Journal 3: Based on Reading Skills

Discuss reading skills that you have learned in this class, but have rarely used in your reading.   Do you think they are really necessary for better reading? Why or why not?

In chapter 4, reading skills are categorized into four separate skills: 1) word attack skills; 2) comprehension skills; 3) fluency skills; 4) critical reading skills. As reviewed in this chapter, word attack skills refer to reader's decoding skills which requires the reader to recognize that 'the script represents units of language, such as phonemes, syllables, and words'. Comprehension skills refer to the reader's 'ability to use context and knowledge to derive meaning from what is read'. Therefore, reader's grammatical competence and knowledge of how language is formed and used would enable him/her to recognize the language structure and predict how the story will continue. Fluency skills involve speedy recognition of sight words and high frequency letter clusters, along with extensive vocabulary knowledge. Critical reading skills prepare readers to develop analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating what is read. All of the four skills mentioned above are necessary to different extents depending for instance, on reader's reading proficiency and processing level, required reading task and context, and instructional approach taken.

I used to enjoy reading for pleasure and read a wide variety of books including non-fictions, contemporary and classic novels. Unfortunately, most of the reading I do these days are related to either my studies or work. When I used to read extensively, probable skills that I may have used are fluency skills and comprehension skills to an extent. As the main purpose of my reading extensively was for pleasure, no deep understanding of the content was required. Speed of reading was relatively fast for the same reason, thus fluency skills involving vocabulary knowledge was required to read continuously without stopping to refer to a dictionary for unfamiliar words.

As mentioned, most of the reading performed these days involve reading reference books, journals, and textbooks for my studies. As for my work, the reading tasks include reading manuscripts for new book reviews, producing workbook materials based on story books, preparing presentations, just to name a few. The skills required for my study and work related readings are mainly critical reading skills and partly comprehension skills. While reading the materials related to school and work, I am required to analyze what is being read and apply the information to my intended research or production purposes.

Considering my current level of reading skills, the skill that is used the least would be word attack skills. However, depending on the content of the material and context of when the reading is performed (i.e. in test situation), word attack skills may be required to aid better understanding.

Self-Access Reading Resources for L2 Readers

1. Target students: Middle school -Grade 1

2. Curriculum: Middle School English 1 -Neungyule

3. Purpose:
  1) to enable vocabulary  and reading skills building practice beyond the classroom
  2) to motivate students with more authentic and engaging materials of diverse genres

4. Category:
The web reading resources are largely topic-based following the chapters in the Middle School English 1 textbook. The five selected chapters are as follows:
  1) Lesson 4   My Visit to London
  2) Lesson 5   What a Beautiful World!
  3) Lesson 6   An Interview with an Astronaut
  4) Lesson 8   The Happy Tree
  5) Lesson 10  I have a Dream
The topics covered in these chapters include travel, nature and environment, space exploration, literature, and understanding cultures. Each of the reading collection plot provides a variety of reading materials of different genres, including some video clips related to the topic. Difficulty level of the texts have been considered to provide for lower level readers.

Journal 2: Selecting ER materials

Introduce an example of ER materials with basic information, strengths and weaknesses.

Hafiz and Tudor (1985) describe the goal of extensive reading as 'to flood" learners with large quantities of L2 input with few or possibly no specific task to perform on this material'. In a tension and task-free environment, reading extensively is the most effective way of improving vocabulary to achieve fluency in reading -especially for EFL readers who often experience obstacles overcoming difficulties of lexis. Furthermore, as Day and Bamford (1998) suggest that when observing students reading authentic texts, teachers can become more aware of each student's strengths and weaknesses as a reader, and thus better al to give students individual support.

Extensive reading offers the learners many ways of working independently towards autonomous learning. It also offers learners 'great exposure to English and can be particularly significant where class contact time is limited' (Hedge, 2001). English, as an EFL to Korean students, is learnt in a language classroom with artificial textbooks with rather limited teaching/learning hours, often using L1 as the main mode of English instruction. Students' exposure to English language is far from interesting let alone, sufficient.

Nuttall (1996) suggests that ' to become an effective reader, it is far more useful to read a lot of easy books than a few difficult ones', especially when students are at the intermediate level. Authentic materials for the students at this level are of various kinds, which range from easy to difficult, for example, train timetables, advertisements, weather reports or newspaper articles. Students should read various types of authentic materials extensively for the purpose of L2 proficiency and also for the experience of English-speaking cultures.

There is a set of criteria for choosing extensive reading materials as suggested by Nuttall (1996). She uses the acronym SAVE to indicate selection criteria for ER materials:

S - Short

A - Appealing

V - Varied

E - Easy

An optional selection criterion should be to consider students' current language proficiency and their preferences, especially when choosing authentic materials from the internet.

There are some obstacles of using authentic materials in extensive reading, for instance, how to allocate time of reading authentic materials extensively with the tight classroom teaching schedules in schools and at language institutes; and the problem of less access to authentic materials for students in an EFL country, than that in ESL countries, etc.

The ultimate goal of teaching English at the intermediate stages is to enable learners to communicative effectively-to use language appropriately. To achieve this goal, we need to bring the outside world into the classroom, not to idealise it conveniently from within. Thus authentic reading materials in extensive reading should act as necessary supplements to coursebooks by enlarging learners’ authentic L2 input, generating and maintaining learners' spontaneous interest. Increase in both qualitative and quantitative authentic materials may greatly improve our knowledge about factors which facilitate the learning of English language.

Article Selection on ER

Investigating Teacher Attitudes to Extensive Reading Practices in Higher Education: Why Isn’t Everyone Doing It?
- John Macalister (Victoria University of Wellington, NZ) -

This research is based on interviews conducted with 36 teachers involved in college preparation courses at language centers in New Zealand. The interviews were designed to investigate teacher attitudes to and current practice of extensive reading in higher educational contexts. The findings show that while teachers expressed positive beliefs about the language learning benefits of extensive reading, these beliefs were generally not reflected in their actual classroom programs. The results reflect the realities of the current educational contexts. Therefore, according Macalister, to facilitate further implementation of extensive reading more widely in higher educational contexts- teacher education, new research, changes in course design, raising awareness among administrators and managers, and improved resource provision are needed.

 http://rel.sagepub.com/content/41/1/59.full.pdf+html

Journal 1: Based on Chapter 2 Learning to Recognize and Spell Words

Suppose your son, nine years old, does not read in English yet, so you decided to send him to Hakwon. But 3 months later he ended up feeling that English is simply a nightmare. He hates doing phonics workbook and memorizing words. He doesn't want to go to Hakwon anymore. You are anxoius and worried about your only son. How would you help him enjoy reading in English?

Research shows that it is vitally important for children to have a solid start in reading. The ability to read is essential to being abl to learn any subject taught in school: many have even stated that reading is the key to success at school and in life! 

The topic for this journal entry discusses about a fundamental problem which affects many children, not just in EFL environments but even in English speaking countries, like the United States. An educational survey conducted (U.S.) showed that 44%o the 4th grade children nation wide are not able to read at or above the basic, or partial mastery, level on the Nationl Assessment of Education Progress test.
The problem of poor reading ability may be traced back to children's experience of learning phonemic awareness and phonics.  This is mainly due to the fact that reading is not automatic but must be learned. Whether or not the children are native speakers of English, they must first develop a conscious awareness that the letters on the page represent the sounds of the spoken word (phonemic awareness) and followed by a thorough, systematic phonics approach for reading instruction.

Teaching phonics in EFL situation presents a bigger challenge in many aspects: 1) children typically begin learning English as a foreign language much later than native speaking children; 2) lack of exposure to target language outside the classroom; 3) lower vocabulary skills; 4) age-inappropriate phonics approach to reading instruction; 5) negative perception learning phonics as being tedious and boring. This may be the case of this nine-year old boy who is unable to read and unwilling to learn phonics. Since the boy is much older than children who typically learn phonics (at around age 7) in English speaking countries, approach to teaching phonis must be modified to match his cognitive level. Even though he cannot read in L2, his L1 learning experience would facilitate his understanding of learning a language. In addition, he should be able to learn sight words, word fmilies, prefixes, and suffixes faster,: deliberate learning of essential words and rules regarding sounds and spelling will help his phonics approach to reading instruction. When teaching older learners, strategy training is necessary and helpful to expedite the learning process.

Finally, phonics instruction should be designed to cover affective, cognitive, and social factors for more effective learning experiences that gauge language learners.