Chapter 18 : Teaching Reading

RESEARCH ON READING A SECOND LANGUAGE

By the 1970s, first language reading research had grown rapidly over the decades as solutions were
being sought for why some children were unable to read. But research on reading in a second language
is almost non-existent. Then, with Kenneth Goodman's (1970) seminal article, "Reading: A
Psycholinguistic Guessing Game," and other later work, second language specialists began to tackle the
unique problems and questions facing second language reading pedagogy.

1. Bottom-up and top-down processing

Led by Goodman's (1970) work, the distinction between bottom-up and top-down processing forms the
basis of reading methodology for years to come. In bottom-up processing, readers must first recognize
the multiplicity of linguistic signals (letters, morphemes, syllables, words, phrases, grammatical cues,
discourse markers) and use their linguistic data processing mechanisms to impose some sort of
sequence on these. signal. This data-based operation clearly requires a sophisticated knowledge of the
language itself. From all the perceived data, the reader chooses a signal that makes sense, which is
coherent, which "means". Nearly all reading involves risk - a game of guesswork, in Goodman's words -
because the reader must, through the riddle-solving process, deduce meaning, decide what to keep and
not keep, and move on. This is where a complementary method for processing written text is essential:
a top-down, or conceptually driven, process in which we use our own intelligence and experience to
make sense of the text.

2. Schema theory and background knowledge

as a schema theory, its hallmark is that the text carries no meaning. Readers carry information,
knowledge, emotions, experiences, and culture - that is, schemas (plural) - to the printed word. Mark
Clarke and Sandra Silberstein (1977: 136-37) capture the heart of schema theory: Research has shown
that reading is only visual. More information is contributed by readers than to print on the page. That
is, readers understand what they are reading because they are able to take a stimulus beyond its
graphical representation and assign membership to the appropriate group of concepts already stored
therein.

3. The role of affect and culture

it is seen from a cursory survey of research on second language acquisition that affective factors play a
major role in final success. Just as language ego, self-esteem, empathy, and motivation underlie the
acquisition of oral discourse, reading is also subject to variability in the affective domain.

4. The power of extensive reading

these are referred to as direct and indirect approaches to teaching language skills. This continuum of
possibilities is highlighted in debates on conscious and subconscious acquisition, explicit and implicit
learning, focal and peripheral processing, and learning vs. acquisition Stephen Krashen (1985). A current
problem in pedagogical research on reading is the extent to which Icarners will learn to read better in a
laissez-faire setting than an enriched environment or in instructed sequences with direct attention to
efficient reading strategies.

5. Adult literacy training

(bottom-up) and "strategy-based" (top-down) are both used in adult literacy training. Teaching literacy
is a specialized area of research and practice that gains insights from a number of domains of
psycholinguistic and pedagogical inquiry. In order to familiarize yourself with basic principles and
practices at this level, you can carefully consult some of the good material available (eg, Bell & Burnaby
1984, Haverson & Haynes 1982). Apart from the five main issues discussed above, many other topics
are being considered for factory researchers today:

• the role of cognition in reading

• the role of automaticity in word recognition

• the role of conscious strategies in learning to read a second language

• effective techniques for activating schemata

• relationships of reading to writing And the list goes on.

TYPES OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE

In our highly literate society, there are hundreds of different types of written text, a much greater
variety than that found in spoken texts. Each type listed below represents, or is an example of, a written
language genre. Each of them has certain rules or conditions for its embodiment, in order to know what
to look for in the text. Consider the following incomplete list:

• non-fiction: reports, editorials, essays and articles, reference (dictionaries, encyclopedias)

• fiction: novels, short stories, jokes, drama, poetry

• letters: personal, business

• grecting cards • diaries, journals

• memos (eg, interoffice memos) messages (eg, phone messages)

• announcements

• newspaper "journalese"

• academic writing: short answer test responses, reports, essays and papers, theses and books • forms,
applications

• questionnaires
• directions

• labels

• signs

• recipes

• bills (and other financial statements)

•maps

• manuals

• menus

• schedules (c.g., transportation information)

• advertisements: commercial, personal ("want ads")

• invitations

• directories (e.g., telephone, yellow pages)

• comic strips, cartoons

CHARACTERISTICS OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE

1. Permanence

2. Processing time

3. Distance

4. Orthography

5. Complexity

6. Vocabulary

7. Formality

MICROSKILLS FOR READING COMPREHENSION

in a description of what ESL students need to do to become efficient readers.

STRATEGIES FOR READING COMPREHENSION

1. Identify the purpose in reading

2. Use graphemic rules and patterns to aid in bottom-up decoding (especially for beginning level
learners).

They may need guidance and explanation of certain English orthographic rules and peculiarities. While
you can often assume that a one-to-one grapheme-phoneme correspondence will be obtained easily,
other relationships may prove difficult. Consider how you can provide hints and hints at a pattern like
this:

• "short" vowel sound in VC patterns (bat, bim, leg, wish, etc.)

• "long" vowel sound in VCe (final silent e) patterns ( late, time, bite, etc.)

• "long" vowel sound in VV patterns (seat, coat, etc.)

• distinguishing "hard" c and g from "soft" c and g (cat vs. city, game vs. gem, etc.)

Chapter19: Teaching Writting

RESEARCH ON SECOND LANGUAGE WRITING

1. Composing vs. Writing

2. Process vs. product

3. Contrastive Rhetoric

4. Differences between L1 & L2 writing

5. Authenticity

6.The role of the teacher

PRINCIPLES FOR DESINGNING WRITING TECHNIQUES

1. incorporate practices of "good'' writers

This first guideline is very broad. But when you're thinking about designing a technique that has the
purpose of writing in it, consider the things that efficient writers do, and see if your technique includes
some of these practices.

2. Balance process and product

Since writing is a writing process and usually requires multiple drafts before an effective product is
created, ensure that students carefully follow the appropriate stages in the writing process.

3. account for cultural/literary backgrounds

Make sure that your technique does not assume that your students know the rhetorical terms of English

4. connect reading and writing

students learn to write partly by paying close attention to what has been written. That is, they learn by
observing, or reading, the written word. By reading and studying various types of relevant texts,
students can gain important insights both about how to write and about subject matter that may be the
topic of their writing.

5. provide as much authentic writing as possible

Whether the writing is really written or for display, it can still be authentic because the purpose of
writing is clear to students, the audience is determined openly, and it is in Icast that there is an intention
to convince the meaning.

6. Frame your techniques in terms of prewriting, drafting, and revising stages

The process writing approach tends to be framed in three stages of writing. The pre-writing stage
encourages idea formation, which can occur in a number of ways:

• reading (extensively) a passage

• skimming and/or scanning a passage

• conducting some outside research

• brainstorming (sce below)

• listing (in writing-individually)

• clustering (begin with a key word, then add other words, using free association)

• discussing a topic or question

• instructor-initiated questions and probes

• freewriting (see below)

7. strive to offer techniques that are as interactive as possible

Writing techniques that focus on purposes other than composition (such as letters, forms, memos,
briefs, briefs) are also subject to the interactive classroom principle. Group collaboration,
brainstorming, and critique with ease and success are part of many techniques that focus on writing.