I think the Day and Bamford book is an excellent introduction for teachers into the field of extensive reading. The style of their writing is direct and informative, and their book offers practical knowledge and advice that can be useful for any teacher who is interested in creating or teaching an extensive reading program.
In my opinion, one of the most important issues discussed in the first 5 chapters was the section about L2 Reading Attitudes. Figure 1 on page 23 is a clear example of how L2 reading attitudes are formed, and in my opinion represents some of the important values that students need to have in order to have a successful ER program. I’m sure this probably varies from culture to culture, and I would be interested in learning more about these factors in Taiwanese society, specifically learner’s attitudes towards their L1 reading. I have made several observations over the years of teaching university students in Taiwan and feel that to a large degree, my student’s behavior and motivation is based-upon their attitudes towards their learning experiences in their L1 or influenced by the education system as a whole. Unfortunately, my experience in the Taiwanese education system is limited to teaching university students and being a graduate student, so I cannot fully understand what most Taiwanese experience as they travel through the system here. I could only comment on specific stories my university students, and private students, have shared with me over the years. As I said, I would be very interested to learn more from everyone else in our course on this subject.
1.Not matter Samuels’ “I minus1”” or Krashen’s comprehensible input hypothesis in picking out a material, I wonder that how can we as an instructor can measure the real competence of learners.
2.Some researchers or experts in the extensive field believe the sight vocabulary is priority rather than looking up a dictionary because they claim “Familiarity breeds automaticity.” I have some problems here, like my learning experience in learning English reading, I usually look up the words I am not pretty sure and try to memorize them, and by time to time, more frequently those words appear, more quickly I can pick them up. I can’t imagine just by reading a great deal without the tool books (one way to know the meaning of the words), can the sight vocabulary really turn into meaning vocabulary?
After reading the first five chapters, I started to become an avid reader, absorbing myself in the world of reading. To me, reading equaled boredom, which couldn’t attract me at all. I would spend hours watching TV or surfing the Internet rather than reading. However, I started to like reading because I want to be a fluent L2 reader. As claimed by Day and Bamford, reading skills can be developed through extensive and continuing practice. I was taught to read for passing exams, not for pleasure or enjoyment; therefore, my passion for reading died. Therefore, my attitudes towards reading were negative. Fortunately, attitudes towards L2 reading can be changed and influenced by some factors, such as teachers’ support for and classmates’ approach to L2 reading. In this EFL class, my classmates all quite enjoy reading; some of them even could spend hours reading on weekends without feeling bored or tired. Observing them and influenced by their attitudes towards reading, I began my “almost impossible” journey to reading, reading for pleasure and enjoyment. My first free reading was successful. I think my dream to become a fluent L2 reader will come true pretty soon. ^.^
Concerning materials for extensive reading, I found the argument of Johnson (1981) that learners who lacked background knowledge benefited from simplification of language, quite plausible. In Ch 7, Bamford and Day (2002) also place stress on the practical use for expression and communication of adapted reading texts rendering to their weakness on language exquisiteness and literary elegance.
Bamford and Day also clarify a common confusion about the possibility and practicability of the reading methods by introducing the ideas of “I minus one” and “comfort zone” (2002, p92)
What an authentic material is has been discussed over decades. Does the simplification of reading materials mean that they are not authentic? When we consider the purpose of reading, we may realize that reading is primarily set for people to acquire information and enjoy the process of reading. When people read newspapers, they read for information. When people read novels, prose, or comics, basically, they are reading for pleasure. It is quiet natural for literate people to read newspapers in their mother tongue to keep themselves informed of the current events. Also, people are prone to read novels, prose, or comics for pleasure in their native language. However, it seems a little bit hard for second/foreign language learners to read newspapers or novels in the target language from the scratch. Because of the lack of language competence as well as the background knowledge of the target culture, beginning learners are fed with materials which are suitable for them to catch the picture of the materials provided. Readers such as abridged, simplified, and simple are created to meet the needs of the learners. Abridged readers are authentic materials because they are made based on the language level of the learners. Without materials which are suitable for the learners and interesting to them, learners’ confidence in reading can hardly be built, to a certain extent, their leaning motivation will lessen. Learners can not read abundantly without interest in texts they read. In other words, extensive reading will not be possible because of learners’ lack of interest in reading passages. In order to cultivate learners’ interest in reading, a teacher should take learners’ language level and their knowledge of the target culture into consideration. For example, if learners’ language level and background knowledge of the target culture is in the departure one, a teacher should provide learners with simplified materials (as Day mentioned i minus 1) or materials with illustrations, which will be in a sense to facilitate the reading process of the learners. Whereas, when learners have some knowledge of the target culture, harder reading texts (as Krashen proposed i plus 1) can be employed with a view to improving learners’ language ability, especially the ability of sight vocabulary. In brief, when to use i-minus-1 reading materials and when to use i-plus-1 ones, it depends on teachers’ understanding of their students’ language level as well as background knowledge of the target culture. That is to say, students’ language level and their background knowledge of the target culture can be an indicator for teachers to determine when to use language learner literature and when to use original literature.
After reading chapter 6-9 of Extensive Reading in the Second Language Classroom, I find that it is important to have a balance between authenticity and simplification. How to find books that are not only simple for students but also contain entertainment and information of students’ interests is an essential question for teachers to think of. Maybe we can try using language learner literature in our English class next time, and see how our students enjoy the reading. Does anyone know any language learner literature that is suitable for Taiwanese students? Maybe you can give us some suggestions. Another interesting idea is about “I minus 1”, which is different from what Krashen claims “I plus 1”. If we want our students enjoy reading, it is a good idea to start from “I minus 1” readers. In that way, they will build confidence in reading.
Palmer (p. 5) talks about the attention of the reader which should be put on the meaning of the text rather than the specific language of the text. Thinking back to my days as an elementary school student, much of our ‘Language Arts’ class revolved around reading comprehension where we would read a text and analyze, either verbally or on paper, the hidden meanings and intentions of the author and characters of the story. We were taught not only to understand the words but also to read between the lines. We were constantly asked, “Why?” and “How?” We were forced to think about what wasn’t actually written, but could be inferred. This also allowed for us students to use our imaginations to sometimes make up the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ if there was no clear explanation.
Using this method in SLA reading would be a challenge unless the level at which the students are reading is truly at an i minus 1 level.
There are however, some ways that Day & Bamford (2002) discuss that can help us as teachers to guide our students to being successful extensive readers. For example,
• The larger children’s vocabulary, the better their comprehension (p. 17). The more students read, the better they become at it (p.4) and the better they become at it, the more they regard reading as a pleasant, imaginative activity (p. 7) • Encourage reading for joy, pleasure, the literary experience or for factual information (p. 6) • Keep the reading materials well within the students’ linguistic competence (p. 8) and related to the real world. • The development of sight vocabulary (recognizing words automatically without too much thought or recall) can be increased through repetition and can help students become better readers (p. 16). • Texts given to students should be i minus 1 so that they are able to guess words from context (p. 18). • Attitudes of second language reading can be formed by (p. 23): 1) first language reading attitudes 2) previous experience with other second languages 3) attitudes towards the SL, people and culture 4) second language classroom environment and these factors should be made to be positive experiences in order to create successful readers. • Increase motivation through: 1) Using interesting materials 2) Appropriate reading levels according to ability 3) Producing positive attitudes 4) Creating a classroom environment which values and encourages reading • Improvement of reading will inevitably improve writing (p. 37)
The challenge we face as teachers is how to incorporate these theories and suggestions into the curriculum we use. In addition, we must spend the necessary time needed to prepare our lessons and activities so that we are implementing these strategies on a daily basis. I think that aside from the traditional evaluation methods such as testing, one of the best ways to judge if our methods are successful is the degree to which our students enjoy reading and pursue it in their own time.
As an EFL teacher, the biggest problem bothering me is that, how can we motivate our students to enjoy reading L2 materials? I kept thinking this issue and I decided to ask my students to read Taipei Times and discuss in class. As Day and Bamford mentioned in this book, comprehension draws on the reader's prior knowledge of the language, of the world, of text types, and of the topic. Students had their prior knowledge before they read the news and they've discussed the topic they were interested in. For instance, they've chosen "iphone 4 launched" as their discussion target this week. They all know what happened to the news and they all have the prior knowledge toward this product. Therefore, they could discuss actively and even didn't want to end it. As a teacher, it's really glad to see my students have been motivated by these authentic reading materials. The materials are close to their lives. For me, reading quality is more important than quantity. It seems like we still need to notice the quality when we process extensive reading.
Day & Bamford discussed clearly the difference between intensive and extensive reading for readers who may the first time to touch this field. Besides, they mentioned the extensive reading approach and described 10 points of the characteristics of itself. The purpose of extensive reading approach is to develop learners' good reading habits, to build up the knowledge of their real life, and encourage them to like to read. An ER approach cultivates students' four skills. Students are willing to spend time reading widely once they have had previously successful experiences for reading. One famous scholar here in Taiwan, 李家同, published his one book which named " 大量閱讀的重要性. He recommended children read widely (he also listed some books and international magazines) rather than paying attention to read coursebook. On the other hand, extensive reading approach allows students to choose the reading materials which are relevant to their real life or what they want. However, one issue should be considered --authentic materials or printed materials. Giving the authentic materials or printed materials for learners is a controversial issue which has been discussed many years. Teachers,parents or even stakeholders should take this issue into account.
I found it quite true that if we really want to enjoy reading, we should select appropriate materials that are slightly below our English proficiency level. That way, the whole reading process will be focused mainly on the content instead of the vocabulary. The “I minus 1” concept can be best described as an idea that helps learners to build their confidence in second language reading. If learners convince that they have the ability to read the second language material without much difficulty, then I can say that this will be a nice start for convincing them that reading can be as enjoyable as watching TV or playing computer games. I’ve noticed that most students have difficulty to develop a good English reading habit because they believe that they haven’t reached the capacity of reading a second language by themselves. I think this kind of phenomenon is partially due to the educational system in Taiwan or you can say it has something to do with culture. Both junior and senior high school English teachers will spend most of their time teaching grammar, vocabulary, and sentence structures in an article, because their ultimate goal is to possess students with the ability to pass the college entrance exam. In this kind of learning environment, it will be rare for teachers to find students’ motivation in English reading. Thus, the idea of incorporating extensive reading into the curriculum seems to be very important nowadays. Teachers should suggest and encourage students to select whatever English reading materials they are interested in to read it every week. Students can not only follow their own pace of reading, but choose what they believe is useful and interesting to them. They can even repeat the book or article they read again and again and write their comments about it if they don’t want or cannot find their interest in other books. With this kind of repeated reading, students can unconsciously become a fluent reader in that particular level. This will be the best way to initiate their motivation toward reading in the second language. While they are reading those materials, it will be better for teachers to recommend learners to take notes or use their own words to summarize the whole book or article. The length of time for their reading can be written at the bottom of their summary for student’s own reference and for the teacher’s evaluation. At the end of the course, the teacher can gather their notebooks to see their progress and even have a better understanding of their students’ interest based on the materials that the students have selected. In brief, choosing books that are appropriate for the students’ current language proficiency level is definitely important.
According to the first five chapters, extensive reading is the reading that allows readers to choose their own reading materials by their interests. The materials are better be at “i minus 1”. While doing extensive reading, readers should focus on the meaning not word or structure analysis, and moreover, have to read rapidly, constantly and widely. As for teachers in teaching the second language reading, letting students have the positive attitude and the motivation is important. In addition, the creation of the second language environment may be essential to students. Through extensive reading in the target language (or the second language), students have chances to develop vocabulary knowledge and pick up grammar and writing styles naturally. For myself, I like reading a lot no matter in Chinese or English. Materials I read usually are the topics I enjoy. As Prof. Debra Goodman says, as long as students find a book which they don’t want to put down, they may become lifelong readers. I agree with her words because that’s the reason keeping me reading. Furthermore, while reading in English, I don’t like to look up new words in dictionary unless that’s necessary. I’ve read books in different English level. However, my vocabulary knowledge is not improved. I don’t know either the amount of books I read is still too less or the way of not writing new vocabulary from books down is wrong. In the last class, Prof. Huang mentioned that it takes around 7 years to make non-English native speakers become a fluent (professional maybe?) reader. In that case I still have a long way to go.
99-1 TSLR Homework One：Reflection 1 by Wen-pi Robert Chao (899110067)
After skimming and digesting the scheduled texts of ER, I’d propose a couple of questions which may be worthy of further exploration: As quoted in the third paragraph of page 15, S. Jay Samuels mentioned that “if the reader’s attention is on decoding and if attention can be directed at only one process at a time, the comprehension task in not getting done” (1994, p. 821). He stated further that “beginning readers are forced to switch their attention back and forth from decoding to constructing meaning, which, in his words, is ‘slow, laborious, and frustrating’ (p. 822). My major concern to this is if our beginning readers pay more attention on the definitions of isolated or separated words or on word recognition in lieu of connected and meaningful construction and if they are poorly guided and unsuccessfully motivated, like Alfie Kohn ever stressed in the beginning of the abstract of his recently published paper How to Create Nonreaders: Reflections on Motivation, Learning, and Sharing Power, “it's not really possible to motivate anyone, except perhaps yourself.”, would it be possible that they just quit in the middle of their reading, no matter it is for first or foreign language, because they just cannot always get the whole picture of that text? How can we second language reading teachers trigger their wish to learn more? Gaining a great deal of sight vocabulary to broaden the general vocabulary knowledge seems quite helpful to develop our novice readers into fluent ones. If extensive reading can really build up students’ strong motivation and positive attitudes, what do we need to do more? The more attractive and interesting materials we’re supposed to pick and more vivid and interactive teaching methods to inculcate? Or else? It’s a really good way to learn to read by reading, according to Stephen Krashen. And as an experienced English teacher, I’m pretty sure there’re always some flexible alternatives whenever considering how the more authentic and appropriately simple materials of extensive reading can be smoothly integrated into our course and curriculum in a more entertaining, funnier, informative or content-driven, communicative, and even responsive and supportive manner; especially we do so with a higher aim in mind. To meet the readers’ practical needs in and after class when calculating the weighting factor (WF) on page 95 to assign a readability grade level, some funny comics, translated works, and even suitably invented materials and others may quench their thirst with extensive reading. Some well-arranged texts from the aforementioned and online resources if helpful can also be put into practice to help our readers with their increasing literacy skills.
In my tutorial experiences, I found that extensive reading (or free voluntary reading) is a key to student gains in reading ability, linguistic competence, vocabulary, spelling, and writing. I still remember one of my students comes from 格自 junior high school, he prefers reading to watching television. For him, reading is a pleasant, meaning-centered activity. I finally realized that reading for pleasure and reading without looking up all the unknown words were both highly correlated with overall language proficiency. The "love" of reading has propelled a learner to successful acquisition of reading skills. Other affective factors just as language ego, empathy, self-esteem and motivation also undergird the acquisition of reading.
Whether or not extensive reading can be promoted successfully depends largely on the students’ learning attitude and motivation. In the third chapter, we are given figures that illustrate the model of acquisition and development of second language reading attitude (p. 23), and the model of the major variables motivating the decision to read in a second language (p. 28). What interests me, though, is the article written by Alfie Kohn, who explains how teachers kill the students’ motivation. Like many teachers who encourage their students to do outside reading, I tend to demotivate my students’ interest in reading, as Kohn has suggested, by “quantifying their reading assignments,” “making them write reports,” “offering them incentives,” “preparing them for tests,” and probably also “restricting their choices” in extensive reading (p. 16-19). Though autonomy is encouraged, I believe that, for a start, we should provide the students with relevant resources available on the Internet for fun, meaning, or information. For instance, “Project Gutenberg” on the Internet provides a good source of public domain free ebooks for L1 readers. I wonder if we can together compile a list of reading materials and resources available on the Internet especially for second language readers.
Aaron’s Reflection 1
ReplyDeleteI think the Day and Bamford book is an excellent introduction for teachers into the field of extensive reading. The style of their writing is direct and informative, and their book offers practical knowledge and advice that can be useful for any teacher who is interested in creating or teaching an extensive reading program.
In my opinion, one of the most important issues discussed in the first 5 chapters was the section about L2 Reading Attitudes. Figure 1 on page 23 is a clear example of how L2 reading attitudes are formed, and in my opinion represents some of the important values that students need to have in order to have a successful ER program. I’m sure this probably varies from culture to culture, and I would be interested in learning more about these factors in Taiwanese society, specifically learner’s attitudes towards their L1 reading. I have made several observations over the years of teaching university students in Taiwan and feel that to a large degree, my student’s behavior and motivation is based-upon their attitudes towards their learning experiences in their L1 or influenced by the education system as a whole. Unfortunately, my experience in the Taiwanese education system is limited to teaching university students and being a graduate student, so I cannot fully understand what most Taiwanese experience as they travel through the system here. I could only comment on specific stories my university students, and private students, have shared with me over the years. As I said, I would be very interested to learn more from everyone else in our course on this subject.
Natalie's Reflection 1
ReplyDeleteI have two questions here:
1.Not matter Samuels’ “I minus1”” or Krashen’s comprehensible input hypothesis in picking out a material, I wonder that how can we as an instructor can measure the real competence of learners.
2.Some researchers or experts in the extensive field believe the sight vocabulary is priority rather than looking up a dictionary because they claim “Familiarity breeds automaticity.” I have some problems here, like my learning experience in learning English reading, I usually look up the words I am not pretty sure and try to memorize them, and by time to time, more frequently those words appear, more quickly I can pick them up. I can’t imagine just by reading a great deal without the tool books (one way to know the meaning of the words), can the sight vocabulary really turn into meaning vocabulary?
PS. Let's learn together, Aaron :)
After reading the first five chapters, I started to become an avid reader, absorbing myself in the world of reading. To me, reading equaled boredom, which couldn’t attract me at all. I would spend hours watching TV or surfing the Internet rather than reading. However, I started to like reading because I want to be a fluent L2 reader. As claimed by Day and Bamford, reading skills can be developed through extensive and continuing practice. I was taught to read for passing exams, not for pleasure or enjoyment; therefore, my passion for reading died. Therefore, my attitudes towards reading were negative. Fortunately, attitudes towards L2 reading can be changed and influenced by some factors, such as teachers’ support for and classmates’ approach to L2 reading. In this EFL class, my classmates all quite enjoy reading; some of them even could spend hours reading on weekends without feeling bored or tired. Observing them and influenced by their attitudes towards reading, I began my “almost impossible” journey to reading, reading for pleasure and enjoyment. My first free reading was successful. I think my dream to become a fluent L2 reader will come true pretty soon. ^.^
ReplyDeleteConcerning materials for extensive reading, I found the argument of Johnson (1981) that learners who lacked background knowledge benefited from simplification of language, quite plausible. In Ch 7, Bamford and Day (2002) also place stress on the practical use for expression and communication of adapted reading texts rendering to their weakness on language exquisiteness and literary elegance.
ReplyDeleteBamford and Day also clarify a common confusion about the possibility and practicability of the reading methods by introducing the ideas of “I minus one” and “comfort zone” (2002, p92)
What an authentic material is has been discussed over decades. Does the simplification of reading materials mean that they are not authentic? When we consider the purpose of reading, we may realize that reading is primarily set for people to acquire information and enjoy the process of reading. When people read newspapers, they read for information. When people read novels, prose, or comics, basically, they are reading for pleasure. It is quiet natural for literate people to read newspapers in their mother tongue to keep themselves informed of the current events. Also, people are prone to read novels, prose, or comics for pleasure in their native language.
ReplyDeleteHowever, it seems a little bit hard for second/foreign language learners to read newspapers or novels in the target language from the scratch. Because of the lack of language competence as well as the background knowledge of the target culture, beginning learners are fed with materials which are suitable for them to catch the picture of the materials provided. Readers such as abridged, simplified, and simple are created to meet the needs of the learners. Abridged readers are authentic materials because they are made based on the language level of the learners. Without materials which are suitable for the learners and interesting to them, learners’ confidence in reading can hardly be built, to a certain extent, their leaning motivation will lessen. Learners can not read abundantly without interest in texts they read. In other words, extensive reading will not be possible because of learners’ lack of interest in reading passages.
In order to cultivate learners’ interest in reading, a teacher should take learners’ language level and their knowledge of the target culture into consideration. For example, if learners’ language level and background knowledge of the target culture is in the departure one, a teacher should provide learners with simplified materials (as Day mentioned i minus 1) or materials with illustrations, which will be in a sense to facilitate the reading process of the learners. Whereas, when learners have some knowledge of the target culture, harder reading texts (as Krashen proposed i plus 1) can be employed with a view to improving learners’ language ability, especially the ability of sight vocabulary. In brief, when to use i-minus-1 reading materials and when to use i-plus-1 ones, it depends on teachers’ understanding of their students’ language level as well as background knowledge of the target culture. That is to say, students’ language level and their background knowledge of the target culture can be an indicator for teachers to determine when to use language learner literature and when to use original literature.
After reading chapter 6-9 of Extensive Reading in the Second Language Classroom, I find that it is important to have a balance between authenticity and simplification. How to find books that are not only simple for students but also contain entertainment and information of students’ interests is an essential question for teachers to think of. Maybe we can try using language learner literature in our English class next time, and see how our students enjoy the reading. Does anyone know any language learner literature that is suitable for Taiwanese students? Maybe you can give us some suggestions.
ReplyDeleteAnother interesting idea is about “I minus 1”, which is different from what Krashen claims “I plus 1”. If we want our students enjoy reading, it is a good idea to start from “I minus 1” readers. In that way, they will build confidence in reading.
Palmer (p. 5) talks about the attention of the reader which should be put on the meaning of the text rather than the specific language of the text. Thinking back to my days as an elementary school student, much of our ‘Language Arts’ class revolved around reading comprehension where we would read a text and analyze, either verbally or on paper, the hidden meanings and intentions of the author and characters of the story. We were taught not only to understand the words but also to read between the lines. We were constantly asked, “Why?” and “How?” We were forced to think about what wasn’t actually written, but could be inferred. This also allowed for us students to use our imaginations to sometimes make up the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ if there was no clear explanation.
ReplyDeleteUsing this method in SLA reading would be a challenge unless the level at which the students are reading is truly at an i minus 1 level.
There are however, some ways that Day & Bamford (2002) discuss that can help us as teachers to guide our students to being successful extensive readers. For example,
• The larger children’s vocabulary, the better their comprehension (p. 17). The more students read, the better they become at it (p.4) and the better they become at it, the more they regard reading as a pleasant, imaginative activity (p. 7)
• Encourage reading for joy, pleasure, the literary experience or for factual information (p. 6)
• Keep the reading materials well within the students’ linguistic competence (p. 8) and related to the real world.
• The development of sight vocabulary (recognizing words automatically without too much thought or recall) can be increased through repetition and can help students become better readers (p. 16).
• Texts given to students should be i minus 1 so that they are able to guess words from context (p. 18).
• Attitudes of second language reading can be formed by (p. 23):
1) first language reading attitudes
2) previous experience with other second languages
3) attitudes towards the SL, people and culture
4) second language classroom environment
and these factors should be made to be positive experiences in order to create successful readers.
• Increase motivation through:
1) Using interesting materials
2) Appropriate reading levels according to ability
3) Producing positive attitudes
4) Creating a classroom environment which values and encourages reading
• Improvement of reading will inevitably improve writing (p. 37)
The challenge we face as teachers is how to incorporate these theories and suggestions into the curriculum we use. In addition, we must spend the necessary time needed to prepare our lessons and activities so that we are implementing these strategies on a daily basis. I think that aside from the traditional evaluation methods such as testing, one of the best ways to judge if our methods are successful is the degree to which our students enjoy reading and pursue it in their own time.
As an EFL teacher, the biggest problem bothering me is that, how can we motivate our students to enjoy reading L2 materials? I kept thinking this issue and I decided to ask my students to read Taipei Times and discuss in class. As Day and Bamford mentioned in this book, comprehension draws on the reader's prior knowledge of the language, of the world, of text types, and of the topic. Students had their prior knowledge before they read the news and they've discussed the topic they were interested in. For instance, they've chosen "iphone 4 launched" as their discussion target this week. They all know what happened to the news and they all have the prior knowledge toward this product. Therefore, they could discuss actively and even didn't want to end it. As a teacher, it's really glad to see my students have been motivated by these authentic reading materials. The materials are close to their lives. For me, reading quality is more important than quantity. It seems like we still need to notice the quality when we process extensive reading.
ReplyDeleteDay & Bamford discussed clearly the difference between intensive and extensive reading for readers who may the first time to touch this field. Besides, they mentioned the extensive reading approach and described 10 points of the characteristics of itself. The purpose of extensive reading approach is to develop learners' good reading habits, to build up the knowledge of their real life, and encourage them to like to read. An ER approach cultivates students' four skills. Students are willing to spend time reading widely once they have had previously successful experiences for reading.
ReplyDeleteOne famous scholar here in Taiwan, 李家同, published his one book which named " 大量閱讀的重要性. He recommended children read widely (he also listed some books and international magazines) rather than paying attention to read coursebook.
On the other hand, extensive reading approach allows students to choose the reading materials which are relevant to their real life or what they want. However, one issue should be considered --authentic materials or printed materials. Giving the authentic materials or printed materials for learners is a controversial issue which has been discussed many years. Teachers,parents or even stakeholders should take this issue into account.
I found it quite true that if we really want to enjoy reading, we should select appropriate materials that are slightly below our English proficiency level. That way, the whole reading process will be focused mainly on the content instead of the vocabulary. The “I minus 1” concept can be best described as an idea that helps learners to build their confidence in second language reading. If learners convince that they have the ability to read the second language material without much difficulty, then I can say that this will be a nice start for convincing them that reading can be as enjoyable as watching TV or playing computer games. I’ve noticed that most students have difficulty to develop a good English reading habit because they believe that they haven’t reached the capacity of reading a second language by themselves. I think this kind of phenomenon is partially due to the educational system in Taiwan or you can say it has something to do with culture. Both junior and senior high school English teachers will spend most of their time teaching grammar, vocabulary, and sentence structures in an article, because their ultimate goal is to possess students with the ability to pass the college entrance exam. In this kind of learning environment, it will be rare for teachers to find students’ motivation in English reading. Thus, the idea of incorporating extensive reading into the curriculum seems to be very important nowadays. Teachers should suggest and encourage students to select whatever English reading materials they are interested in to read it every week. Students can not only follow their own pace of reading, but choose what they believe is useful and interesting to them. They can even repeat the book or article they read again and again and write their comments about it if they don’t want or cannot find their interest in other books. With this kind of repeated reading, students can unconsciously become a fluent reader in that particular level. This will be the best way to initiate their motivation toward reading in the second language. While they are reading those materials, it will be better for teachers to recommend learners to take notes or use their own words to summarize the whole book or article. The length of time for their reading can be written at the bottom of their summary for student’s own reference and for the teacher’s evaluation. At the end of the course, the teacher can gather their notebooks to see their progress and even have a better understanding of their students’ interest based on the materials that the students have selected. In brief, choosing books that are appropriate for the students’ current language proficiency level is definitely important.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the first five chapters, extensive reading is the reading that allows readers to choose their own reading materials by their interests. The materials are better be at “i minus 1”. While doing extensive reading, readers should focus on the meaning not word or structure analysis, and moreover, have to read rapidly, constantly and widely. As for teachers in teaching the second language reading, letting students have the positive attitude and the motivation is important. In addition, the creation of the second language environment may be essential to students. Through extensive reading in the target language (or the second language), students have chances to develop vocabulary knowledge and pick up grammar and writing styles naturally.
ReplyDeleteFor myself, I like reading a lot no matter in Chinese or English. Materials I read usually are the topics I enjoy. As Prof. Debra Goodman says, as long as students find a book which they don’t want to put down, they may become lifelong readers. I agree with her words because that’s the reason keeping me reading. Furthermore, while reading in English, I don’t like to look up new words in dictionary unless that’s necessary. I’ve read books in different English level. However, my vocabulary knowledge is not improved. I don’t know either the amount of books I read is still too less or the way of not writing new vocabulary from books down is wrong. In the last class, Prof. Huang mentioned that it takes around 7 years to make non-English native speakers become a fluent (professional maybe?) reader. In that case I still have a long way to go.
99-1 TSLR Homework One：Reflection 1
ReplyDeleteby Wen-pi Robert Chao (899110067)
After skimming and digesting the scheduled texts of ER, I’d propose a couple of questions which may be worthy of further exploration:
As quoted in the third paragraph of page 15, S. Jay Samuels mentioned that “if the reader’s attention is on decoding and if attention can be directed at only one process at a time, the comprehension task in not getting done” (1994, p. 821). He stated further that “beginning readers are forced to switch their attention back and forth from decoding to constructing meaning, which, in his words, is ‘slow, laborious, and frustrating’ (p. 822). My major concern to this is if our beginning readers pay more attention on the definitions of isolated or separated words or on word recognition in lieu of connected and meaningful construction and if they are poorly guided and unsuccessfully motivated, like Alfie Kohn ever stressed in the beginning of the abstract of his recently published paper How to Create Nonreaders: Reflections on Motivation, Learning, and Sharing Power, “it's not really possible to motivate anyone, except perhaps yourself.”, would it be possible that they just quit in the middle of their reading, no matter it is for first or foreign language, because they just cannot always get the whole picture of that text? How can we second language reading teachers trigger their wish to learn more?
Gaining a great deal of sight vocabulary to broaden the general vocabulary knowledge seems quite helpful to develop our novice readers into fluent ones. If extensive reading can really build up students’ strong motivation and positive attitudes, what do we need to do more? The more attractive and interesting materials we’re supposed to pick and more vivid and interactive teaching methods to inculcate? Or else?
It’s a really good way to learn to read by reading, according to Stephen Krashen. And as an experienced English teacher, I’m pretty sure there’re always some flexible alternatives whenever considering how the more authentic and appropriately simple materials of extensive reading can be smoothly integrated into our course and curriculum in a more entertaining, funnier, informative or content-driven, communicative, and even responsive and supportive manner; especially we do so with a higher aim in mind.
To meet the readers’ practical needs in and after class when calculating the weighting factor (WF) on page 95 to assign a readability grade level, some funny comics, translated works, and even suitably invented materials and others may quench their thirst with extensive reading. Some well-arranged texts from the aforementioned and online resources if helpful can also be put into practice to help our readers with their increasing literacy skills.
Alice's reflection:
ReplyDeleteIn my tutorial experiences, I found that extensive reading (or free voluntary reading) is a key to student gains in reading ability, linguistic competence, vocabulary, spelling, and writing. I still remember one of my students comes from 格自 junior high school, he prefers reading to watching television. For him, reading is a pleasant, meaning-centered activity. I finally realized that reading for pleasure and reading without looking up all the unknown words were both highly correlated with overall language proficiency. The "love" of reading has propelled a learner to successful acquisition of reading skills. Other affective factors just as language ego, empathy, self-esteem and motivation also undergird the acquisition of reading.
Whether or not extensive reading can be promoted successfully depends largely on the students’ learning attitude and motivation. In the third chapter, we are given figures that illustrate the model of acquisition and development of second language reading attitude (p. 23), and the model of the major variables motivating the decision to read in a second language (p. 28). What interests me, though, is the article written by Alfie Kohn, who explains how teachers kill the students’ motivation.
ReplyDeleteLike many teachers who encourage their students to do outside reading, I tend to demotivate my students’ interest in reading, as Kohn has suggested, by “quantifying their reading assignments,” “making them write reports,” “offering them incentives,” “preparing them for tests,” and probably also “restricting their choices” in extensive reading (p. 16-19).
Though autonomy is encouraged, I believe that, for a start, we should provide the students with relevant resources available on the Internet for fun, meaning, or information. For instance, “Project Gutenberg” on the Internet provides a good source of public domain free ebooks for L1 readers. I wonder if we can together compile a list of reading materials and resources available on the Internet especially for second language readers.