Critical reader response from education class(Teaching English as an Additional Language) - Essay Example

One of the most important things teachers can do to support literacy development of students is to choose and expose them to quality literature. Children's literature is particularly rich with illustrations, images, genre and cultures; it reflects the maturational development process with regards to cognitive, emotional and social, as well as language development. Reading strategies are developed to retrieve information from 3 categories: 1) meaning cues, 2) visual cues, and 3) structural or syntactic cues.

There are eight steps to implementing think-aloud strategies: 1) choose a small portion of the text, 2) chooses a few strategies, 3) communicate the reading purpose, 4) model the think-aloud strategy to the students as you read the text aloud, 5) instruct students on annotating the text, 6) discuss and think through the strategies used, 7) show students how to generalize reading strategies, and 8) reinforce think-aloud techniques with follow-up lessons. As an EAL teacher, I feel this is an excellent method for helping L2 learners to deal with literature.

Absolutely they should use a winning strategy for digesting literature; at best they usually struggle with the vocabulary to the point that frustration takes over and the richness of the literature is lost. Students develop a much stronger command of the language through open reading of literature among peers. Their fluency and diction develops quickly in the presence of a native speaker of L2. In the case where cultures are vastly different, the students need a lot of support to connect with and internalize the story.

Often open discussion occurs in comparing and contrasting the cultural differences allowing not only for a deeper understanding and connection to the story, but also to peers. This further reinforces L2 bonding as well as building self-confidence in expressing ideas in L2. This think-aloud strategy helps develop the self-confidence of the L2 learners in their ability to read and comprehend literature at the L2 level. They also begin to apply this strategy to their other core L2 subjects, which resulted in higher academic achievement.

They even begin to challenge themselves to speak L2 with peers, further reinforcing their self-confidence and pronunciation. The component of the think-aloud strategy that is probably understated is the one of prediction. Often L2 learners don’t have highly developed critical thinking or creativity skills. Predicting what would happen throughout the story is a new challenge for them as it causes them to imagine new possibilities for where the author may be leading the story. As they begin to work with the stories more, their abilities at prediction sharpen, even to the point that they increase their critical thinking skills in other academic areas, such as science and math.

At first, the visual cues are critical for them; a picture makes fighting vocabulary and learning through contextual clues easier. With time, they increase their vocabulary base to independently take on significantly more difficult stories. They enjoy being able to discuss the behind the scenes meaning, messages, and values being taught by the author. Role playing to understand what is happening in the story is another approach that can be