The Important Key Principles for Developing Reading Skills - Essay Example

The important key principles for developing reading skills Summary This essay explores the key principles of teaching reading in the foreign language classroom. In these regards, communicative competence theory is explored in regards to teaching foreign language reading, with the crucial importance of incorporating such techniques into foreign language instruction. Specific examples of classroom implementation are given, including vocabulary exercises, as well as the communicative importance of teaching reading through more comprehensive means. Reading processing isalso analyzed in terms of bottom-up and top-down processing. A number of methods and techniques thatdemonstrate the implementation of these theoretical perspectives in the classroom are also articulated, including methods for specific class environments. Introduction Contemporary research into foreign language reading instruction notes that teaching models are greatly varied. Teaching models in first language reading have served foundationally as models in teaching second-language reading. Stahl and Hayes (1997) have discussed the ways that academic models influence and help shape approaches that teacher’s adopt in the classroom. The types of models also change with practitioners’ age and experience. A main concern is that the difference between first language reading teaching and second language reading teaching is that the students have already developed first language reading skills that are influencing the second-language reading process. The different orthographies of the first-language also affect second-language reading ability and researchers argue that this must be taken into consideration when developing lesson plans. Second language reading theory dates back to the inception of psychology as a formal discipline with cognitive theorists such as William Wundt. This research focused mainly on investigating perceptual issues. Beginning in the 1880s researchers fore-grounded the foundations of what came to represent the predominant focus of studies for the next century. In 1908 Huey published Psychology and Pedagogy of Reading which shifted focus in a more behaviorist slant until the 1960s. With Syntactic Structures and further attacks on behaviorist processes, academic attention shifted back to perceptual issues, with researchers investigating reading speed and eye focus. Notably, it was around this time that reading comprehension became a major issue for teachers. Today there are a number of key principles that are crucial to teaching reading in the foreign language classroom. Still, it is necessary for the teaching professional to balance these elements according to classroom circumstances and student needs.This essay discusses and analyses the key principles important for developing reading skills and ways these principles can be applied in the foreign language classroom. Communicative Competence Key Principles Research on communicative competence reading theory differs greatly in its exact definition, with each offering slight variations of perspective.In Fundamental Considerations of Language Testing, Bachman offers an extremely dichotomous definition of communicative competence. He begins by stating that effective communication begins with a Language Competence phase and then filters down to a Strategic, Psychophysiological, and ultimately contextual scenario. In large part, Bachman is making the case that separate components of language exist that can’t be measured in objective, starkly grammatical terms. That while Organizational Competence, or “those abilities involved in producing…grammatically correct sentences” is a major component of language, communicative competence functions to illuminate the necessity of teaching, “…language users and the context of communication” – that is, pragmatic concerns (Bachman 87). In Communicative Competence, an example of the written elements of languageis examined through the difficulty a Danish speaker has in reading a Medical textbook, not because of its grammatical or vocabulary elements, but because of the textual positioning of sentences. The author argues she has this difficulty because these are rhetorical elements that function in-addition to the lexical structure of the text. The article goes on to offer scientific evidence for the inter-dependence of linguistic and pragmatic elements of communication, with the results indicating “that none of the components of communicative competence can be ignored (Alderson, 2000, pg. 176).” In identifying explicit means of reading instruction Communicative Language Teaching discusses competing interpretations of communicative competence. The article distinguishes between a ‘weak and ‘strong’ version of communicative language teaching, where, “the former could be described as ‘learning to use the language,’ the latter entails ‘using the language to learn it’ (Richard, Therdore 155).” The distinction underlies fundamental differences in theoretical understandings of communicative competence. With the ‘strong’ interpretation language is viewed from a post-structuralist lens, and exists through the “…unconscious development of the target-language system as a result of using the language for real communication (Richards, Therdore 162).”It seems that communicative competence acknowledges that there are structural components to language, but that the actual task of communication is far more complicated than the basic structural model accounts. That is, reading exists in the instant of understanding between reader and writer, not in purely objective, grammatical form. Whereas the ‘weak’ version believes that grammar and lexicon are foundational concerns for language development and the functional component of language learning exists only to reinforce these concerns. Communicative Competence in the Classroom There are a number of ways that communicative competence can be utilized in teaching foreign language reading. One approach develops a syllabus with each unit containing one dialogue or one text. A teacher can first read aloud the dialogue or the text so the students hear the pronunciation of the new-words silently. In this method, the teacher uses the inflection and tone to help the students hear what the text is saying. Following along helps students move from word-by-word reading to reading in phrases and thought units, as they do in their first language. In the communicative model of language teaching, an instructor helps students develop this body of knowledge by providing authentic practice that prepares students for true textual comprehension. In this way, discussion can be used to promote an understanding about the different views and opinions that may arise from analyzing a grammatical or a syntactical phenomenon or a paragraph from a text. While the interaction it induces amongst peers is valuable it needs, where possible, to be structured and directed by the teacher in order to obtain maximum benefit. The teacher’s role is questioning, keeping the discussion focused, and summarizing. In Word Knowledge (2008) Cheryl Zimmerman offers an interactive approach to teaching foreign language reading. She writes, “The meaning that you assign to a new word is closely linked to what you already know…the association of words to personal experiences facilitates the learning of new information” (Zimmerman, 2008, p. 18). That is, teachers cannot structurally “teach” all that the students need to know about the meaning of a word, so that the lesson should ultimately allow students to negotiate word meaning through pragmatic and top-down structural means. Many times lessons are geared towards pure language proficiency, with a teacher giving definitions to words and students and then students being broken into small groups and asked to drill each other on these definitions. While effective means of processing grammar and accumulating vocabulary, they fell short of developing true pragmatic capacities for reading. Instead, vocabulary definition tests should be discarded and in their place, a daily word presentation could be instituted: Students are assigned a word and are required to explain it to the class by relating it to a personal experience or visual or verbal entity. For instance, if the word was ‘ecstatic,’ the language learner would describe a situation they felt ecstatic in, aTurkish song that is ecstatic, and a picture that produces these emotions. The rest of the class engages in the lesson and offers personal interpretations. This is ‘strong’ understanding of communicative competence. This lesson displaces the absolute nature of vocabulary that textbook definitions relay, and requires students to implement their pragmatic capacities for language by requiring them to use vocabulary in various contextual dimensions, and compare their efficacy with fellow students. By requiring the students to involve different cultural traditions of art and music it helps cognitively attune students to foreign registers and develop deep L2 proficiency and ability.Another technique of teaching reading communicatively is the "read and look up" technique. With this technique, a student reads a phrase or sentence silently as many times as necessary, then looks up (away from the text) and tells the instructor what the phrase or sentence says. This encourages students to read for ideas, rather than for word recognition. Ultimately, students can be helped to develop the ability to understand grammatically correct, logically connected sentences that are appropriate to specific contexts, and to do so using acceptable (that is, comprehensible) pronunciation. Top-Down and Bottom-Up Processing Key Principles One of the key principles that language teachers must implement into teaching reading to foreign language students is the way the students process the language being taught. In these regards, there are two key concepts: top-down and bottom-up processing. The bottom-up approach takes elements from the outside world, for reading these are words, letters, and phrases. The reader then processes them into intelligible linguistic units and then constructs meaning through these linguistic units, with minimal incorporation of higher level knowledge. Gough (1972) stresses that readers process words from the printed page in very systematic and syntactic ways. The stringent adherents view reading comprehension in much the same manner, in that these linguistic units are processed individually and then linearly comprise what is determined to be textual understanding. The only difference between spoken comprehension and written is the textual dimension. Conversely, top-down processing contends that the reader utilizes their past knowledge and textual expectations to formulate and process meaning. Top-down processing is more akin to sociolinguistic and communicative competence theories that argue past knowledge affects how readers will interpret meaning in the text. They also assume that textual comprehension isn’t as rapid a process as bottom-up processing assumes. Researchers stress that top-down processing often involves a guessing game readers play with the text, as they attempt to determine what meaning the words and phrases actually represent (Goodman 1967, Smith 1971).With the top-down method the reader is in a constant state of contextual reformation, where past interpretations are supplemented or replaced by new meanings based on furthered reading and the implementation of background understanding. Top-Down Bottom-Up and Processing in the Classroom There are a number of ways that processing concepts can be implemented in the foreign language classroom. The first days of each semester the Turkish language’s grammatical and syntactical structure can be explained through engaging students’ bottom-up reading processing. For example, at the beginning the verb to be (ImekFiil) and the ablative case (den’ hali) of Turkish language can be explained. Experience in teaching grammar indicates that pupils like grammar when it is carefully explained in Greek at some point. When a class may become restless and need tight control, the foreign language instructor can begin with a more structured bottom-down grammar explanation in Greek, followed by oral drilling and a written exercise.In these regards, Lori Helman (1986) identifies six main categories educators can follow to improve teaching reading in the foreign language classroom. The general approach she offers begins with teaching common elements between the two languages and then work with areas where they are in opposition. This takes into account bottom-up processing approaches by analyzing the linguistic units in their relation to second-language reading comprehension. She writes, “When it is acknowledged that students’ developmental spelling attempts make sense, the alphabetical understandings are validated (Helman, 1986, p. 457).” In these regards, the educator could use their own personal understanding of Turkish to determine the stage of the students’ reading development. Still, it’s preferred on the whole to practice reading before the stage of explanation. From the top-down perspective reading a foreign language is far more about internalizing grammar rules through practice than knowing how to explain the rule, in itself a not particularly important skill. This encourages pupils to infer rules for themselves. Grammar is the heart of everything for the learner who wishes to make serious progress and become fluent. In these regards, there must be significant focus on vocabulary knowledge, cultural input and survival language for such learners. Indeed, second-language educators need to consider students’ original language when providing critical instruction. Cognitive research demonstrates that students at Henderson’s (1986) “spelling by sound” stage of alphabetic writing, where students rely on hearing the sounds of words to write them, demonstrate difficulties because certain sound features in Turkish don’t exist in Greek. Specifically, the positions of consonant sounds, consonant clusters, and vowels in each language are the main areas of difficulty. For example, a Turkish speaker will often wrongly substitute Turkish structures when they encounter letter-sound combinations that exist only in Greek. Ultimately, top-down processing is a structural lens towards L2 proficiency that educators must use to be more efficient teachers of reading. Finally, there is an interactive model of reading instruction. The interactive teaching model is the most supported by the majority of researchers in that they accept foundational elements of both top-down processing and bottom-up processing in their understanding of reading approaches. It holds that elements of higher order top-down processing and lower order, bottom-up processing contribute in a hybrid function to develop linguistic meaning. Akamatsu (1999, pg. 31) discusses a hierarchical view of this process: Such components could be labeled 1) vocabulary knowledge and sight word recognition; 2) phonetic decoding skills; 3) relational knowledge and prediction from context, and; 4) comprehension skills Here it is determined that through comprehension of the lexical elements of words and phonemes the reader can interactively incorporate elements of past experiences and interpretations in the overall construction of meaning. A formal lecture may be notably enhanced by strategies that involve learner processing. With a little creativeness, a teacher could include several different methods such as ‘problem solving exercises’ that deliberately engage the learners in a more bottom-up reading process. Sometimes ‘active breaks involving students’ during which the learners discuss specific issues concerning the presented topic with one another to enhance top-down reading efficiency. Conclusion In conclusion, teaching foreign language reading is not an easy job, as there is no single way of teaching foreign languages. This essay has explored the key principles of teaching reading in the foreign language classroom. In these regards, processing was analyzed in terms of bottom-up and top-down processing. A number of methods these theoretical perspectives could be implemented in the classroom were also articulated. Communicative competence theory was also explored in regards to teaching foreign language reading, with the crucial importance of incorporating such techniques into foreign language instruction. The successful language teacher will not limit themself to one method only, excluding all others. A method that is appropriate with one class on one occasion will not necessarily suit the same class at another time. For most, method is personal - an ensemble of techniques, tricks of the trade, ways of presenting materials, ways in which we analyze and structure the content. As a language teacher the author prefers the combination of methods and techniques because in this way the lessons are more exciting and students reading skills are developed through a variety of theoretical perspectives. References Akamatsu, C. The Acquisition of Reading.University of Rochester, 1999. Alderson, C.J. (2000), Assessing Reading, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bachman, L.F. (1990). Fundamental Considerations in Language Testing. New York: Oxford University Press. Chomsky, Noam (1969). Syntactic Structures. Massachusetts: Boston University Press. Gough, Philip B. 1972. One second of reading. In James F. Kavanagh and Ignatius G. Mattingly (eds.), Language by ear and by eye (pp.331-358). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Helman, Lori A. (2004). Building of the Sound System of Spanish: Insights from the Alphabetic Spellings of English-Language Learners.The Reading Teacher, 57, 5, 452-60. Henderson, E.H. (1986). A developmental perspective of formal spelling instruction through alphabet, pattern, and meaning. The Elementary School Journal, 86(3), 305-316. Richards, Jack C. and Therdore S. Rodgers (2001), Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stahl, Steven, Hayes, David (1997). Instructional Models in Reading.New Jersey: Laurence Erlbaum. Zimmerman, Cheryl. Word Knowledge.London: Oxford University Press, 2008. Print. Read More