texts: the pre-reading, the reading and the post-reading phases. These will be looked at in turn in the next three sections.