Life in the time of the Roman Empire:

Exploiting a short story in TBLT-CLIL David C. Hall & Teresa Navés

https://sites.google.com/site/navesteresa/apac https://sites.google.com/site/dchall01/

www.ub.edu/GRAL/Naves/ tnaves@ub.edu

APAC 2011. Barcelona. UPF

https://sites.google.com/site/navesteresa/apac

http://www.ub.edu/GRAL/Naves/

I strongly disagree----- I strongly agree

1. Reading is an essential part of language instruction at every level because it supports learning in multiple ways.

2. Reading material is language input. By giving students a variety of materials to read, instructors provide multiple opportunities for students to absorb vocabulary, grammar, sentence structure, and discourse structure as they occur in authentic contexts

I strongly disagree----- I strongly agree

3. Reading for content information in the language classroom gives students both authentic reading material and an authentic purpose for reading.

4. Reading authentic / everyday materials that are designed for native speakers can give students insight into the lifestyles and worldviews of the people whose language they are studying

I strongly disagree----- I strongly agree

5. We are usually more interested in what we are going to read if we already have an idea of what the text is going to be about

6. In our mother-tongue we do not read unless we have a reason for doing so. This reason could be pleasure (e.g. reading a story or novel), it could be to find out how to do something (e.g. reading the instructions on a packet of custard) or it could be to look for something specific (e.g. looking up a number in the telephone directory).

I strongly disagree----- I strongly agree7. It is not necessary (nor even desirable!) that

the learner understands all the language presented in the reading text.

8. Post-reading activities help readers to focus on the meaning not on the grammatical or lexical aspects of the text.

9. Post-reading tasks can be conducted in learners’ mother tongue.

10. Pre-reading tasks are the most common tasks teachers use to help learners read more effectively.

Roman Times in Catalonia

Eaude, Michael. (2007). Chapter 2: Tarraco in Catalonia: A cultural history. Oxford: Signal Books. www.signalbooks.co.uk

Eaude (2007) Chpt 2: Tarraco … Catalonia had no independent existence in Roman times. It was a province of Rome, as later after 1714 and then under Franco, it was to be a province of Madrid. But the pleasure of many Catalans in a Roman history, in being part of Europe’s greatest Empire, is that Madrid did not exist then. Today’s state capital was just a wind-swept steppe. Catalonia’s Roman history underlines how it is so much closer to the Mediterranean - to the ‘centre of the earth’, the heart of Western civilization – and how its people are mixed. Carthaginians, Romans, Celtiberians, Greeks... even 2,000 years ago these had all passed through. Such thoughts of greater depth and fuller history do not help you eat, but have been comforting to Catalan nationalists in long decades of being dominated by the Spanish state’s power

Underlying principles• Schema theory• Constructivism• Second Language Acquisition (SLA)• Task-based Learning and Teaching (TBLT)• Content-based instruction (CBI) &

Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL)

• Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)

Pre-reading tasks• Schema theory research provides strong

evidence for the effectiveness of pre-reading tasks (Chastain, 1988).

• Pre-reading tasks motivate readers to read the text

• Pre-reading tasks help learners complete the task better

• Activating readers’ prior knowledge of a topic before they begin to read help learners’ comprehension (Carrell and Eisterhold 1983; Grabe 1991; Ur 1996)

Pre-reading tasks by Williams (1984) 1. To stimulate interest in the text. Research shows that

when we are asked to predict what is going to happen in a text this facilitates our comprehension when we actually read it.

2. To give a reason for reading. None of us read in a vacuum and learners also need a reason to read if they are to be genuinely motivated. One of the ways in which a pre-reading activity can provide a "reason to read" is by getting learners to set their own questions according to their own interest in the text). Another way could be to create an "information gap" activity where students have different information and have to read and Exchange information to complete a task.

3. To prepare the reader for the language of the text.

Sample pre-reading tasks:1. Using the title, subtitles, and divisions within the text to

predict content and organization or sequence of information 2. Looking at pictures, maps, diagrams, or graphs and their

captions 3. Talking about the author's background, writing style, and usual

topics 4. Skimming to find the theme or main idea and eliciting related

prior knowledge 5. Reviewing vocabulary or grammatical structures 6. Reading over the comprehension questions to focus attention

on finding that information while reading 7. Constructing semantic webs (a graphic arrangement of

concepts or words showing how they are related) 8. Doing guided practice with guessing meaning from context or

checking comprehension while reading Source: http://www.nclrc.org/essentials/reading/developread.htm

Reading Research: Good readers• Read extensively • Integrate information in the text with existing

knowledge • Have a flexible reading style, depending on what

they are reading • Are motivated • Rely on different skills interacting: perceptual

processing, phonemic processing, recall • Read for a purpose; reading serves a function http://www.nclrc.org/essentials/reading/reindex.htm

“Learning is learning to think.”Dewey (1933/1986, p. 176)

“Properly organized learning results in mental development”.

Vygotsky (1978, p. 90)

The process of putting something into words is similar to the process of working out a problem.

“Because the acquisition of information is so dependent on reading, the measurement of readability of materials is of great concern.”

(Blau,1982: 517)

Reading Strategies to help students read more effectively

1. Previewing: reviewing titles, section headings, and photo captions to get a sense of the structure and content of a reading selection

2. Predicting: using knowledge of the subject matter to make predictions about content and vocabulary and check comprehension; using knowledge of the text type and purpose to make predictions about discourse structure; using knowledge about the author to make predictions about writing style, vocabulary, and content

3. Skimming and scanning: using a quick survey of the text to get the main idea, identify text structure, confirm or question predictions

4. Guessing from context: using prior knowledge of the subject and the ideas in the text as clues to the meanings of unknown words, instead of stopping to look them up

5. Paraphrasing: stopping at the end of a section to check comprehension by restating the information and ideas in the text

Task-Based Learning TBL• Task complexity ¿=? Linguistic difficulty• Cummins’s (1984) highly cognitively demanding

yet heavily contextualized tasks• Two-way tasks (Long, 1994)• Planning time results in better learners’

performance.• Meaningful tasks:

– Info-gap– Non-linguistic but content aims– Purposeful – Etc.

Task-Based Learning TBL

TBLT foundations

“For starters, this means having students do tasks, or at least meaningful simulations, that experts do in the various disciplines. Second, it means teaching them to think in ways that experts do when they perform these tasks.” Sternberg (2003) p. 5

Original source: Norris (2005)

Task characteristic

Accuracy Complexity

Fluency

Familiarity + 0 +

Dialogic v. Monologic

+ + -

Structure + 0 +

Outcomes 0 + 0

Transformations (planning)

0 + 0

Task influence on L2 performance

Adapted from: Skehan (2001)Original source: Norris (2005)Measurement in TBLT:

Problems of practice

Initial Evaluation aims to

1. Check learner’s prior experience2. Check learner’s background

knowledge3. Raise expectations4. Anticipate some content and

objectives5. Detect potential problems

Content Schemata

Content schemata are more helpful to EFL reading than linguistic simplification - Steffensen, Joag-Dev, and Anderson (1979).– Steffensen and Joag-Dev (1984), – Carrell (1987), – Johnson (1982), Kang (1992), – Oh (2001), – Hossein Keshavarz & Reza Atai (2007)

Against Linguistic Simplification• Blau (1982)

Learners benefit from the information regarding relationships that is revealed by complex sentences. Short, simple sentences actually are an obstacle to comprehension

• Strother and Ulijn (1987)NS and NNS comprehension of original texts v. texts that are simplified syntactically but not lexically confirms that LS does not make texts more readable.

• Parker & Chaudron (1987) LS does not make a text easier to understand as a whole

• Britton, Gulgoz, and Glynn (1993) Presenting content in appropriate ways improves readability much more than text simplification

Against Linguistic Simplification• Yano, Long, & Ross (1994)

Elaborated input• Oh (2001)

Elaboration is more facilitative than simplification. Low-proficiency students did not significantly benefit from

simplification. • Byrd (2000)

“these [simplified] materials can remain difficult because of the loss of connectors and other language used to guide the reader through the text” (p. 2).

• Hossein Keshavarz & Reza Atai (2007)LS impeded the comprehension and recall of the content-familiar texts.

Against Linguistic Simplification• Blau, E. K. (1982). The effect of syntax on readability for ESL students in Puerto Rico.

TESOL Quarterly, 16, 517–28. • Parker, K., & Chaudron, C. (1987). The effects of linguistic simplification and

elaborative modifications on L2 comprehension. University of Hawaii Working Papers in ESL, 6, 107–133.

• Strother, J. B., & Ulijn, J. M. (1987). Does syntactic rewriting affect English for science and technology (EST) text comprehension? In J. Devine, P. L. Carrell & D. E. Eskey (Eds.), Research in reading in English as a second language. Washington, D.C.: TESOL.

• Britton, B. K., Gulgoz, S., & Glynn, S. (1993). Impact of good and poor writing on learners: Research and theory. In B. K. Britton, A. Woodward, & M. Binkley (Eds.), Learning from textbooks: Theory and practice (pp.1–46). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Publishers.

• Yano, Y., Kong, M., & Ross, S. (1994). The effects of simplified and elaborated texts on foreign language reading comprehension. Language Learning. 44, 189–219.

• Byrd, H. P. (2000). It’s all the same grammar: Re-thinking grammar at various proficiency levels. Retrieved from http://www.gsu.edu/~eslhpb/grammar/info/same.htm#Tradition

• Oh, S. Y. (2001). Two types of input modification and EFL reading comprehension: Simplification versus elaboration. TESOL Quarterly, 35, 69–96.

• Hossein Keshavarz, M., & Reza Atai, M. (2007). Content schemata, linguistic simplification, and EFL readers’ comprehension and recall. Reading in a Foreign Language, 19(1).

Extensive Reading• Krashen (1994) makes a strong case for extensive

reading as an effective and efficient path to obtaining input for acquisition.

• Ellis (1995) points out that moderate to low frequency words occur much more frequently in written texts than in common speech, thus offering greater opportunity for acquisition. – The reader also has time, when needed, to form and

confirm hypotheses about meaning and usage. – Speech, on the other hand, may pass by too quickly

for this to be done.

Benefits of Extensive Reading• Janopoulos (1986) found pleasure reading in English the

variable correlating most strongly with English writing proficiency among ESL students,

• Tsang's (1996) study, time spent reading proved more helpful to learners' writing (language use and content) than time spent writing.

• Hafiz and Tudor (1989; 1990), in companion studies in ESL (England) and EFL (Pakistan) contexts, also recorded significant gains in writing proficiency (accuracy, fluency, range of expression) resulting from extensive reading,

• Mason and Krashen (1996) reported that students in extensive reading based courses enjoyed greater relative gains in reading speed, writing proficiency, and performance on cloze tests than their counterparts in reading skills/grammar-translation based courses.

Extensive Reading• Both Hafiz and Tudor and Mason and Krashen also observed

positive effects on attitudes towards English among extensive readers.

• Robb and Susser (1989), comparing extensive reading based and skills based reading curricula, saw extensive readers improve their reading skills at least as much as the control group, while reportedly enjoying the process much more.

• Gradman and Hanania (1991) found extensive reading for personal interest and enjoyment to be by far the strongest influence on scores on the TOEFL and its subsections including listening comprehension

• Elley (1991), reviewing a number of empirical studies, reported significantly greater gains in reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills among primary school children involved in "book-flood" programs than ones receiving traditional audio-lingual instruction, particularly as assessment was extended over longer periods (one to three years).

PISA 2006 Reading Results

• There has been a general drop in reading comprehension scores in all countries in 2006.

• The drop is particularly striking in Spain, down to 461 points.

• These results are frankly disturbing and confirm the poor Spanish performance in the international IEA PIRSL reading comprehension study done on 9 year-olds (4th grade)

PISA 2006 Reading Results Spain• Spain obtained a qualification of 461 points, fourth

from the bottom, ahead only of Greece,Turkey and Mexico.

• Spain was the country that saw the most severe drop from the previous assessment in the year 2000

• The highest levels in reading were those of South Korea (556 points), Finland (547), Hong Kong (536) and Canada (527).

http://www.elperiodico.cat/default.asp?idpublicacio_PK=46&idioma=CAT&idnoticia_PK=464310&idseccio_PK=1021

LOE 2006

In light of the poor results for reading comprehension in Spain, the 2006 Education Act (LOE) calls for more time to be specifically devoted to reading in all grades.

The LOE also calls for teachers of all subjects to be responsible for the development of reading comprehension in their classes. (Reading across the curriculum)

While-Reading Tasks

• Hyland (1990), Nunan (1999) and Brown (2001) discuss scanning and skimming activities. According to Brown, skimming and scanning are thought to be the most valuable reading strategies. Through skimming, a reader is able to predict the purpose of the passage, and gets the writer’s message (Flowerdew and Peacock 2001).

Post-Reading Tasks

• According to Chastain (1988), post-reading activities help readers to clarify any unclear meaning where the focus is on the meaning not on the grammatical or lexical aspects of the text.

• Ur (1996) discusses summarize as a kind of post-reading activity where the readers are asked to summarise the content in a sentence or two. It is also possible to give this post-reading activity in the mother tongue.

Main References

• TBLT by John Norris (2005) http:www2.hawaii.edu/~jnorris/TBLT%20presentation.ppt

• Strategies for Developing Reading Skills by NCLRC available from http://www.nclrc.org/essentials/reading/stratread.htm

• Williams, E. Reading in the Language Classroom. London: Macmillan, 1984.(p37) Urquhart, Sandy, and Cyril Weir. Reading in a Second Language: Process, Product and Practice. New York:

Addison Wesley Longman Ltd, 1998. (p185) http://www.facli.unibo.it/NR/rdonlyres/2774552D-C3DB-4F78-B7F9-E720C852E529/16539/blundellreading1.pdf

Thank you very muchMoltes gràciesMuchas gracias

Life in the time of the Roman Empire:

Exploiting a short story in TBLT-CLIL David C. Hall & Teresa Navés

https://sites.google.com/site/navesteresa/apac https://sites.google.com/site/dchall01/

www.ub.edu/GRAL/Naves/ tnaves@ub.edu

APAC 2011. Barcelona. UPF

Further references• Musician and artist Jeffrey Lewis sings about

the factors that brought down an empire http://www.history.com/videos/the-fall-of-rome#the-fall-of-rome

Further references• HBO Rome Behind The Scenes THE SLAVES PT 1• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=au9_cWn80ak

Further references• HBO Rome Behind The Scenes THE SLAVES PT 2• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3U3_93Bguo&feature=related

Further references• http://www.yourdiscovery.com/video/rome-all-about-slaves/• Rome: All about slaves 1:04• How did a person become a slave? What were conditions like for slaves? Could a slave ever gain their freedom? Historian Adrian Golsworthy explains.

Further referenceshttp://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/primaryhistory/romans/city_of_rome/

Further referenceshttp://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/primaryhistory/romans/city_of_rome/

Further referenceshttp://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/primaryhistory/romans/city_of_rome/