I love the idea of Free Voluntary Reading in a language learning classroom. Just like what Krashen (2004) had said, we learn the language by knowing the meaning of the language (meaning-focused), by learning in a comprehensible way, and by immersing in a relaxed environment. Reading, in itself, is very powerful since we can learn much more beyond the text, such as the culture, language structures, and word usages in different types of texts. Enjoyment can be developed easily as long as we read what we believe is interesting and comprehensible. Numerous studies showed that the implementation of those free voluntary reading programs either stand at an equal point with the traditional classroom instruction or even outperform the traditional ones when compared the results at the end of their studies. Thus, it seems that there is no need for direct instruction on the bits and pieces of reading because learners can develop this kind of literacy skills themselves. I understand the useless of explicit grammar rules or vocabulary teaching in a classroom and understand that students can barely acquire the language through those drills and practices, but I cannot help but wondered that “What role should the English teacher play when she or he is teaching reading?” Should we spend most of our class time on free voluntary reading or we should do some intensive reading as well? Because of the culture differences, will the students in Taiwan or other Asian countries think that the teacher is doing nothing in the classroom? The reason I have this in mind is because most students expect teachers to do most of the talking and lectures in class. Our learners may assume that they can do this kind of extensive reading outside of class, why spend time doing it in class? Align with most of the studies that were against “direct instruction”, I am curious about the role that an English teacher should play in an English reading classroom. To sum up, I believe in the effectiveness of the free voluntary reading program and the benefits that it can provide for the readers and learners, but can’t help but wonder the need of a teacher in an English reading classroom once the program has started.
Anthony said: Free Voluntary Reading (FVR) is the foundation of language education and it provides three types of in-school free reading programs: sustained silent reading, self-selected reading, and extensive reading. I do believe that it is better spent time building up students’ word knowledge by reading wildly rather than teaching vocabulary lists. As we know, each time an unfamiliar word is read in context, a small increase in word knowledge typically occurs.
I totally agree that the Reading Hypothesis works well in in-school reading programs in better (1) reading comprehension, (2) writing style, (3) vocabulary, (4) spelling, (5) grammatical, and (6) development. Reading develops vocabulary and spelling.
Besides, the Pleasure Hypothesis was proposed by Krashen (1994) and mentioned that if an activity promotes language acquisition, it is enjoyable. However, enjoyment does not guarantee language acquisition. It occurred to me that Desuggestopedia is one of teaching methods. The purposes of this method are learning is facilitated in a cheerful environment; students can learn from environment, even if their attention is not directed to it, and assuming a new identity enhances students’ feeling of security and allows them to be more open. However, in sum, I think that the prerequisite of this way is to build up students’ self-confidence and then we move on next stages.
I was just reading Frances' comments and I'd like to take a stab at some of her very valid questions.
I think you raise a good point about Asian students who might have the wrong impression of a teacher who doesn't 'teach' anything during the SSR portions of the reading class.
I think that the point of SSR is to provide an opportunity for students to read in a low-anxiety situation. By allowing time for this during class (as opposed to assigning it for homework), students will hopefully feel that it is more important than they initially thought, especially if the teacher is also participating. The result is a positive attitude towards reading which is just one good aspect of allowing class time for this.
Also, although learners may assume that they can do this outside of class, few of them actually do. I think if every student did do SSR, FVR and/or extensive reading on their own free time, the level of all our students would be much higher.
In response to your question, I think that the intention of SSR is just to take up a portion of the reading class such as 20 or 30 min's (longer or shorter depending on the teacher/students). This would leave another 30 min's or more for the teacher to do other activities.
It may also be an idea for the teacher to give some explanations to their students about why they are doing SSR and to promote it in a way so that students will feel positive about it and look forward to it instead of focussing on why the teacher isn't teaching anything.
I remember when I was in elementary school and if I had the chance to do SSR instead of listening to the teacher teach, I would do it in a hearbeat and not even think about complaining. But, like you mention, there are cultural differences and Asian students may not respond the same way as western students. Would they? Or could we acknowledge that this may be an issue and accept that we may just need to let them get used to new methods of learning?
The other thing you mention about the cultural differences is more relevant than we may think. Many of these studies are done in western cultures and may assume that students of all cultures will respond in the same way. However, the nature of the western education system is very different from that of the Asian one. Although these studies show the value of SSR and put a high importance on reading without pressure, we still have to take into account the cultural differences of our education systems as well as the roles of teachers and students.
Wow!!! Thank you, Emily, for answering my questions~!
I know that Robinson and Hulett (1991) and Pilgreen (2000) had mentioned about the duration (either 5~15 minutes or 15~20 minutes) of implementing the SSR in the classroom, and I believe I have no question about that~!
What confuses me is the no "direct instruction" part (Krashen, 2004, p. 18). If reading could be done by one's own, then why bothered to have an English reading teacher in the classroom?? (I agree that teaching spelling is ridiculous, but how about other reading skills?) I was wondering, what should an English reading teacher teach besides doing the FVR in their classroom? Should we put more focus on the extensive reading part, or put an equal weight on both intensive and extensive reading?
From Emily: There are many good points that Krashen makes in Part I of ‘The Power of Reading’. Many of the conclusions can be related to our students here, in Taiwan. These are the points that stuck out most for me: 1.FVR is the missing ingredient in first language “language arts” as well as intermediate second and foreign language instruction……..it provides a foundation so that higher levels of proficiency may be achieved.” (p.1) 2.A recurring theme from many of the studies that Krashen mentions is that FVR programs show more positive and consistent results the longer the program is. 3.Many studies show a positive relationship between amounts read by students and improvements in spelling. 4.The study I found most relevant to Taiwan was the study done with 2 adult groups of ESL students where they were tested on unknown words in the book, Animal Farm. One group memorized the vocab words, the other group just read the book. After a week both groups were tested. Although the group who had memorized the words tested better after the initial test, after the second test three weeks later, this same group and in fact forgot some of the words. The group that had read though actually improved their scores on the second test. This is relevant to our students here because memorization is a big part of how students study, it is also what is required of them by their teachers. As this study shows, memorizing doesn’t have long-term effects and if we want our students to retain the information we teach them (in a reading context) we should focus on letting them read without the pressure of memorizing anything. (p. 15) 5.The ‘Complexity Argument’, that language is too complex to be deliberately and consciously learned one rule or item at a time. (p. 18). This is in contrast to the junior and senior high school English text books used in Taiwan. Is it feasible to change things on such a dramatic scale?•time is better spent reading than learning vocab lists•grammar instruction has no impact on reading and writing (p. 27)•the challenge then becomes, if we take learning English through sentence patterns out of the equation, it seems that a huge portion of the English curriculum here would have to be changed. This might be a good thing….? 6.“I felt I was getting a better sense of the language from novels than from grammars” ~ author Richard Wright (p. 21) 7. Evidence to show that children learn to spell without instruction. (p. 25) 8.Krashen has concluded that we acquire language in only one way: by understanding messages, or obtaining “comprehensible input” in a low-anxiety situation. (p. 38). 9.In studies that compare SSR or FVR with another method and which show a finding of “no difference”, suggest that reading is just as good as traditional instruction and is therefore preferable, because it is more pleasant and provides benefits other than literacy development. (p. 46) 10.For adult SLL, writing activities in which students use new words in sentences and essays are more effective for vocab acquisition than reading words in stories. (p. 49) 11.Recreational reading is one of the few activities a foreign language learner can do without a classroom and a teacher. (p. 50) All of these points are not just in favour of SSR and FVR but also show evidence through numerous studies of how they are better than other SL teaching and learning methods.
This homework is composed of three aspects: (1) a reflection, (2) a touching citation, (3) questions about some ideas conveyed in the textbook. (1)Reflection: The author proposed that reading can be the most important language skill, for it helps improve a learner’s reading comprehension, writing styles, vocabulary power, spelling, and grammatical development. With successful examples found everywhere around the world, Free Voluntary Reading should have its own accountability. However, reading class in Taiwan tends to be given in a safe learning environment; that is, most teachers (include myself) use grammar translation approach, which makes real reading impossible in class. In order to address this problem, teachers should, based on students’ language level and interest, recommend or choose appropriate reading materials (like simplified novels, illustrated books, and comics so on) for students. Through different types of reading, such as sustained silent reading, selected reading, and extensive reading, students’ development in literacy can be expected. As a teacher, any tricks can be employed if students are willing to get hooked on books. (2)A touching citation: “At times the temptation to get rid of them 〔the children of the poor〕is strong. But if we lose them, school is no longer school.” (p. 40) (3)Questions: (a)Why does the author say that those who recognize more authors’ names have read more and have superior literacy development? (b)Is grammar sheer useless in terms of second language acquisition?
From Part I, there are lots of evidences showing that reading helps writing. “Several studies confirm that those who read more in their second language also write better in that language” (p.10); “In-school free reading studies and “out of school” self-reported free voluntary reading studies show that more reading results in better reading comprehension, writing style…” (p.17); “well-read people nearly always write acceptably well and find it very difficult to write poorly.” (p.45) The reason why reading is good for building writing skill, I agree with Krashen’s view (p.45) that readers acquire grammar, vocabulary, writing structure and style subconsciously, and then reflect these on their writing naturally. I think through this way to learn writing is much better than to learn in the traditional way. Besides, the advantages of reading a lot are not only about the improvement of writing but also the development of reading and spelling. In brief, it’s worthy of spending much time on reading deeply, widely and gaining essential language skills, like reading ability, of English learning.
As for reading, there are three ideas mentioned in this part drawing my attention: 1. “The pleasure hypothesis: If an activity promotes language acquisition, it is enjoyable. But enjoyment does not guarantee language acquisition.” (p.28) 2. “we acquire language in only one way: by understanding messages, or obtaining “comprehensible input” in a low-anxiety situation.” (p.37) 3. “wide reading is clearly helpful, but when one is reading to solve specific problems, selective reading is more efficient, that is, reading what you need to read to solve the problem you are currently working on.” (p.55) I approve that language learning should be in a joyful environment. When students feel safe and comfortable, they will be more willing to participate in the learning. However, for some students learning for specific purposes, like senior high school students in Taiwan, perhaps they need to learn by different means in order to achieve their goals in a very short time. In that case, I don’t think extensive reading, or FVR, is an appropriated method for them to learn English since the effectiveness of FVR is not very obvious in a short time. The other surprised me is that reading has something to do with people’s future career! People who read more and like to read seem to have a better job than those who don’t. It is possibly because they are good thinkers. I do believe that reading makes us smarter (p.36) and influence our thinking and behavior. Nevertheless, the power of reading is apparently much stronger than I think! No wonder there is a Chinese saying, “a book holds a house of gold.” Hope I can also find my own gold in books one day.
The idea of selecting books from-easy-to-hard-to-harder texts (p.7) for processing reading appears to meet our eager readers’ needs. I agree with the relevant consistency of conducting free voluntary reading (FVR) and development of literate ability (p.11) since for ESL readers, according to the reading hypothesis in Figure 1.1 (p.17), skill-building and error correction through instruction (p. 18) can be alternatively constructed via consciously productive practices in school. The point that Cornman (1902) argued in the 3-year research (p.24) that the continuing improvement in spelling is somewhat coherent with the study by Waring and Takakei (2003), saying that “vocabulary acquisition is distributed and incremental” (p. 47). If the reader focuses more on the exact meaning of the unknown words, different degrees of vagueness might somehow hamper the interest and enjoyment of reading. The external motivation of the reader may dominate the attitude toward reading. In reality, the task that the school and we teaching faculty encounter is always to transfer the slow and passive learners into quick and active ones. We’ve got to make that happen and it is a point of no return (p. 40). My major concern this time is, from Bustead (1943) on page 48, “Would the existing policy of evaluating our learners’ linguistic proficiency at midterms and finals or in week 9 and 18 be in accordance with what Bustead’s argument of the suitable way to facilitate what our readers have learned?”. If the reader is encouraged to distinguish “what I choose to read in and after class” from “what I have to read in school”, the concept of free voluntary reading can be optimistically realized.
In a traditional reading classroom, the main focus is reading comprehension and grammar while in free voluntary reading (FVR) one, the primary attention is paid to pleasure reading. Furthermore, a great deal of research has been conducted to confirm that the students in a FVR class work better than the students in a traditional one. Not only reading comprehension and word recognition but also writing could be improved through FVR. Through reading, especially FVR, language learners could learn the way how the authors write and subconsciously become good at writing. In a FVR classroom, learners will be provided chances to decide what to read, when to read, and when to stop. Therefore, they should take responsibility of their own reading, which depends on whether they are autonomous learners or not. For passive learners, they may not be able to read on their own or they may not be willing to do so. As teachers, we should encourage them to read and read for fun. Teachers should also read together with learners to make learners feel that teachers are like friends in a reading club, not a dominating figure in a cold-walled classroom. I think it will take a lot of time to change learners’ previous and fixed belief and behavior; however, the outcome is favorable. Let’s start FVR or extensive reading right NOW! We definitely can make English learning environment quite different.
Krashen cites many research studies to provide evidence for the positive results of Free Voluntary Reading (FVR) used in developing reading comprehension ability, writing style, vocabulary, grammar, and spelling. Moreover, additional evidence is provided to show that FVR is pleasant, promotes cognitive development, and lowers writing apprehension. Krashen uses evidence from research studies to convince readers that FVR is very beneficial for students. The evidence is so powerful and convincing that I would really like to try using FVR in my college English class. At least, I believe that students would enjoy Free Voluntary Reading much better than direct instruction because they can experience the pleasure of reading personally and this kind of pleasure would allure them to keep reading English books. Thinking of our final project, one question occurred to me. My question is that if we practice both FVR and direct instruction in the same class, how can we make sure whether the English improvement of students results from FVR or direct instruction?
I was surprised that Krashen mentions one of my familiar writers—Richard Wright (p.20-22) in this book. Through the recommendation of my college teacher, I’ve read some of Wright’s articles and got some racial prejudice concept from them. The most impressing one is “Big Black Good Man”. This story was written in a time when racial prejudice was a major factor in society. Today we still have racial prejudice, but it is not seen as often as it was back then. The point in which Richard Wright wanted to get across by this story is that we should "never judge a book by its cover." I still remember that he uses Olaf and Lena in this story to show the differences in views they have about prejudice. The story made a great impact on me. I am wondering if I didn’t read Richard Wright’s article, I probably don’t feel the racial prejudice so much. Now I have a better idea through Krashen’s description in “The Power of Reading”(p.21): “He (Richard Wright) delivered newspaper only so that he could read them and used an associate’s library card to take books out of a library that was restricted to whites.” Nowadays we are still affected by Richard Wright for getting a better idea of racial prejudice because of his novels, not from grammar books. It is just like Krashen states that “Author Richard Wright attributed his language development to novels, not English grammars.” (p.21) That’s the one of valuable things from reading novels. Richard Wright’s novels remind me another story “The Yellow Wallpaper” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1892). I was also impacted by her story. She was the one who brought me into feminism world and started noticing sexual discrimination issues in my life. I admit that if I didn’t read these articles, I definitely do not “wake up” from the patriarchy society. Actually the awareness is one of my reasons for taking “Eco-feminism novels” course this semester because I want to absorb more this kind of knowledge and novels to have a better idea for feminism. Although I am not yet up to speed reading those novels but I believe that I’ll get into it soon.
As to Frances and Emily’s opinions toward to FVR and current language teachers’ role in Taiwan, I have the same struggles between theories and realities. Take my writing class for an example, I’ve read numerous researches and theories which all “warn” me that it’s better for a language teacher not to correct students’ grammar of their articles. I attempted to follow what theories said but it turned out students’ negative feedback. They thought that they did learn nothing without teachers’ correction and also thought teachers did nothing for them if teachers did not correct their grammar mistakes. After thinking over this issue, I spent a whole period explaining why I did like that. I showed them what specialists and professors suggested for error correction and some results of researches about teaching writing. I was not sure if they accepted those facts but it was a good start to defend for what I did. However, for my reputation being a “good teacher” there, I compromised to fit students’ “needs” though, if they insisted that’s their need.
The same experience as I taught in a kindergarten, parents always wanted to guide what teacher should teach. It turns out “not-professional people lead professional people to do unprofessional things”. We were struggling too even though we knew what is right and wrong for children. We tried to persuade the parents but they were hard to be moved as rocks. Unfortunately, we accepted what parents want us to do because of “money talks”.
Perhaps we can talk the talk, but can we walk the walk in tough circumstances? I think that’s the biggest paradox in a teacher’s mind.
The importance of extensive reading in second acquisition has been acknowledged by many researchers in this book. Extensive reading is often promoted as a good way to improve learners’ second language proficiency in a good atmosphere extensive reading environment. Moreover, extensive reading research has shown that it advances numerous facets, for instance, reading comprehension ability, reading speed, vocabulary acquisition, langue ability and positive attitudes towards reading. There are a number of studies verify learners can acquire vocabulary and spell correctly through FVR, however, what I doubt is to acquire vocabulary takes much time ( at least one year) so that it is still a question for this approach. As a graduate school student, is it enough time to do this kind of research? Another surprise me is compare direct instruction and FVR, the result showed that direct instruction cannot account for the development of literacy as well as FVR. (p.25). Moreover, Krashen suggested that direct instruction is overwhelming to learners, and the effect of instruction will disappear by time. Nevertheless, I mean it is weird, as an instructor, to low learners’ anxiety should be our prior responsibility, and offer them some strategies will benefit them very much. And what Krashen claimed about is really confused me now, should we teach those strategies or not?
I love the idea of Free Voluntary Reading in a language learning classroom. Just like what Krashen (2004) had said, we learn the language by knowing the meaning of the language (meaning-focused), by learning in a comprehensible way, and by immersing in a relaxed environment. Reading, in itself, is very powerful since we can learn much more beyond the text, such as the culture, language structures, and word usages in different types of texts. Enjoyment can be developed easily as long as we read what we believe is interesting and comprehensible. Numerous studies showed that the implementation of those free voluntary reading programs either stand at an equal point with the traditional classroom instruction or even outperform the traditional ones when compared the results at the end of their studies. Thus, it seems that there is no need for direct instruction on the bits and pieces of reading because learners can develop this kind of literacy skills themselves. I understand the useless of explicit grammar rules or vocabulary teaching in a classroom and understand that students can barely acquire the language through those drills and practices, but I cannot help but wondered that “What role should the English teacher play when she or he is teaching reading?” Should we spend most of our class time on free voluntary reading or we should do some intensive reading as well? Because of the culture differences, will the students in Taiwan or other Asian countries think that the teacher is doing nothing in the classroom? The reason I have this in mind is because most students expect teachers to do most of the talking and lectures in class. Our learners may assume that they can do this kind of extensive reading outside of class, why spend time doing it in class? Align with most of the studies that were against “direct instruction”, I am curious about the role that an English teacher should play in an English reading classroom. To sum up, I believe in the effectiveness of the free voluntary reading program and the benefits that it can provide for the readers and learners, but can’t help but wonder the need of a teacher in an English reading classroom once the program has started.
ReplyDeleteAnthony said:
ReplyDeleteFree Voluntary Reading (FVR) is the foundation of language education and it provides three types of in-school free reading programs: sustained silent reading, self-selected reading, and extensive reading. I do believe that it is better spent time building up students’ word knowledge by reading wildly rather than teaching vocabulary lists. As we know, each time an unfamiliar word is read in context, a small increase in word knowledge typically occurs.
I totally agree that the Reading Hypothesis works well in in-school reading programs in better (1) reading comprehension, (2) writing style, (3) vocabulary, (4) spelling, (5) grammatical, and (6) development. Reading develops vocabulary and spelling.
Besides, the Pleasure Hypothesis was proposed by Krashen (1994) and mentioned that if an activity promotes language acquisition, it is enjoyable. However, enjoyment does not guarantee language acquisition. It occurred to me that Desuggestopedia is one of teaching methods. The purposes of this method are learning is facilitated in a cheerful environment; students can learn from environment, even if their attention is not directed to it, and assuming a new identity enhances students’ feeling of security and allows them to be more open. However, in sum, I think that the prerequisite of this way is to build up students’ self-confidence and then we move on next stages.
I was just reading Frances' comments and I'd like to take a stab at some of her very valid questions.
ReplyDeleteI think you raise a good point about Asian students who might have the wrong impression of a teacher who doesn't 'teach' anything during the SSR portions of the reading class.
I think that the point of SSR is to provide an opportunity for students to read in a low-anxiety situation. By allowing time for this during class (as opposed to assigning it for homework), students will hopefully feel that it is more important than they initially thought, especially if the teacher is also participating. The result is a positive attitude towards reading which is just one good aspect of allowing class time for this.
Also, although learners may assume that they can do this outside of class, few of them actually do. I think if every student did do SSR, FVR and/or extensive reading on their own free time, the level of all our students would be much higher.
In response to your question, I think that the intention of SSR is just to take up a portion of the reading class such as 20 or 30 min's (longer or shorter depending on the teacher/students). This would leave another 30 min's or more for the teacher to do other activities.
It may also be an idea for the teacher to give some explanations to their students about why they are doing SSR and to promote it in a way so that students will feel positive about it and look forward to it instead of focussing on why the teacher isn't teaching anything.
I remember when I was in elementary school and if I had the chance to do SSR instead of listening to the teacher teach, I would do it in a hearbeat and not even think about complaining. But, like you mention, there are cultural differences and Asian students may not respond the same way as western students. Would they? Or could we acknowledge that this may be an issue and accept that we may just need to let them get used to new methods of learning?
The other thing you mention about the cultural differences is more relevant than we may think. Many of these studies are done in western cultures and may assume that students of all cultures will respond in the same way. However, the nature of the western education system is very different from that of the Asian one. Although these studies show the value of SSR and put a high importance on reading without pressure, we still have to take into account the cultural differences of our education systems as well as the roles of teachers and students.
Thank you Frances for your thoughtful insight!
Wow!!! Thank you, Emily, for answering my questions~!
ReplyDeleteI know that Robinson and Hulett (1991) and Pilgreen (2000) had mentioned about the duration (either 5~15 minutes or 15~20 minutes) of implementing the SSR in the classroom, and I believe I have no question about that~!
What confuses me is the no "direct instruction" part (Krashen, 2004, p. 18). If reading could be done by one's own, then why bothered to have an English reading teacher in the classroom?? (I agree that teaching spelling is ridiculous, but how about other reading skills?) I was wondering, what should an English reading teacher teach besides doing the FVR in their classroom? Should we put more focus on the extensive reading part, or put an equal weight on both intensive and extensive reading?
Thanks again for your feedback!!!
From Emily:
ReplyDeleteThere are many good points that Krashen makes in Part I of ‘The Power of Reading’. Many of the conclusions can be related to our students here, in Taiwan. These are the points that stuck out most for me:
1.FVR is the missing ingredient in first language “language arts” as well as intermediate second and foreign language instruction……..it provides a foundation so that higher levels of proficiency may be achieved.” (p.1)
2.A recurring theme from many of the studies that Krashen mentions is that FVR programs show more positive and consistent results the longer the program is.
3.Many studies show a positive relationship between amounts read by students and improvements in spelling.
4.The study I found most relevant to Taiwan was the study done with 2 adult groups of ESL students where they were tested on unknown words in the book, Animal Farm. One group memorized the vocab words, the other group just read the book. After a week both groups were tested. Although the group who had memorized the words tested better after the initial test, after the second test three weeks later, this same group and in fact forgot some of the words. The group that had read though actually improved their scores on the second test.
This is relevant to our students here because memorization is a big part of how students study, it is also what is required of them by their teachers. As this study shows, memorizing doesn’t have long-term effects and if we want our students to retain the information we teach them (in a reading context) we should focus on letting them read without the pressure of memorizing anything. (p. 15)
5.The ‘Complexity Argument’, that language is too complex to be deliberately and consciously learned one rule or item at a time. (p. 18). This is in contrast to the junior and senior high school English text books used in Taiwan. Is it feasible to change things on such a dramatic scale?•time is better spent reading than learning vocab lists•grammar instruction has no impact on reading and writing (p. 27)•the challenge then becomes, if we take learning English through sentence patterns out of the equation, it seems that a huge portion of the English curriculum here would have to be changed. This might be a good thing….?
6.“I felt I was getting a better sense of the language from novels than from grammars” ~ author Richard Wright (p. 21)
7. Evidence to show that children learn to spell without instruction. (p. 25)
8.Krashen has concluded that we acquire language in only one way: by understanding messages, or obtaining “comprehensible input” in a low-anxiety situation. (p. 38).
9.In studies that compare SSR or FVR with another method and which show a finding of “no difference”, suggest that reading is just as good as traditional instruction and is therefore preferable, because it is more pleasant and provides benefits other than literacy development. (p. 46)
10.For adult SLL, writing activities in which students use new words in sentences and essays are more effective for vocab acquisition than reading words in stories. (p. 49)
11.Recreational reading is one of the few activities a foreign language learner can do without a classroom and a teacher. (p. 50)
All of these points are not just in favour of SSR and FVR but also show evidence through numerous studies of how they are better than other SL teaching and learning methods.
This homework is composed of three aspects: (1) a reflection, (2) a touching citation, (3) questions about some ideas conveyed in the textbook.
ReplyDelete(1)Reflection: The author proposed that reading can be the most important language skill, for it helps improve a learner’s reading comprehension, writing styles, vocabulary power, spelling, and grammatical development. With successful examples found everywhere around the world, Free Voluntary Reading should have its own accountability. However, reading class in Taiwan tends to be given in a safe learning environment; that is, most teachers (include myself) use grammar translation approach, which makes real reading impossible in class. In order to address this problem, teachers should, based on students’ language level and interest, recommend or choose appropriate reading materials (like simplified novels, illustrated books, and comics so on) for students. Through different types of reading, such as sustained silent reading, selected reading, and extensive reading, students’ development in literacy can be expected. As a teacher, any tricks can be employed if students are willing to get hooked on books.
(2)A touching citation: “At times the temptation to get rid of them 〔the children of the poor〕is strong. But if we lose them, school is no longer school.” (p. 40)
(3)Questions:
(a)Why does the author say that those who recognize more authors’ names have read more and have superior literacy development?
(b)Is grammar sheer useless in terms of second language acquisition?
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteFrom Part I, there are lots of evidences showing that reading helps writing.
ReplyDelete“Several studies confirm that those who read more in their second language also write better in that language” (p.10); “In-school free reading studies and “out of school” self-reported free voluntary reading studies show that more reading results in better reading comprehension, writing style…” (p.17); “well-read people nearly always write acceptably well and find it very difficult to write poorly.” (p.45) The reason why reading is good for building writing skill, I agree with Krashen’s view (p.45) that readers acquire grammar, vocabulary, writing structure and style subconsciously, and then reflect these on their writing naturally. I think through this way to learn writing is much better than to learn in the traditional way. Besides, the advantages of reading a lot are not only about the improvement of writing but also the development of reading and spelling. In brief, it’s worthy of spending much time on reading deeply, widely and gaining essential language skills, like reading ability, of English learning.
As for reading, there are three ideas mentioned in this part drawing my attention: 1. “The pleasure hypothesis: If an activity promotes language acquisition, it is enjoyable. But enjoyment does not guarantee language acquisition.” (p.28) 2. “we acquire language in only one way: by understanding messages, or obtaining “comprehensible input” in a low-anxiety situation.” (p.37) 3. “wide reading is clearly helpful, but when one is reading to solve specific problems, selective reading is more efficient, that is, reading what you need to read to solve the problem you are currently working on.” (p.55) I approve that language learning should be in a joyful environment. When students feel safe and comfortable, they will be more willing to participate in the learning. However, for some students learning for specific purposes, like senior high school students in Taiwan, perhaps they need to learn by different means in order to achieve their goals in a very short time. In that case, I don’t think extensive reading, or FVR, is an appropriated method for them to learn English since the effectiveness of FVR is not very obvious in a short time.
ReplyDeleteThe other surprised me is that reading has something to do with people’s future career! People who read more and like to read seem to have a better job than those who don’t. It is possibly because they are good thinkers. I do believe that reading makes us smarter (p.36) and influence our thinking and behavior. Nevertheless, the power of reading is apparently much stronger than I think! No wonder there is a Chinese saying, “a book holds a house of gold.” Hope I can also find my own gold in books one day.
The idea of selecting books from-easy-to-hard-to-harder texts (p.7) for processing reading appears to meet our eager readers’ needs. I agree with the relevant consistency of conducting free voluntary reading (FVR) and development of literate ability (p.11) since for ESL readers, according to the reading hypothesis in Figure 1.1 (p.17), skill-building and error correction through instruction (p. 18) can be alternatively constructed via consciously productive practices in school.
ReplyDeleteThe point that Cornman (1902) argued in the 3-year research (p.24) that the continuing improvement in spelling is somewhat coherent with the study by Waring and Takakei (2003), saying that “vocabulary acquisition is distributed and incremental” (p. 47). If the reader focuses more on the exact meaning of the unknown words, different degrees of vagueness might somehow hamper the interest and enjoyment of reading. The external motivation of the reader may dominate the attitude toward reading. In reality, the task that the school and we teaching faculty encounter is always to transfer the slow and passive learners into quick and active ones. We’ve got to make that happen and it is a point of no return (p. 40).
My major concern this time is, from Bustead (1943) on page 48, “Would the existing policy of evaluating our learners’ linguistic proficiency at midterms and finals or in week 9 and 18 be in accordance with what Bustead’s argument of the suitable way to facilitate what our readers have learned?”. If the reader is encouraged to distinguish “what I choose to read in and after class” from “what I have to read in school”, the concept of free voluntary reading can be optimistically realized.
In a traditional reading classroom, the main focus is reading comprehension and grammar while in free voluntary reading (FVR) one, the primary attention is paid to pleasure reading. Furthermore, a great deal of research has been conducted to confirm that the students in a FVR class work better than the students in a traditional one. Not only reading comprehension and word recognition but also writing could be improved through FVR. Through reading, especially FVR, language learners could learn the way how the authors write and subconsciously become good at writing. In a FVR classroom, learners will be provided chances to decide what to read, when to read, and when to stop. Therefore, they should take responsibility of their own reading, which depends on whether they are autonomous learners or not. For passive learners, they may not be able to read on their own or they may not be willing to do so. As teachers, we should encourage them to read and read for fun. Teachers should also read together with learners to make learners feel that teachers are like friends in a reading club, not a dominating figure in a cold-walled classroom. I think it will take a lot of time to change learners’ previous and fixed belief and behavior; however, the outcome is favorable. Let’s start FVR or extensive reading right NOW! We definitely can make English learning environment quite different.
ReplyDeleteKrashen cites many research studies to provide evidence for the positive results of Free Voluntary Reading (FVR) used in developing reading comprehension ability, writing style, vocabulary, grammar, and spelling. Moreover, additional evidence is provided to show that FVR is pleasant, promotes cognitive development, and lowers writing apprehension. Krashen uses evidence from research studies to convince readers that FVR is very beneficial for students. The evidence is so powerful and convincing that I would really like to try using FVR in my college English class. At least, I believe that students would enjoy Free Voluntary Reading much better than direct instruction because they can experience the pleasure of reading personally and this kind of pleasure would allure them to keep reading English books. Thinking of our final project, one question occurred to me. My question is that if we practice both FVR and direct instruction in the same class, how can we make sure whether the English improvement of students results from FVR or direct instruction?
ReplyDeleteI was surprised that Krashen mentions one of my familiar writers—Richard Wright (p.20-22) in this book. Through the recommendation of my college teacher, I’ve read some of Wright’s articles and got some racial prejudice concept from them. The most impressing one is “Big Black Good Man”. This story was written in a time when racial prejudice was a major factor in society. Today we still have racial prejudice, but it is not seen as often as it was back then. The point in which Richard Wright wanted to get across by this story is that we should "never judge a book by its cover." I still remember that he uses Olaf and Lena in this story to show the differences in views they have about prejudice. The story made a great impact on me.
ReplyDeleteI am wondering if I didn’t read Richard Wright’s article, I probably don’t feel the racial prejudice so much. Now I have a better idea through Krashen’s description in “The Power of Reading”(p.21): “He (Richard Wright) delivered newspaper only so that he could read them and used an associate’s library card to take books out of a library that was restricted to whites.” Nowadays we are still affected by Richard Wright for getting a better idea of racial prejudice because of his novels, not from grammar books. It is just like Krashen states that “Author Richard Wright attributed his language development to novels, not English grammars.” (p.21) That’s the one of valuable things from reading novels.
Richard Wright’s novels remind me another story “The Yellow Wallpaper” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1892). I was also impacted by her story. She was the one who brought me into feminism world and started noticing sexual discrimination issues in my life. I admit that if I didn’t read these articles, I definitely do not “wake up” from the patriarchy society. Actually the awareness is one of my reasons for taking “Eco-feminism novels” course this semester because I want to absorb more this kind of knowledge and novels to have a better idea for feminism. Although I am not yet up to speed reading those novels but I believe that I’ll get into it soon.
As to Frances and Emily’s opinions toward to FVR and current language teachers’ role in Taiwan, I have the same struggles between theories and realities. Take my writing class for an example, I’ve read numerous researches and theories which all “warn” me that it’s better for a language teacher not to correct students’ grammar of their articles. I attempted to follow what theories said but it turned out students’ negative feedback. They thought that they did learn nothing without teachers’ correction and also thought teachers did nothing for them if teachers did not correct their grammar mistakes. After thinking over this issue, I spent a whole period explaining why I did like that. I showed them what specialists and professors suggested for error correction and some results of researches about teaching writing. I was not sure if they accepted those facts but it was a good start to defend for what I did. However, for my reputation being a “good teacher” there, I compromised to fit students’ “needs” though, if they insisted that’s their need.
ReplyDeleteThe same experience as I taught in a kindergarten, parents always wanted to guide what teacher should teach. It turns out “not-professional people lead professional people to do unprofessional things”. We were struggling too even though we knew what is right and wrong for children. We tried to persuade the parents but they were hard to be moved as rocks. Unfortunately, we accepted what parents want us to do because of “money talks”.
Perhaps we can talk the talk, but can we walk the walk in tough circumstances? I think that’s the biggest paradox in a teacher’s mind.
The importance of extensive reading in second acquisition has been acknowledged by many researchers in this book. Extensive reading is often promoted as a good way to improve learners’ second language proficiency in a good atmosphere extensive reading environment. Moreover, extensive reading research has shown that it advances numerous facets, for instance, reading comprehension ability, reading speed, vocabulary acquisition, langue ability and positive attitudes towards reading. There are a number of studies verify learners can acquire vocabulary and spell correctly through FVR, however, what I doubt is to acquire vocabulary takes much time ( at least one year) so that it is still a question for this approach. As a graduate school student, is it enough time to do this kind of research? Another surprise me is compare direct instruction and FVR, the result showed that direct instruction cannot account for the development of literacy as well as FVR. (p.25). Moreover, Krashen suggested that direct instruction is overwhelming to learners, and the effect of instruction will disappear by time. Nevertheless, I mean it is weird, as an instructor, to low learners’ anxiety should be our prior responsibility, and offer them some strategies will benefit them very much. And what Krashen claimed about is really confused me now, should we teach those strategies or not?
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