SECOND LANGUAGE READING AND TECHNOLOGY

LANGUAGE COMPETENCE AND SECOND LANGUAGE READING PROFICIENCY: IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING

    Reading is seen by many researchers as the creation of meaning through the interaction with a text. A certain proficiency level is necessary to develop this ability.
     
  •   Reading as a language problem

    •   Yorio(1971:108) " the readers knowledge is not like that of the native speaker; the guessing or predicting ability necessary to pick  up cues is hindered by the imperfect knowledge of  the language"
      In other words, second language reading problems, especially at beginning levels might be due to language 
      problems.
     
  •  Language competence and successful L2 reading

    •  Alderson, Bastein and Madrazo(1977) provide evidence  that language competence is the best predictor of 
     successful second language reading.
     Chihara et al (1977) focused on the extent to which L2 reader's ability to use certain types of textual information 
     when reading depends on the language proficiency level. They concluded that greater language competence allows 
     readers to use context constraints more efficiently.
     
  •  More research

    •  Evidence provided by the research mentioned above has led some researchers to suggest that there is a threshold of 
     linguistic competence  which varies from task to task and from reader to reader. Further research is necessary in 
     order to have a clear idea of what threshold involves.
     Grabe (1986) states that successful L2 reading depends on the possession of a critical mass of knowledge which 
     interacts with background knowledge assumptions and relevant formal and content schemata.
     
  • Reading to improve language proficiency.

    • The idea that L2 readers must reach a level of language competence in order to read successfully in the target language was challenged by Elley (1984). She suggested that reading can function to increase language proficiency rather than seeing reading problems as a result of low language proficiency. Elley's idea was later supported by the reading lab approach outlined by Stroller (1986).

INTERACTIVE MODELS FOR SECOND LANGUAGE READING: PERSPECTIVES ON INSTRUCTION

  •  Top-down, bottom-up processes.

    •  When talking about L2 reading, the terms top-down and bottom-up processes are frequently mentioned. Top refers 
      to higher order mental concepts such as the knowledge or expectations of the reader, while bottom refers to the 
      physical text on page.
     
  •  Interactive models rather than a top-down or bottom-up perspective.

    •  Some researchers have argued that reading is a bottom-up process (graphemes form words, words form sentences, 
     sentences form paragraphs) while others claim it is a top-down process where readers have a general idea or scheme 
    of what should be in the  text and they use this scheme to perceive and interpret graphic cues. It is then necessary to consider Interactive Models of reading that will allow us to incorporate both processes.
     
    •  In an ideal interactive model of reading, skills at all levels are interactively available to process and interpret the text.
    • The predictions of this interactive model (at early stages of development the differences in reading in different languages would be greater than at more advanced stages) are not in contradiction with the Language Competence and successful L2 reading perspective. This prediction somehow makes clear that reading must require a high degree of grammatical control over structures in readings given to ESL students.
    On the other hand, the importance of vocabulary is undeniable in all models of reading, but it is not enough to just 
    have a large vocabulary but to consider automatic word recognition due to the fact that it is more important to fluent processing of text than context clues. This is evident when poor readers spend too much time on thinking about the words rather than recognizing them.
     
  •  Developing reading skills

    •  It is the teacher's job to bring students and appropriate material together. A way to do so is by pre-reading 
     strategies like the SQ3R
    • Top-down reading skills:


            reading lab approach: interesting material and sufficient quantity where students work at their own pace and 
            develop schemata in an area of interest.

                content - centered approach: it provides a critical mass of information on a subject for the class to explore 
                and it also provides an opportunity to encourage extensive reading. In this approach reading becomes part of 
                the normal educational process.
 
    It is important to mention that these approaches are not mutually exclusive so they can therefore be used in a combined way within a single program.
     
  •   Bottom-up reading skills.

    •   Development of automatic identification skills (language in its written form)
      rapid-recognition exercises: students are required to identify, quickly and accurately, linguistic forms at various 
      levels.
      Word-recognition exercises: students match forms with forms, meanings with meanings, key words with synonyms 
      or antonyms
      Phrase-identification: chunking or reading in meaningful groups of words.

    Through these exercises L2 readers can become aware of the fact that they can process English in meaningful 
     phrases.
     Development of rate as a means to the real world end of reading real texts successfully. If readers have to deal with 
     unknown words, the best strategy is to keep reading until the meaning of the word makes itself clear.

INTERACTIVE TEXT PROCESSING: IMPLICATIONS FOR ESL/SECOND LANGUAGE READING CLASSROOMS.

  •   Bottom-up or Top-down?

    •   L2 readers encounter difficulties when they over rely on a particular processing model (bottom-up or top-down). In 
      consequence, it is necessary to to teach comprehension strategies to help nonnative readers to become interactive 
      readers.
     
  •  Comprehension strategies to make interactive readers 

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    Effective use of bottom-up processing mode.
    As part of these strategies we can mention the language decoding skills which help readers hold in the bottom. Two major aspects are part of these decoding skills: Grammatical skills and Vocabulary development.

    • grammatical skills: classroom instruction should include the cohesive devices of English (substitution, ellipsis,  conjunction, lexical cohesion) and their function across sentences and paragraphs.
    • vocabulary development: it is important to consider the relationship between schemata, context and vocabulary knowledge. This relationship is clear if we consider that teaching background knowledge is teaching the vocabulary related to it and teaching this vocabulary means teaching new concepts and new knowledge.

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      Effective use of top-down processing mode.
      The greater the background knowledge a reader has, the better he will comprehend a text. It is due to a lack of 
      pedagogical research on which teaching methods work best in trying 
      to build background knowledge that the teacher feels forced to experiment and use a combination of pre reading 
      activities.
     
     low proficiency levels: key word, key-concept association tasks.
     
     pre reading exercises, information-seeking, predicting questions help readers to access previous existing knowledge 
      rather than to build that knowledge.
     activating background knowledge: some methods try to train the reader to do something before reading in order to 
     
     activate background knowledge. Some examples are:
      LEA- readers create the text themselves, ECOLA-setting a communication purpose for reading, 
      DRTA-predicting     what a text will be about, ETR-sharing prior experiences on the topic, PReP-free association 
      on the topic, SQ3R- surveying the text.
     
     text mapping strategies: these strategies help readers use knowledge about the rhetorical information of a text to 
     guide and organize their interaction with the text. It involves selecting key content from a passage and representing 
     it  in a visual display in which the relationships between the key ideas are made clear.

     teaching predicting:
          Revealing a text in small chunks where readers predict what will come next.
          Giving the first and last sentences of the paragraphs of a text and readers have to reconstruct what has been 
          omitted.
          Determining the order of a number of detached paragraphs.
          Asking students to unscramble two intermingled texts
          Cloze texts.

    Anomaly/nonsense: texts on familiar topics which have embedded anomalous words, phrases and sentences. Students discuss the anomalies and why they do not make sense.
     
    Other top-down techniques: Techniques that teach the importance of paying attention to text details. Such as using explicit textual cues in one part of a text to distinguish appropriate from inappropriate multiple-choice possibilities in another part of the text.
 REFERENCE
 Carrell, Patricia L., Devine Joanne., and Eskey David E. (1998). Interactive Approaches to Second
 Language Reading. Cambridge  University Press.