“motivating adolescent readers in the efl … · “motivating adolescent readers in the efl...
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MÁSTER EN FORMACIÓN DEL PROFESORADO DE
EDUCACIÓN SECUNDARIA OBLIGATORIA, BACHILLERATO, FORMACIÓN PROFESIONAL Y ENSEÑANZAS DE IDIOMAS.
“MOTIVATING ADOLESCENT READERS IN THE EFL CLASSROOM: THE NEW PARADIGM OF LITERACY
INSTRUCTION IN SPAIN”
TRABAJO FIN DE MÁSTER. CURSO: 2011 – 2012
ESPECIALIDAD: Enseñanza del Inglés Como Lengua Extranjera.
APELLIDOS Y NOMBRE DEL AUTOR/A: Mara González de Ozaeta
DNI: 05302275 Q
CONVOCATORIA: SEPTIEMBRE
TUTOR/A: Jelena Bobkina. Filología Inglesa I: Facultad de Filología
FECHA: 03/09/2012
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Abstract.
The following research work explores the need for a change in the context of EFL
teaching in respect to literacy aspects and the maintenance of motivation among
students. It seeks to introduce a new pedagogical function to the text while using it to
improve the love for reading between secondary students in Spain. Some theoretical
background reports the arguments and the need for a new settlement of the text in the
educational system. According to this new paradigm the second part of the study
makes a purpose of a reading program to be integrated to the classroom dynamics,
this purpose being based on some data obtained from questionnaires of research.
The program includes some pleasurable reading whose material would be pre selected
and adapted for the class by the teacher. Later on students make their own reading
choice among the already “suitable” proposals of the teacher and they start reporting
their autonomous reading and sharing their opinions and new knowledge with their
partners. Finally, a goal is established in order to evaluate their work and a constant
dialogue weaves together the linguistic issues of the course with the personal and
communicational responses of each individual reader. Through this reading program
we would stimulate the creation of a common universe in the class, a universe much
like a literary club.
Keywords. Text, English, reading, learning, pleasure, motivation, dialogue, classroom.
Resumen.
La siguiente investigación explora la necesidad de cambio en el contexto de
enseñanza del inglés respecto a los aspectos de alfabetismo y el mantenimiento de los
niveles de motivación óptimos entre los jóvenes estudiantes. Este trabajo otorga una
nueva función pedagógica al texto mientras lo usa para fomentar el amor por la lectura
entre los estudiantes de secundaria en España. El marco teórico expuesto recoge los
argumentos y la necesidad de un nuevo uso e implicación del texto en el sistema de
enseñanza. De acuerdo con este propósito la segunda parte del estudio recoge una
propuesta de programa de lectura que quede integrado en la dinámica del aula de
inglés basado en la obtención de los datos objetivos de unos cuestionarios. El
programa incluye materiales de lectura por placer que el profesor selecciona y adapta
para sus estudiantes. Mas tarde los estudiantes harán su selección personal de
aquellos textos considerados apropiados por el profesor e iniciarán sus revisiones
sobre los textos leídos para compartir sus ideas y conocimientos con sus compañeros.
Finalmente se establece una meta para evaluarlos y un diálogo constante que reúne
los aspectos de orden linguístico del texto con los personales y de carácter
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comunicativo. A través de este programa se estimula la creación de un universo en
común en la clase, parecido al de un club de literatura.
Descriptores. Texto, Inglés, lectura, aprendizaje, placer, motivación, diálogo, aula.
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INDEX 1. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................... 5
2. TEXT-‐BASED TEACHING AND READING HABITS ............................................................... 10
3. STRATEGIES TO ENHANCE READING IN THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE CLASSROOM .. 12 3.1. TEACHING READING COMPREHENSION TROUGH TEXTS ..................................................................... 13 3.2. LITERACY ACQUISITION THROUGH TEXTS ............................................................................................. 17
4. MOTIVATIONAL STRATEGIES RELATED TO READING TEXTS ...................................... 20 4.1. SELECTING AND ADAPTING MATERIALS ................................................................................................. 22 a. Authentic Materials .................................................................................................................................. 24 b. ICT resources ............................................................................................................................................... 26
5. THE READING SITUATION IN SPAIN AND THE EFL CLASSROOM ................................. 29 5.1. STUDENTS DEMAND INTERESTING TEXTS ............................................................................................. 31 5.2. TEACHERS’ INCLINATION TOWARDS THE ACTION PLAN .................................................................... 35
6. A PURPOSE OF READING PROGRAM AS A PRELIMINARY TO ACTION ....................... 39 6.1. PRE-‐ASSESSMENT AND THE PROCESS OF SELECTION ........................................................................... 39 6.2. SELF-‐SUSTAINED READING ........................................................................................................................ 41 6.3. COLLABORATIVE LEARNING ...................................................................................................................... 43
7. CONCLUSIONS ............................................................................................................................... 47
8. REFERENCES .................................................................................................................................. 49
9. BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................................ 53
10. ATTACHMENTS .......................................................................................................................... 58
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1. Introduction
Reading is like an infectious disease.
It is caught, not taught.
Christine Nuttal
The text is a complete and multifaceted source of information. It is the most
heterogeneous linguistic context ever provided to language students. The first
condition to promote a quality habit of reading among students is to provide them with
the interest and relevance of a particular text and to make a correct use of this text in
the English classroom.
The present research is centred on the problem of the improvement of reading
skills and motivation in the English classroom. In particular, the interest resides in
those strategies and techniques that might enhance students’ interest towards both
extensive and intensive reading and that would help them develop good reading habits.
One of the ways to do this is through introducing reading for pleasure components into
the language classroom and demonstrating the students the infinite variety of texts
they can choose to read as well as making them participate of the experience derived
from the task.
The benefits of the reading for pleasure strategies are often underestimated as
far as the gains derived from it take longer to be observable than those derived from
other oriented activities, like test-based practices in ELT.
While working with different kinds of texts, students not only learn to improve
the basic literacy skills, but also to explore the historical, cultural and social contexts in
which these texts have been created and interpreted. Furthermore, working with texts
contributes positively to student’s personal growth and psychological development.
What´s more, according to PISA report, students who are highly involved in a wide
range of reading activities, either in their L1 or L2, are more likely to be effective
learners and to perform well at school.
In order to promote reading in the foreign language classroom more
challenging, learner-centered tasks should be included into language curriculum. In
particular, the text-based collaborative tasks, reciprocal teaching and reading
apprenticeship could be of a great help to the teacher. Several ideas have been
adapted from modern and innovative teaching practices worldwide so that the result
would fortunately provide teachers and educative institutions with an interesting and
beneficial purpose that could be put into practice or adapted to particular contexts of
foreign language education in Spain.
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One of the successes of this proposal relies on its possible spiral effect in L2
learning. Namely, if the teacher attains the desirable reading conditions, students won’t
just obtain better results in their linguistic competences, but they will soon value more
linguistic and literacy issues in English. Consequently, all their concern with reading
more and better will foster their level of motivation in the classroom and the teachers’
self-satisfaction.
The individual fact most susceptible of change is the student’s interest for reading. The association between reading interest and a good reading performance constitutes a positive feedback: when reading students become better readers and while reading actively they tend to read more and enjoy the activity. (IFIIE 2011, p. 27)1
The importance of providing motivational input to secondary students is evident.
To achieve this goal and get a suitable atmosphere and materials for the task the
teacher has to explore and select the best reading options for them. These texts can
have various formats and contents. It is essential that those texts have different levels
of English and the teacher again delimits the graduation of those. Before giving the
students to choose their reading, the teacher “adapts” some texts to make them
“suitable” (Nuttal, 1996) and fit each student’s particular situation. These two processes
of selection and adaptation constitute the core of the present study, constituting the
premise of the ideas and activities that the author explains below.
Through the teaching process the teacher must be willing to see how their
students learn independently. The extensive reading practice allows students choosing
their own reading text while participating on the benefits derived from the experience.
The reading program presented below is specially designed for secondary
students of EFL in the territory of Spain and it is based on the text-based collaborative
approach to teaching English. The program puts together the traditional benefits of
reading and its motivating proportions with the success of other collaborative practices
in SLA. Students read autonomously and in-group, they reflect on the message and
form of the text and negotiate together through dialogic situations their own
conclusions, doubts and feelings. Either in the context of bilingual schools or not, the
ideas here explained are applicable to any intermediate student of English in higher
education who confronts an autonomous reading activity for the first time, being the
materials authentic although previously adapted by the teacher in order to be suitable.
To read authentic materials means a challenge, recognising it as an activity designed 1 El factor individual más susceptible de cambio es el interés del alumno por la lectura. La asociación entre interés por la lectura y buenos resultados en lectura se retroalimenta: al leer más los estudiantes se convierten en mejores lectores, y cuando leen bien tienden a leer más y a disfrutar leyendo. (IFIIE, 2011 p. 27) (Translated into English by Mara González)
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to native readers. Nevertheless, it might benefit all intermediate students of English,
who are already able to understand simple structures in English and grasp the
meaning of a text.
Consequently, the present program, although generally envisioned, is aimed at
those teachers of EFL who are eager to introduce text as a major didactic resource and
a motivational artefact. “(…) teachers who deprive themselves of a unique opportunity
to lead learners beyond the looking-glass” (Kramsch, 1993, p.106) At the same time,
this work addresses librarians, editorials, language departments of the educative
centre, autonomic governments and everyone who participates in the elaboration of the
curricular plan for English studies in Spain, but it might first be viewed as a befitting set
of procedures in the English classroom.
The encouragement of reading, including every language code, was demanded
of educative practitioners by the European institutions various decades before. In the
light of recent data obtained from statistical studies the situation that refers to reading
on a general basis appears to be critical,
(…) Several European countries have a lower average reading than the rest, although the standard deviation of students’ performance is not proficient; Czech Republic, Spain, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, and Turkey need encourage the reading performance in the different levels of competency to elevate their average results. (IFIIE, 2011, p. 21)2
The proposal under discussion treats the reading competence and the activities
derived from that reading as major communicative goals. These ideas are based on
the fact that reading is primarily an interactive experience that results in better and
more autonomous learning. Moreover, the purpose below is sustained on the last
theories about the pragmatics of the text and its relation with metacognitive learning
processes. The author believes that the processes that take part in every learning
activity are derived from those that occur while reading. This means that both
experiences might have similar consequences in the mind of the learner-reader. Both
experiential processes entail memorization, repetition, self-assessment and a reflective
mood on the part of the learner-reader. Having this under consideration, the reading
program must coordinate those language-teaching methods concerned with the
2 (…) varios países europeos tienen una media en lectura más baja que la media europea, aunque la desviación típica del rendimiento del alumnado no es alta; la República Checa, España, Letonia, Lituania, Rumanía, Eslovenia, Eslovaquia y Turquía necesitan mejorar el rendimiento en lectura en los diferentes niveles de competencia para elevar su puntuación media. (Translated in to Spanish by Mara González.)
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learner’s exposure to authentic texts in English and the activities and interaction
derived from that experience.
There are various possibilities of achievement: the cooperative learning based on texts, the offer of diverse reading resources allowing students choose their own reading texts and visit places and people who give values to books. These are some of the most important methods as curricular research in Europe affirms. (IFIIE, 2011, p. 63)3.
The reading program below is a structured description of the most important
preliminary aspects needed to put into action a text-based collaborative approach to
EFL. Hopefully, the program would help teachers and educative professionals
achieving proficient reading standards among young Spanish learners of English and
reconsidering the importance of such matters as:
• Our students’ level of text comprehension
• The importance of individual exposure to L2 in order to obtain more learning
autonomy in the subject.
• The choice of the texts and their suitability for the classroom.
• The democracy of reading, which includes first the personal attendance to each
student and the overturn of reading deficient competences; and second, the
availability of materials for everyone and their adaptation to each student.
• The benefits that could be derived from adolescents’ abstract thought and
metacognitive processes in order to make them reflect on interesting topics and
themes.
• The motivating power that a proper reading experience has and how to
instigate such experiences from the classroom setting.
The significance of this study resides in the conviction that fostering reading
exposure among young students will guarantee their future academic success,
“synonymous with success in reading”. Last research signals, “children without strong
reading skills by middle school are headed for disaster” (Slavin, R. A. et. al., 2004)
Besides, the act of reading becomes a particular act of creation operated by the
reader himself (Iser, 1976) that makes of the text the result of the experience that the
reader encountered through. Readers create the text as they imbue the experience
3 Existen varias maneras de lograr este objetivo: el aprendizaje cooperativo basado en textos, ofrecer materiales de lectura diversos, permitir a los alumnos que elijan sus lecturas y visitar lugares o personas que valoren los libros. Éstos son algunos de los métodos más importantes que sugieren los currículos e investigaciones europeas. (Translated by Mara González).
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with a sense of “particularity” including a contextual language use, so useful to second
language learning. (Kramsch, 1993).
The reader is left with everything to do, and yet everything has already been done; the work only exists precisely on the level of his abilities; while he reads and creates, he knows that he could always go further in his reading, and that he could always create more profoundly; and this is why the work appears to him as inexhaustible and as impenetrable as an object. (Sartre, 1949, p.29)
Now, in respect to the teaching practice and its practitioners, the reading text
may appear at first difficult and hard to manage in the classroom dynamics, but it is a
strategic element of choice that entails the practice and learning of other linguistic
skills. Writing, speaking, even listening, can be coordinated with reading and to
promote reading. The idea of designing a reading program for the students of a foreign
language class could be optimal for deciding on whether the objectives and activities of
the classroom are being suitable and motivating enough or if their orientation might
change. We believe that through an enjoying reading experience and through our
students’ regular exposure to the task it could be possible to lead an interactive and
collaborating learning method, a multidisciplinary class that will boost their willingness.
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2. Text-‐based Teaching and Reading Habits
The protagonist of the method proposed is the text, elevated as the major and most
important resource for the teaching-learning process. It becomes the focus of the
pedagogy substituting other means, mainly because it is considered at the same time
an advantageous element for learning a second language and a motivational strategy.
It constitutes an award by itself and plays an important part in the personal
development of each student. In continuation we are going to have a look at the way
texts were treated throughout the history of foreign language teaching.
The text has been accompanying foreign language teaching as an educational
resource since second languages started being compulsory learned in schools.
Education was at that time controlled by Catholic Church, on this account; the main
foreign languages were Latin and Greek. The texts used to support Latin and Greek
lessons were biblical texts, so that the Scriptures provided the linguistic context and
made readers understand the concept of text as being a container of truth. According
to clerical education texts were intended to preserve the truth as an immortal
compendium and to make it accessible to everyone.
With the rise of modern languages study, the education was already secular.
Literary texts started being used, but on a very restricted way; they were segmented,
translated and copied in order to study isolated and insignificant examples of a
linguistic context.
In the mid forties traditional texts’ usage was left behind, in order for those
classes to start being more oral-oriented. The foreign language curriculum consisted
on memorizing dialogue patterns and being able to communicate in various more
functional contexts in which language acquired a social or an informational purpose.
The lessons started being at the domain of empty formal modes, like with religious
texts, these were decontextualized sentences and fragments that were supposed to
serve acquiring a communicative competence. Modern course books still mirror this
approach to texts in ELT (Kramsch, 1992). The problem was and has been that “no
mere course can ever give the full, rich range of social and cultural context on which
cultural natives draw as they speak with one another” (Kramsch, 1992, p. 5)
In the present time there are several educative purposes and approaches
around the text, such as content-based teaching or genre-based teaching. These
approaches are treating the text as a unique and complex unit of meaning. The
program proposed in this work, in concrete, is based on the last methodological
developments that consider working with authentic texts the ultimate input for the
skilled learner. Such proceedings, based on the use of authentic materials, also include
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enhancing English learners involvement and motivation through pleasurable reading
experiences in the target language that may serve communicative contexts in the
classroom.
In the gap between the reign of traditional text usage in the classroom and the
posterior aural and oral practices, the present research work tries coordinating both
strategies into one with the text-based collaborative approach. This is one of the key
methodologies as described by the Carnegie Corporation of New York in the report
titled Reading Next: A Vision for Action and Research in Middle and High school
Literacy (2006). The text’s prior aim is to encourage literacy instruction and research in
order to struggle young middle and high school students to read, but the document
judges the approach in question consistent with students SLA and the objective of
making them English proficient and self-motivated readers (Krashen & Terrell, 1988).
The approach “involves designing learning opportunities for pairs or small groups of
students that are similar to the book clubs or literature circles implemented in first
grades” (Biancarosa & Snow, 2006, p. 17) and consists on the practice of various
methods that serve at the same time as a guidance through the comprehension of the
text, students foreign language acquisition and their love for reading. For example,
reciprocal teaching and reading apprenticeship should be included. But also some
periodic assessment of our student’s criteria should be considered for book selection.
Also, the extensive and intensive uses of the text will facilitate variety and classroom
dynamics, and having in mind that the approach is intended for foreign readers we
need extra support in L2 instruction, that is, intensive reading practice.
Through this approach, the text creates a shared context that boosts dialogic
situations and collaborative learning in the classroom. At those interactive moments it
is replaced from “the focal point of the activity” in order to make it a “point of reference”
(Duff & Maley, 1990, p.85). With the teacher’s assistance, the classroom may rapidly
turn into microcosms: each reader with his imaginative and creative power sharing
his/her vision of the world and helping creating it anew. Learning gets rapidly
“decentralized” (Biancarosa & Snow, 2006, p.17) and replaced by pleasure reading
and enjoyable dialogic experiences. This replacement instigates confident participation
on the part of students and so begins the L2 acquisition process.
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3. Strategies to Enhance Reading in the Foreign Language Classroom
The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages provides us with a
definition of text applied to the language teaching process. The text is here defined as
“any sequence or discourse (spoken and/or written) related to a specific domain and
which in the course of carrying out a task becomes the occasion of a language activity,
whether as a support or as a goal, as product or process” (C.E.F 2001, p. 10). The
definition does not give details about the engaging power of the reception of a text,
whether listened or read, and how following an interesting and enjoying text can be one
of the most effective strategies to motivate our students. Instead, educational systems
restrict its use to the main linguistic goal, communication. ELT has been misleading the
applicability of the interesting and pleasurable reading to the classroom; what’s more,
they have forgotten their responsibility of struggling adolescent readers (IESD, 2010).
Traditionally reading instruction in the context of foreign language teaching has
been regarded as important to language acquisition as any other linguistic skill. A
proficient linguistic competence must include equal abilities to writing, speaking,
listening and interacting as well. But what is the purpose of such a democratic structure
of language use? Discourses revealed through texts can be received and produced;
yet these include a message dependent on a linguistic set of formulas. From the
external reception of the text to its internal processing, a complete learning process
and a subtle acquisition of the language are taken place at once in the mind of the
learner-reader. Modern linguistic education in Spain, especially that referring to ELT,
devotes short periods of reading in the classroom and no attention whatsoever to self
sustained reading and reading habits as a whole. It is firmly believed that, in Krashen’s
words,
(…) Reading makes a contribution to overall competence, to all four skills and not just to written performance. Clearly, written input alone will not result in spoken fluency, due to the phonological factor as well as differences in spoken and written language. Comprehensible input gained in reading, however, may contribute to a general language competence that underlies both spoken and written performance. (Krashen & Terrell 1988, p. 131)
The reading deficiency in education could be due to various facts: higher
education’s lack of concern for literacy issues or the increasing domain of interactive
skills and non-discursive elements. In other words, communicative goal-driven
instruction might be replacing expressive goal-driven methodologies for language
instruction. Of course, this fact implies that a functionalist point of view is shadowing
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the importance of autonomous experiences through language use and modern
rhetoric.
During the past decade the importance of reading instruction significantly increased, which has played an important part in European cooperation related with educational issues. Encouraging the reading competence was one of the European objectives agreed in the working plan of 2002 (1): “Education and Instruction 2010”. In May 2003, the European Council established the objective of reducing the rate of students below 15 years old that showed a low reading performance at least in a 20% during the year 2010 (2). The objective was not achieved; in fact, the levels of reading competencies did not show any significant improvement along the last decade. (Vassiliou 2011, p. 3).4
The focus of the reading program is put on young people in the context of SLA;
being proved that “students are less motivated to read in later grades” (Biancarosa &
Snow, 2006, p. 9). Although the research data below will show how their disinterest
could be due to the maladaptive strategies previously design in the curriculum,
because even them are sure of the SLA benefits that reading might propitiate them
with5. Reading can be regarded as a double experience: it is an end in itself and a
means to acquire more knowledge (IFFIE, 2011).
3.1. Teaching Reading Comprehension Trough Texts
The next point tries explaining the main steps to follow in literacy instruction, that is,
trying to guide students through the linguistic decoding process. Processing the
information correctly from a text will condition the nature of the propositional meaning
of that text. Although this is understood as an autonomous process that the reader will
try resolving independently, the teacher guidance on the first place and the promotion
of extensive reading practices must be included in the curriculum. “Good things happen
to students who read a great deal in the new language. Research shows they become
better and more confident readers, they write better, their listening and speaking
abilities improve, and their vocabularies get richer.” (Bamford & Day, 2004, p.1)
Decoding and processing information is the first step that our students have to
undertake in order to start enjoying the benefits derived from the reading experience. It 4 Durante la década pasada aumentó notablemente la importancia de la enseñanza de la lectura, cuestión que además ha tenido un papel clave en de la cooperación europea en materia educativa. La mejora de la competencia lectora fue uno de los objetivos europeos acordados en el plan de trabajo de 2002 (1): “Educación y Formación 2010”. En Mayo de 2003, el Consejo de Ministros adoptó el objetivo de reducir el índice de alumnos de 15 años con bajo rendimiento en lectura por lo menos en un 20% en el año 2010 (2). Este objetivo no se consiguió; de hecho, los niveles de competencia lectora no mostraron una mejora significativa a lo largo de la última década. (Vassiliou, 2011, p. 3) (Translated into English by Mara González). 5 See Graph # 2, p. 31 of this work.
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is the first step out of the possible sequence of teaching (Nuttal, 1982) that this
analysis proposes. The present research estimates important mentioning the extensive
reading practice that is devoted to comprehension instruction. This practice “along with
deliberate teaching of strategies resulted in improvement” in ELT (Krashen & Terrell,
1988, p. 141). Extensive reading entails quick reading “with high levels of
comprehension and without needing a dictionary” as often as it previously seems (EFR
2011, p.3).
Nevertheless, the use of the dictionary should be constrained by the nature of
the expression or word the student wants to know about and with students individual
needs. The nature of the words and expressions we can find in a text define the
importance or the urgency of that item for the overall understanding. According to this,
the author of this work proposes the following categories for identifying segments of the
text: ornamental words, key words, dependent and independent words. The
classification is suggested with the sole aim of convincing our secondary students of
their already acquired capacities to read in L2. We might all agree that the meaning
differences, position, categories and syntactic relations distinguish the quality of words
and their implicatures in the discourse.
For example, ornamental words make the imaginal process of information more
detailed and coloured, but they can also be ignored on the first place while the reader
keeps track of the message of the text without problems. This kind of word is important
for the aesthetic delight of the text; with which our students will be awarded with
through their progressive reading improvement.
Key words are easily identifiable, without knowing their meaning in that specific
linguistic context the reader won’t be able to continue reading. He/she will get
unavoidably lost during the next lines. The reader cannot ignore them or he/she will
risk the overall understanding. The meaning of some other words is so dependent on
context and their syntactic position that theirs is a deductive meaning, resulted from the
assistance of other contextual and co-textual6 elements. Independent words instead,
have uncertain meanings; they are probably encountered in an ambiguous context or
fruit of cultural misunderstanding on the part of the reader. Against key words the latter
could be ignored without putting in danger the experience’s success.
Most older struggling readers can read words accurately, but they do not comprehend what they read, for a variety of reasons. For some, the problem is that they do not yet read words with enough fluency to facilitate comprehension. Others can read accurately
6 Referring to the constituting elements of that specific text. Those inner references that create a linguistic setting around the discourse.
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and quickly enough for comprehension to take place, but they lack the strategies to make them comprehend what they read. (Biancarosa & Snow, 2006, p. 8)7
Students do not have to be distrustful of their own capacities to read the text. Of
course there are categories of difficulty and of specificity among texts. We have to
keep in mind that a text not only has to be suitable for the reader, but also the reader
and the context have to be adequate for the specific nature of that discourse. Having
this fact under consideration the real level of understanding resides in the reader’s
skills to discriminate among the information, the structure of the language, word-
knowledge and the support of the context. A foreign language reader with an
intermediate level of English and an increasing reading practice will shortly be able to
know by himself how certain words in that language are only playing a secondary part
to the overall meaning, and how other words carry the weights of meaning and images.
Once the reader has overcome this process of familiarization with the language,
extensive reading starts being fruitful. “Only when the students are reading quickly,
with high levels of comprehension and without needing a dictionary” (EFR 2011, p. 3)
we can start putting into practice extensive reading experiences. This practice includes
the acquisition of such abilities as those that allow us “to grasp the gist of a text, to
notice and repair misinterpretations, and to change tactics based on the purposes of
reading.” (Biancarosa & Snow, 2006). Students work up their reading abilities to be
able to “learn independently and flexibly apply the strategies on their own” through
“reciprocal teaching” (Biancarosa & Snow, 2006, p. 14) At this point they start being
able to questioning, clarifying, predicting and summarizing the content of the text.
Learner-readers have to be encouraged to relax while reading and try
concentrating on the images that result from the process. Later on, those images can
be recorded through a writing task or through drawings. Students negotiate their
private thoughts during the reading progress with the rest of the class or in pairs and so
on. With higher levels of comprehension, the reader’s mind will start specifying more
details of the message. This strategic instruction put the reading process on the level of
metacognitive learning processes which are described in the area of educational
research to explain the why and how we can permanently control our own learning
process. Within the limits of the reading act as well, theorists of reception8 in language
7 This is the report to Carnegie Corporation of New York. It specifies the sort of elements that a Reading program for struggling adolescent readers in U.S. must include. Although referring to native readers that start practicing to be proficient readers, the text adds that in the case of second language readers the plan would include a priority on the first place: the correct decoding of the target language. 8The theory of reception is the study that deals with the pragmatics of the Reading act on the level of other communicative contexts. According to this we must consider the communicative
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and arts have demonstrated that we are conscious of our own horizon of expectancies
during the experience of reading. We question our beliefs during the process, as when
we learn something new (Carrell, 1989), and put into work the knowledge we have on
the issues discussed. After that, we memorise every new meaning that transcended
our expectancies while creating our proper vision of the world.
From the psycholinguistic point of view, the Reading process establishes basically the interactive process between language and thought in which there are two fundamental elements: conceptual skills, past knowledge and the abilities entailed. Being aware of the fact that reading does not consist on decoding symbols but interacting between previous and personal knowledge and the text. (Álvarez, M. A, 1997, p. 42)9
The setting must be considered: in the classroom a “comfort zone” of reading
has to be created, this would allow students devote long periods of independent
reading (McEwan, 2008). Their reading must be varied, accessible and suitable.
Besides, a regular time and space must be devoted to silent and autonomous reading
in order to stimulate pleasurable and relevant reading experiences (Margallo, 2012).
The last step to clarify to non-expert readers in English would be the cultural
understanding that texts contain independently of the ignorance of the reader. Our
learners in Spain are acquiring their second language through their exposure to
interesting amounts of cultural information that always accompany the language and its
use. At this moment the teacher or their private reading will lead them to the
implicatures of that particular text on the level of the social, cultural and historical
understanding.
To conclude, in the reading classroom the teacher and the text are both cultural
mediators and context providers, being these two of the most important elements for
the learning process. “Good things happen to students who read a great deal in the
new language. Research shows they become better and more confident readers, they
write better, their listening and speaking abilities improve, and their vocabularies get
richer.” (Bamford & Day, 2004, p.1)
event, as research data and literary theory have recently demonstrated, being no longer the product of a dialogic need between two or more participants but being present in every interaction that includes a message. The reading act is a communicative act between reader-text-author. Wolfgang Iser (1926- 2007) and Hans Robert Hauss (1921- 1997) are the funders of this discipline of the literary theory. 9 Desde el punto de vista psicolingüístico, el proceso de lectura contempla básicamente el proceso interactivo entre lengua y pesnamiento, en el que son fundamentales dos factores: la habilidad conceptual, los conocimietnos anteriores, y las destrezas del proceso… Teniendo en cuenta que leer no consiste sino en descodificar símbolos sino en la interacción entre el conocimiento anterior del individuo y el texto. (Translated into English by Mara González)
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3.2. Literacy Acquisition Through Texts Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of
counsellors, and the most patients of teachers.
Charles W. Eliot.
This point of the work wants to describe in detail those practices and applications of the
text in the EFL context oriented towards L2 acquisition. For this reason, it is considered
now, as an ally of the text-based collaborative approach, the intensive use of the text.
The text in the English classroom is the tool of a specific lesson. This lesson could be
divided into three different stages (Lindsay & Knight, 2006): pre-reading, while-reading
and post-reading activities, that would dissect the act of reading and the information
contained in the text while promoting meaningful agreement between the learner-
participants.
Pre-reading activities include all those practices and activities that precede the
act of reading. Some interesting purposes include the use of cover designs or blurbs to
make predictions in English, the presentation of some grammatical structures that
would have any relation to the text, or pre adjusting students’ vocabulary knowledge
with activities. The teacher might also present them before reading a model that has to
be completed afterwards. These activities “help the learners prepare for the task”
(Lindsay & Knight, 2006, p. 75), especially when brainstorming is practiced or any
other sort of “warm-up” task that would get them used to a specific semantic field, for
example.
While-reading activities are usually accomplished through rereading the excerpt
entailed as much as the activity requires while having a careful look at those structures
or elements of discourse that we want them to learn. This could be done
independently, during those sessions devoted to it, and in group or pair work. The last
will guarantee collaborative negotiations of meaning and rules that will assure learning
success. Besides, the information of the text provides teachers with “content
enhancement routines” (Centre for Research on Learning, 2001) that can either be
used to detect grammatical structures following a definite pattern or it can better be
useful for students to see rules take a “real” form in a real context. Students can pick
linguistic patterns and modify them out of the text domains, comment on them with the
class or analyse their form and possibilities. For example, the expression of wish form
might appear in a piece of text telling about the private desires of the main character.
After reading and recognising the “particular” use of their second language they have
to elaborate on other possible answers and compose their personal wishes. These
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wishes can be related with the narrative expectancies they have at the moment of the
activity and be formulated like this: “I would not wish that end on the heroine”.
To finish, post-reading activities make relevant use of the interactive and dialogic
situations that correspond the text-based collaborative approach. When having finished
reading, everything we have seen anew, old or unexpected must be commented on,
analysed and studied interactively. At the end we have arrived at the idealistic reading
environment.
(…) Small-group practice is a key to the internalization of a strategy. It seems that students working in groups are forced to defend their choice of strategy and to explain their cognitive processes. Such interaction provides a review of the declarative, conditional, and procedural knowledge for both the explainer and the listener. Hacker (1998) contends that . . . [a]llowing students to work in groups provides learners with a source of feedback outside of their closed system, increasing the likelihood that errors will be detected and corrected. (Nokes & Dole, 2004, pp. 169–170)
English is learned through the dissection of the text, this provides us of a
context and allows us see language in use. The method gets us deeply and deeply into
context, that is why the stages serve motivational purposes too. All the activities and
textual practice are related to the propositional meaning of the text, however accessory
the relation might be. Some activities would rather be related with expression, with
everything we need to know in order to express the different functions of language and
be understood.
Other more traditional textual practices continue ignored during this program,
like the translation of the text, that had its concrete use and function in the past, but
which has no applicability in our contemporary curricular plan. However, writing
activities are still in close relation to reading, especially with intensive reading. Other
research supports the idea that writing activities help the reading instruction be
completed, because they are very useful for memorizing rules and practicing the
language (IESD, 2010). Therefore, writing tasks in collaboration with interactive
dynamics constitute the strategic use of the text as a major resource for second
language learning.
The student could be asked, for example, to take examples from his private
readings in English and search for grammatical patterns or words out of the same
semantic field that would be put in common in class. Their portfolio, either electronic or
not, would record the amounts of examples and self-made structures that correspond
their content-based reading. Every student can share his records with the rest of the
classmates and prepare exams and tests having under consideration the important role
of context for the understanding and production of a message in a linguistic event.
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Student’s transition from reading in their L1 to read in the L2 must be supported
on the first place by other strategic resources apart from the monolingual dictionary.
Resources that would guide them through the learning acquisition, like word
identification, visual imagery, self-questioning and paraphrasing strategies (Centre for
Research on Learning, 2001) Today the governance of the image can be benefited
from the classroom. Visual imaginary may help them making deductions, imagining
forward, completing blank spaces and getting meaning from context. “(…) Text
comprehension requires an indirect transformation between the symbolic
representation of the text and the analogue mental model, while the comprehension of
an image requires establishing an analogy between the picture and the corresponding
mental model.” (Schnotz, 1993 as quoted in Chun y Plass, 1997, p. 380)
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4. Motivational Strategies Related to Reading Texts
This is the core point of the research paper; it gives details about how reading
comprehension in the target language becomes a motivational strategy and the axis of
the text-based collaborative approach to SLA. Not only Nuttal (1986) opinions that
reading is “like an infectious disease”, but also Gabilondo in his book Darse a la
Lectura (2012) states that reading is contagiously caught. He says that contagious
means contact, and that we have to deliberate over the kind of texts that are most
appropriate for young people. We have to do the same as we do with movies, talk and
talk about book reading. Compulsory reading is counterproductive according to
Teixidor (2007) and the effect of graded books is under question at this point.
Reading, which has been an objective on the first part of the investigation, is
now the strategy and the award. Its double nature is one of its benefits, being an aim
and an award at the same time (Bamford & Day, 2004). That is what makes students
recognise its importance as a life-long strategy for their careers and a pleasurable
experience.
According to an Oxford University research study, reading for pleasure predicts professional success. (…) During two decades, the research group of psychologist Max Taylor has been analysing the habits and activities of almost 20.000 adolescents who were willing to know which activities precede professional success when turning 30 years old. No extracurricular practice –like doing sports or watching cinema– examined in addition to reading, got an impact as significant as reading to professional success. (Saiz, 2012)10
The study presents some strategic dynamics that foster students’ love for
reading and learning English. The strategies in use are supported on the knowledge
that adolescent readers having acquired reading notions and an intermediate level of
English what they need now is to get in contact with new recreational experiences
through reading. They can manifest their dislike for reading but this is only funded on
the erroneous idea derived from their late experiences with academic reading.
The modern paradigm for struggling reading in the class is modified by
introducing a sense of pleasure in every reading venture, regardless of other more
pedagogical issues. This work does not intend to put such issues out of focus but to
change the hierarchy of educative principles. The reading program derived from these
10 “Según un estudio de la Universidad de Oxford, la lectura por placer predice el éxito profesional. (…) Durante mas de dos décadas, el equipo de investigación del psicólogo Max Taylor analizó los hábitos y actividades de casi 20.000 jóvenes con ánimo de conocer qué actividades precedían el éxito profesional al cumplir los 30. Ninguna práctica extracurricular –como hace deporte o ir al cine–, evaluadas junto a la lectura, lograron tener un impacto significativo en el éxito profesional.” (Translated into English by Mara González de Ozaeta)
21
beliefs has multi strategic purposes, as explained before, and includes teachers and
educational professionals going through a formative training that helps assuring a
correct selection and adaption of the reading materials. Thus, having interesting,
suitable and accesible reading materials in the classroom is one of the best strategies,
as it Stephen Krashen (2002) states, “we know that more access to books results in
more reading” (p. 38). Following this principle education gets professionally aware of
the more democratic principle in our modern society, that culture must be made easily
accessible to everyone, no matter what economic or social background they belong to.
The last premise is cohesive with the model of Iceland for the “National curriculum
guides for pre-primary, compulsory and upper secondary education” (2011). The
Minister of Education, Science and Culture of that country established the six
“Fundamentals of Education”. These fundamentals, in order of appearance, are:
“literacy, sustainability, democracy, equality, health and welfare and creativity”. They
influence such pedagogical aspects as: the “choice of subjects and content of teaching,
play and study, the work procedures and methods taught ” and the “working methods
of teachers and other school staff.” (Icelandic Eurydice Unit, 2011) This investigation
sticks to the idea that the revaluation of literacy-oriented education and research in
Spain will improve the national curriculum and students’ level of excellence in the
international statistics. Because this is stablishing a new paradigm,
A dialogic pedagogy is unlike traditional pedagogy. Not only can it not be pre-programmed but it is likely to question the traditional social and political tenets of foreign language education. Furthermore, it sets new goals for language teachers –poetic, psychological, political goals that are not measurable on proficiency tests and do not constitute any easy-to-follow method. (Kramsch, 1993, p. 31).
As a means to elaborate on good motivational strategies based on the use of
the text, teachers need to know that the term motivation refers to three realities
afecting the personal conduct: intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation and amotivation.
This is the “theory of autodeterminacy” (Núñez-Alonso, et. al; 2005). According to this,
intrinsic motivation refers to that stimuli being fed by personal achievements, whereas
extrinsic motivation ambitions an exterior benefit, with a factual result. (Ryan & Deci,
2000)
Firstly, motivation can be defined simply as “the willing to undertake some
action or to keep doing it” (Marina, 2011, p.19)11. But this is not as simple as it may
seem: motivation depends on the individual’s willpower, so that any extraneous intent
to control it is limited and restricted by many other circumstances.
11 (Translated from the original text into English by Mara González de Ozaeta).
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Finally, if we get to know the nature of some motivational signs, we can
elaborate better strategies to produce it. It has been maintained during the course of
the research that a suitable reading (Nuttal, 1982) will immediately enhance more
reading. The following paragraphs give ideas and suggestions for making readings as
“suitable” and interesting as students want them to be. The last point numbers a series
of activities and goal supplying elements attending to extrinsic motivation, formative
assessment and the evaluation process.
4.1. Selecting and Adapting Materials
Compulsory reading tasks cannot help capturing our students’ attention; on the
contrary, this fact deprives them of the resulting benefits of a truthful reading
experience (Teixidor 2007). Christine Nuttal (1982) also talks about “the ineffectiveness
of course texts. At their most extreme, texts of this kind are clearly intended, not to
convey a message, but to indicate how certain facts are expressed in the FL.” (p. 20).
Canonical literature, in particular classic works, so declared by theorists and
historians of literature, might not have the correct addressee in Spanish secondary
students. They could be unprepared for the linguistic or aesthetic elements included in
those texts or their inner message. The aesthetic delight depends on the reader’s
attitude towards the text, says Wolfgang Iser (1976); maybe our students have not the
proper attitude, but in addition they lack the aptitude and competences needed to enjoy
limitless time reading. “Graded” books reduce the reading experience and give
importance only to comprehension by means of eliminating the most important
elements of the reading venture: its “difference” (Barthes, 1973). Attraction, suspense,
enigma, etc; all those elements can create the sense of “difference” that the reader
experiments unique. This research work does not negate the positive effect of certain
classical texts traditionally offered by language teachers, but wants to put more
emphasis on the fact that the selection of the text must not follow any other requisite
but our learners’ language improvement and their adherence to good reading habits. In
order to achieve this goal the teacher’s assistance and counselling during the process
is essential.
Selecting materials for the classroom is operating over the whole range of
possible sources, materials, formats and genres available today. As Biancarosa &
Snow confess, “educators have now a powerful array of tools at their disposal” (2006,
p. 3). With the use of the text-based collaborative approach the learning process is
decentralized, yet the practitioner needs to develop professional knowledge and
23
abilities to select and adapt the text to the students. The main consideration is that
those texts are correctly adapted for the interest and expectancies of the readers.
“Many adolescents, both native and non-native English speakers, have out-of-school
literacy skills and interests that their teachers may not even know about, but which
could serve as a springboard for learning in the classroom” (Moje et al., 2004; Hull &
Schultz, 2002).
The teacher must determinate the range of topics available in accordance with
students’ opinions, and “give choices” and strategies (Baker, E. A., & Guthrie, J. 2010)
while allowing them to make the final choice out of the texts pre-selected. Teachers
should always keeping in their minds that “our choices as educators play a role in
shaping students’ choices”(Auerbach 1995, p.9).
Later on, students’ on going reporting of the books and texts already read make
the machinery of selection more precise and widen their reading experiences.
Furthermore, students with their discussions, critiques and comments in the classroom
start sharing a common context for learning that struggles their willingness to read
more and learn more things.
The adaptation process is that which follows texts’ convenience and the
preparation of the materials for the students. If there is something to omit or add in
order to easy their experience this is to be fulfilled before presenting them the texts.
This additional point of assistance assures their reading delight and tries freeing the
reader of the anxieties that follow his inexperience. This manipulation of the text wants
the uninformed reader to be as informed as a young reader needs be.
As a means to adapt the texts a whole process of assessment and reporting begins
through which the teacher considers various factors: the age group level, their
achievements, the curricular plan for the course and the different methods of
evaluation. Later on the practitioner starts having an idea of what are the students’
individual deficiencies and to what extent is it the text adaptable to them.
An adaptation procedure would include the decoration of some dense and too-
much-formal texts with pictures, funny footnotes, an appendix, or commentaries. It can
also include several modifications at the level of expression in order to diminish the
difficulty of some of the grammar and vocabulary included, but adapting a text not only
means lowering its composite structure and inner message. If it depicts a series of
supporting elements like hyperlinks, examples, film extracts, etc. it must prove being
very helpful. Everything that the teacher judges suitable for their access to that specific
text and motivating enough to maintain their reading attention. We can add a “Signpost
question”, in Nuttal’s words: “not to test, but to guide the students when they read,
directing their attention to the important points in the text, preventing them from going
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off along a false track” (1982, p. 158). Signpost questions are relevant questions during
the reading process with the aim of making them all aware of concealed details and
hints in the text.
Adapting texts for our students is an open intervention that allows widening and
modifying the text to fit the context of the English classroom and students’ interests.
However, we do not want to low estimate their capacities. There have been proposed
other levelling systems aside from graded reading, “cloze tests” (Taylor, 1953) have
been lately used to manage each student’s reading skills. This method consists of
leaving blank spaces in the place of some words of a short piece of a text. Students
have to prove their capacity for filling up the blanks and from their mistakes it is
established the criteria of adaptation. Still, this system has proved to lower too much
their capacities and so, to diminish the effort and the interest of students.
This proposal considers more didactic the fact that the reader struggles with the
text’s message, albeit the message may get blurred or difficult to grasp. Through
rereading, , dialogue and activities all their problems can be resolved and their answers
completed.
Now that teachers have become “reading facilitators” (Shanahan & Shanahan,
2008 p. 48), let’s see why choosing authentic material to read against traditional
“graders” and classic literature, along with ICT and new media in the classroom is the
best option for making our students become avid readers.
a. Authentic Materials Nunan and Miller (1995) define authentic materials as those that were “not created or
edited expressly for language learners”. We are entering the region of unavoidable
messages, inaccessible linguistic constructs and language immersion and yet, it is
affordable and advisable to our students. The main reason why this could work is that
there surely are reading strategies, which are common to both L1 and L2 readers,
including any language worldwide. Additionally, there exist other easy-to-acquire
strategies to comprehend the foreign language discourse and a lot of immersion and
speed reading practice before starting to gain overall understanding.
Leaving aside the levelling systems of other agents such as editorials and
professional educators the teacher of the English classroom can be a good reading
mediator between students and real or authentic materials in their second language.
Although the reading program is primarily concerned with the learner autonomy
(through self-assessment and natural approach to learning), the teacher’s intervention
will solve out the problems with non-guided reading events that would risk students’
25
willingness and attitude towards the reading act. “Using real examples is important
because these short texts will convey a message. They will help learners to understand
that reading involves understanding a message, rather than just sounding out the letter
of a word.” (Lindsay & Knight, 2006)
The use of authentic materials in the classroom is directly linked to such
theories as the “natural approach” to language (Krashen & Terrell, 1988) and the
“natural” learning process derived from adapted reading and interesting materials for
young people. “Reading can serve as an important source of comprehensible input and
may make a significant contribution to the development of overall proficiency.”
(Krashen & Terrell 1988, p. 131)
The natural approach consists in those practices applied to language
acquisition better than learning the language. The distinction between learning and
acquiring refers to the fact that any learning process would imply memorizing and
studying rules and formulas, while the acquisition of a language is supposed to occur
at the level of unconscious and during the natural use of the target language.
According to Krashen and Terrell’s study (1988) the natural approach is divided into
two main elements that specify the staging of the process of acquisition. Like the
reading program presented here, they give importance first to comprehension. If the
acquirer does not comprehend the language input, little is possible to do. First,
comprehension issues have to be attended and the second element is production.
Production is again divided in other progressive stages: halfway through the process
teachers’ intervention in the text allows the reader to make such natural progress real
(Krashen & Terrell 1988). Of course this kind of texts will surely break students’
linguistic and content expectancies, but the teachers’ adaptation of the text might
guarantee fewer problems without eliminating the engaging power of such tools. The
general tendency, as delivered by the IFIIE (2011), is to work to convince teachers to
use different types of books, fictional and non-fictional, divulgative documents,
magazines and newspaper articles, instead of the restricted use of traditional classic
literature.
Authentic materials are a motivational strategy, students might need knowing
the implication of their improvements and how close to real use their performances are.
Non-explicitly oriented materials for the classroom, like course books and impersonal
graded literature, will hearten their curiosity not only for language issues but for content
specific and cultural issues.
Overall comprehensibility meets the lexical and syntactic requirements for appropriateness in text diffculty. As mentioned earlier, semantic appropriateness requires a topic that is at least partly familiar and not overwhelmingly complex. And
26
most important, the text needs to be of genuine interest. (Krashen & Terrell, 1988, p. 137)
Of course authentic materials include the internet and the new technologies, as
these are also intended to be read by a native speaker, and to serve a communicative
or some functional aim (Peacock, 1997).
b. ICT resources
The incorporation of technology in the language classroom (ICT) has radically changed
the teaching-learning dynamic in general, the reading practice in particular. Now the
teacher stays no longer in front of the students with the textbook in her/his arms waiting
for them to read aloud by turns. Now the practitioner can select a varied media to
attract students’ attention. However, these revolutionary educative practices that refer
to the use of the text on-line have only been put into practice in five European
countries, out of the half of the European members that agreed their inclussion (IFIIE,
2011). Spain is not one of them and in the transition to technological reading this work
analyses and gives some ideas about its use in EFL.
The incorporation of ICT permits the appliance of multiple sources of
information and implements motivating strategies in the classroom. It was recently
demonstrated by a study in the UK (Clark, Osborne and Dugdale, 2009) that secondary
students read more from such electronic sources as webs, blogs and social networks,
than the primary students (IFIIE, 2011). New technologies are giving an innovative
format to the medium of the text, to the extent that the relation between reader and text
changes radically and consequently the message that can be derived from its reading.
All the elements around the act of reading have an effect on the readers’ mind and
none of those should be misled. All these elements are referring to the pragmatics of
the reading performance and include such meaningful elements as the structure and
division of the text, the material it is printed on, the cover design, the illustrations it
might contain, etc.
Today, even the mechanics of reading have been changed by technology and
readers have to confront their reading activities with new and efficient competences.
For example, with the book format the reader just paged through it while reading,
nowadays the reader waits for the message to appear on a screen and reads its
content by dragging the mouse across the surface of the table. Teachers have to be
aware of the present panorama in order to create adapted strategies for their students
and to help them develop those new reading competences according to modern
27
exigencies: “technology is changing the reading and writing demands of modern
society. Reading and writing in the fast-paced, networked world require new skills
unimaginable a devade before.” (Biancarosa & Snow, 2006, p. 19)
Still, there are two divergent opinions in respect to the use of technology in the
language classroom. The supporters of the first one consider technology as a major
assistance in the dynamics of the class (Gallagher (2011); Duhigg (2012)) meanwhile
the defenders of the second opinion affirm it to be just another distractive element in
the classroom (Ravitch (2009); Carr (2008)). The two opinions are based either on a
positive or a negative perspective: the first considers technology a major assistance in
the dynamics of the class and the second regards it as an enemy against the new
generations’ learning progress, another distractor. The latter would probably think past
customs and its culture are being neglected today abandoning old good practices.
The present research supports the idea of profiting technological advances in
reading for better results. The opposition to technological advances will not help
programming an efficient reading program for present and future EFL students
because reading entails being more conscious than ever of the things around us. While
reading we get to know more about the world and the intricacies of its society. For this
reason, the experience can no longer be related to any kind of alienation or an old-
fashioned perspective; on the contrary, the reading task is not only the recover of the
past, its history and memory, but also the awareness of present time ideas and
situations.
New technologies present new formats and textual sources. Articles and
modern reports announce the innovations: “Vooks represent just a few examples of a
new genre that has been dubbed v-books, digit-books, multimedia books and Cydecks,
all with essentially the same concept: It’s a book…but wait, there’s more!” (Hesse,
2010, p. 1) and some other researchers have been denouncing the readers’ level of
distraction during the processing of information in such electronic environments (Carr,
2011)
Other texts in the field of ICT and new media include the broad category
electronic literaure. This innovative type of texts would work positively in the FL
classroom , albeit many people still do not know of what it consists, students will be
attracted by its innovative look and some of its intrinsic characteristics, of a kind that
produces suprising effects and demands high levels of interaction on the reader. The
only web completely devoted to this category of texts and to give support to associated
28
authors and artists is the Electric Literaure Organization (ELO)12 that includes among
other interesting things, a definition of the text category:
The term refers to works with important literary aspects that take advantage of the capabilities and contexts provided by the stand-alone or networked computer. Within the broad category of electronic literature are several forms and threads of practice, some of which are: - Hypertext fiction and poetry, on and off the Web - Kinetic poetry presented in Flash and using other platforms - Computer art installations which ask viewers to read them or otherwise have literary
aspects - Conversational characters, also known as chatterbots - Interactive fiction - Novels that take the form of emails, SMS messages, or blogs - Poems and stories that are generated by computers, either interactively or based
on parameters given at the beginning - Collaborative writing projects that allow readers to contribute to the text of a work - Literary performances online that develop new ways of writing (ELO, 1999)
This organization makes the distinction among digitalized literature and such
literary works only assumed to be written and read in such digital environments (ELO,
1999) These environments seem to have freed literature and the reading act from its
restricted paper format.
This points finishes making a remark on the demanding abilities of the modern
world, abilities that have to do primarily with the processing of new information via new
media and technologies. That is the reason why some researchers and education
professionals have been lately giving a new implicatures to literacy learning, the one
imposed, as it was mentioned before, in the modern world. The New London Group, for
example, composed by such experts as Cazden, Cope, Fairclough, Gee, et. al, got
organized around a project called A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies (1996). About the need
of such projects and investigations as the one they were all engaged in, they
mentioned that: “When technologies of meaning are changing so rapidly, there cannot
be one set of standards or skills that constitute the ends of literacy learning, however
taught.” (p. 64) One of the options to contribute life-long learning and professional
development is reading a lot in L1 and L2.
12 http://eliterature.org/ (viewed the 29/08/12, 18:25) Published by Wordpress and Buddypress.
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5. The Reading Situation In Spain and the EFL Classroom
This point of the study describes the contextual problems and the motives that justify
the use of such a program in the Spanish education. In Spain, in spite of the fact that
daily reading for pleasure is associated with better performance at school, the number
of students reading for enjoyment has drastically dropped during the last years (OECD,
PISA 2009 Database). So, the challenge for educators is to install a sense of pleasure
in reading by providing students with attractive materials. English language teaching in
this respect, not only has to select interesting materials to read, but also
comprehensible materials adapted to the needs and linguistic competences of students
(Bamford & Day, 2004).
To analyse the current situation in Spanish schools, some quantitative and
qualitative data was collected during a teaching practice period of three months in one
of the private bilingual schools of Madrid. Both students and teachers have given their
opinions about the reading activities in the EFL context and about their reading
preferences. These data was obtained from the answers to some questionnaires13 that
the author of this investigation elaborated for this purpose. Some secondary students
of various grades answered the questions here included, from 12 years old to 17 years
old. These students are on a private school in Madrid that is gradually incorporating
Content-based Learning derived from other bilingual programs worldwide. The results
of those tests highlight the necessity of getting organized around a program like this.
For example, as can be followed from the data obtained below (Fig.1) when secondary
students of different levels are asked upon the approximate hour-rate they spend
reading per week, the average rate descends qualitatively. This graph shows an
inversely proportional relationship between the variables represented, that is, the older
the secondary students are the less hours they spend reading. 14
13 A copy of the questionnaires given and the results are annexed to the text. 14 The data refers to the significant descend of reading time exposure in whichever language the students chose to read: L1 or L2.
30
Graph # 1: Relation of average hour-rate per week of intensive reading amongst L1 or L2
students. Based on student’s answers to the questionnaire attached.
Based on preliminary research, the author of this proposal wants to contrast
more innovative uses of the text with traditional practices. For example, this study
questions the results that “graded readers” (EFR 2011, p. 2) and canonical literature,
widely used by English language teachers in Spain, have on students’ reading habits
and motivation. Another aspect to consider is that today in Spain many public and
private schools are levelling up their linguistic exigencies under bilingual programs
backed up by public funds (B. O. C. M, 09/2009)15. This fact encourages a new
educative procedure, more conscious of the importance of motivational strategies,
while ambitioning the new pedagogical gains derived from such activities as extensive
reading: learners’ autonomy, self-assessment, diversity and creativity.
The text of the L.O.E (Ley Orgánica de Educación)16 in Spain gives instructions
for considering the importance of a specific pedagogical hierarchy in which a special
attention is put to reading habits (Art. 19):
15 Orden 4195/2009, de 8 de Septiembre, de selección de institutos púbicos de Educación Secundaria, por los que se llevará acabo la implantación de la enseñanza bilingüe en español/inglés en el curso 2010/2011. 16 Principios pedagógicos: 1. En esta etapa se pondrá especial énfasis en la atención a la diversidad del alumnado, en la atención individualizada, en la prevención de las dificultades de aprendizaje y en la puesta en práctica de mecanismos de refuerzo tan pronto como se detecten estas dificultades. 2. Sin perjuicio de su tratamiento específico en algunas de las áreas de la etapa, la comprensión lectora, la expresión oral y escrita, la comunicación audiovisual, las tecnologías de la información y la comunicación y la educación en valores se trabajarán en todas las áreas. 3. A fin de fomentar el hábito de la lectura se dedicará un tiempo diario a la misma. (Translated into English by Mara González).
1º ESO 2º ESO 3º ESO 1º BACH Reading hours per week 7,6 4,6 3,8 4,1
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Reading hours per week
31
Pedagogical Principles: 1. At this moment a special attention would be paid to students’ diversity, individualized attention, and the prevention of learning difficulties, also at putting into practice the strengthening mechanisms as soon as those difficulties were detected. 2. Without prejudging its previous treatment in the areas of the step, reading comprehension, oral and written expression, audio-visual communication, Technologies of Information, communication and the education of moral values will be worked in all the areas. 3. With the sake of fomenting the reading habit it will be spent a diary period of time to the task. (BOE nº. 106 de 4/5/2006, p. 17158- 17207)
5.1. Students Demand Interesting Texts
Students will value such a purpose themselves; they know about the effect that reading
texts in English would have on their studies. As statistical results have shown (Chart #
2) they confess in a 95% of the cases that reading in English could help them to
acquire the L2. They say they will surely learn more vocabulary and grammar
structures. Then, what is the problem with traditional reading in the classroom and the
course book design? Curriculums are organized around a set of pre-designed activities
and formulaic texts that go insistently around the same topics all over again. Students
get bored; they are over familiarized with the language of those texts. Wolfgang Iser
concludes that, “Experiences arise only when the familiar is transcended or
undermined; the grow out of the alterations or falsification of that which is already
ours.” (1976, pp. 131-2) and we could support our lessons in those alterations and
break with monotony by being meticulous with texts’ selection.
Chart # 2
1º ESO
2º ESO
3º ESO
1º BACH
100%
86,7%
100%
85,7%
13,3%
14,3%
Do students agree that to read in English is useful?
YES NO
32
Teachers do not only determine book selection, students offer their ideas and
describe their interests, too. In order for this idea to work better, periodic assessment,
even the report of their readings helps the teacher orient the selection more and more.
With the aim of demonstrating how important is to know our students’ opinion
over the range of topics and textual genres available to read the results of this pre test
about their literary preferences is evidences in the next chart (Chart # 3). This order of
inquiries could guide teachers towards solutions and effective reading programs. The
results reveal the range of literary genres most typically known by young participants.
They go along with the topics available and refer to novel, to narrative subgenres. Their
answers are not very ample and are based on the examples given in the questionnaire
and in other students’ answers. There is a marked tendency among girls and boys to
opinion as their other same-sex peers do, and only a minority differ. Hopefully, the text-
based collaborative approach to ELT might guide them towards more options and help
them encounter new personal experiences.
Chart # 3: Relation of percentages according to student’s preferences to read. The categories
are the ones they offered in their answers.
As it was pointed before, an overview such as this could be useful for teachers
and literacy instructors. They could get a general idea of the preferences of their
students and elaborate on an action plan from these. At first sight we could guess from
the chart that those probable same-sex choices are adventure on the part of males
with the 63,64% and romance on the part of females with the 45,45%. It is easy to
63,64%
34,54% 9,1% 10,9%
45,45%
12,73%
3,64%
Literary Genres
Adventures
Mistery
Fantasy
Sci-‐[i
Romance
Humour
Others
33
discover that mystery, accompanied by the strategic feeling of suspense, and humour
will always have a positive effect on them also and that these particular group of
readers do not cooperate very well with fiction: either in the form of science fiction or
fantasy. The variety is only apparent, of the thousands of genres available today, only
the 3, 64% answered something different, meaning something not explicitly included in
the question form.
Additionally, we would have thought this generation of students are extensive
web readers, electronic users and would prefer those texts than any other. However,
from the data obtained, this author would suggest that adolescent’s use of new
technologies is limited by social conventions and virtual networks. Although the
majority of them do not use the web for extensive reading, but to search for interesting
cultural resources. They prefer textual formats which are unusually conventional, and
although preferable in most cases, this fact shows on the other hand their lack of
reading involvement.
Chart # 4
What is an evident clue and an important result in the results obtained from the
questionnaires is that adolescents demand interesting texts. This is a conclusion
derived from students’ answers to the question about their sincere love for reading. As
the chart reveals (Chart # 4), just a few of the answers were positive, and the chart
reveals these are directly related with their level of maturity, that is, the grade of studies
in which they are studying when they participate in this study.
83,33%
40,74%
5,55% 1,85%
READING FORMAT Book Magazine Newspaper Others
34
Chart # 5
In the group of 1º E.S.O the positive majority was reached with the 58,5% of
students confessing their love for reading and only the 5’9% out of 100% to negative
answers. The higher the grade of students being questioned the less they like reading
and the more they make of this phenomeno a fact dependent on the interest of the text.
The peak of depend percentage gets reached in 1º Bach, this obtains a 77,8%. It
appears that their levels of exigency grow synchronicly with their age and level of
maturity. Is it a consequence of adolescents rebel attitude? Or is it a problem of
educative practices being wrongly adapted? We have to understand that personal
growth and maturity define more and more our likes and dislikes, our behaviour and
character. As a result, young people will surely be more exigent and demand good and
interesting experiences. This fact could be a consequence of boredom, as Bereiter and
Bird (1985) announced:
By the time adolescent students are being challenged by disciplinary texts, literacy instruction often has evaporated altogether or has degenerated into a reiteration of general reading strategies (the general study skills that have been the mainstay of “content area reading”)– most likely to benefit only the lowest-functioning students. (as cited by Shanahan & Shanahan, 2008, p. 45)
If students get bored with the monotony of the texts and topic available at the
classroom, let’s better present them more varied material: “this includes traditional
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
1º ESO 2º ESO 3º ESO 1º BACH
Do students enjoy reading?
YES
NO
DEPENDS
35
written forms such as books, magazines, documents, and newspapers. It also
encompasses information and communication technologies, such as the Internet,
email, and text messaging, as well as text integrated with various videos and television
media” (Leu, Kinzer, Coiro, & Cammack, 2004: As cited in International Association for
the Evaluation of Educational Achievement IEA, 2009).
Another aspect to take into account is that among psychological studies,
adolescents, that big age group that corresponds to the ages of 11-12 to 30, suffers a
turning point in their cognitive processes that allows them developing their abstract
thought (Inhelder & Piaget, 1955). This could also be the reason why they fight
common strategies in education against practices more oriented to their reflections and
anxieties. According to Stephen Krashen (2004, 2011), it could also be due to the lack
of accessible reading materials. There are various hypotheses, but their demand is
easy to answer back with some of the practices suggested in the program.
5.2. Teachers’ Inclination Towards The Action Plan Such interventions of the teacher as the ones presented in this study were valued and
consulted with professional teachers of English in the private school in which at least
one hour per week was devoted to reading aloud. They gave their agreement on
including or not such elements of assistance to their practice as: the need of a pre-
reading context, the continuous assessment of students ‘likes and the appropriate use
of the dictionary. These questions were mainly tested in order value teachers’
disposition to action in the field of high school literacy.
The chart below (Chart # 6) shows how teachers’ level of agreement or
disagreement on these issues is mostly balanced. When they are asked about the
need for a pre-reading context that would introduce them to the prosecution of a task
with a goal entailed, teacher’s agreement is complete. The 100% of the teachers
suggest putting into context the reading text. The problem is the variety of texts that
avoids sharing a particular context in the classroom. The latter could be made before
reading a text together or with an established narrow reading program. Narrow reading
refers to independent reading but over a common theme or genre; that is, the teacher
can select the texts according to some common variable (e.g. detective stories, drama,
comic books), consequently the learning context would be built around that variable
and the preliminary element discussed here would be possible.
36
Chart # 6: Indicates those strategies that might help students comprehend and understand the
text.
The second aspect involved in obtaining the comprehension and enjoyment of
SL readers is the periodic assessment that will be followed during the program. This
method proved being beneficial to educative gains and goals, now having students
giving their opinions and making their own choices can struggle participation and
commitment to the classroom. They even report their independent readings and give
their partners recommendations17. Instead, not all teachers agreed on this issue, and
although a 75% approved this strategy, 25% of the teachers who were interrogated
were undecided on this issue. Avoiding dialogue and consent among teachers and
students is out of question here, a program like this, although revised and adapted to
each school necessities would never work under the premise of restriction or obligatory
elements.
The last item points to the use of a reference tool for reading comprehension,
the dictionary. According to literacy research studies:
Unless low verbal ability students are somehow able to improve their ability to derive meaning from context, dictionary use should be encouraged. On the other hand, it appears that many high verbal ability students refer to the dictionary when they have already correctly guess the meaning, a finding confirming that of Hulstijn. Teachers should be aware of these tendencies and be prepared to offer different strategy assistance to different types of learners. It is important to note that although the majority of subjects in this study had previous classes in which guessing from context and dictionary use were addressed, this instruction was minimal. Intense instruction in either area might have produced different results. (Knight, 1994, p. 295)
17 See report sheet model attached.
The need of a pre-‐reading context
Continuous assesment of students' likes
The students use appropriately the
diccionary
62,5% 25%
25%
100% 75%
12,5%
Assuring Students' Comprehension and Enjoyment of the text
Disagree Undecided Agree
37
Thus, an intermediate position referred to dictionary use must be encouraged
among practitioners. Specially because depending on our learner or reader skills and
their level of dependence, their use will be different. In the chart (# 6) it was revealed
that teachers find unsatisfactory the dictionary use of their students. The higher
percentage, 62,5% disagree the affirmative fact given. This would demand better
commands on the part of the teacher and more practice in order to students to get
familiar with this tool. Besides, we should strive for making them understand and share
the love for language items, particularly the interest for word knowledge. All the
intricacies of word meanings and usages can be accessed through the dictionary and
its usage might depend on that fundamental factor, personal spirit of inquiry.
Teacher’s opinions at these and other respects have to do with their proper way
of approaching the reading issues in the classroom: the materails they make or would
make use of, the strategies that they would se for such aims, etc. The readiness of the
research did not allowed an personal interview, in which they could reflect more on
these aspects and give their own opinion, for this reason their answer are not very
coherent sometimes and their position about this respects is yet unclear. Besides,
there is no consensus on this issue, academc goals are not put in common. They
probably know the effects of reading in the life-long learning of individual students and
its importance for L2 acquisition, but exclude it from their practices so much as from
students’ lifes. Their views toward materials and resources that could enhance reading
are recorded in this chart of percentage values (Chart # 7). The teacher are the same
eigth teachers tested before, only two of them are natives and male practitioners, the
rest are Spanish and the majority do not reach the 45 years old.
Their answers at this respect (Chart # 7) show a clear tendency towards one of
the materials, “the use of ICT”, with a 87’5 % of agreement. But at the same time the
book is risen as the preferable choice for the 62’5%. Although apparently incongruent,
the phenomena probably coincides with that modern trend among adult generations of
teachers trying to cope with technological progress and traditional formats’ benefits at
the same time. In their opinions and comments is reflected the idea that although
getting used to new media and technology, they have the responsibility of keeping alive
other traditional formats, such as book reading. The chart relfects the transitional
period that is taking place in socio-cultural and educational environments today when
the book format is still an accesible resource for more older teachers, not having the
habit of searching on the web for new innovations. The 62,5% manifest their
preference for the traditional book format, the 25% disagrees and seeks new reading
resources support.
38
Chart # 7: According to teachers which are the materials best fitted for imporving reading in L2?
Still, an extensive majority trusts graded books as a resource for reading
motivation, although in this work they are taken as pleasure-cancelling reading
choices. The 62,5 % is clearly decided to make use of them, probably because it
facilitates the teacher’s role, and only a 12,5% disagrees. Of course, that 62,5% is the
same percentage that appears undecided in reference to teachers getting aware of the
new literary trends, because these are the costs of non-graded books selection. Again,
only 25% of the English teachers are aware of the literary trends available today for
their students, impliying that teachers do not feel responsible of this issue and how
important their action and involvement would be. Indeed, the 12,5 % find their
formative knowledge innecesary and disagree.
The use of graded books
Awareness of new literary trends
The use of ICT Preference for the traditional book format
12,5% 12,5% 12,5% 25% 25%
62,5% 12,5%
62,5%
25%
87,5% 62,5%
Materials & resources for improving reading Disagree Undecided Agree
39
6. A Purpose of Reading Program as a Preliminary to Action
The reading program outlined below presents the general ideas and fundamental
elements that have to be considered if a program like this is to be applied to any
educative curriculum in the context of Spanish education. Some of the ideas introduced
before in this research work now they are inserted in the structural exigencies of such a
purpose, coordinated with the elements of other similar programs (Krashen & Terrell,
1988; Nuttal, 1996; Biancarosa & Snow, 2006) and educational researches, as well as
with the innovations presented in this paper. The overall program is in synchronicity
with the curricular purposes of EFL education and it meets the general exigencies in
the teaching lesson: Presentation, practice and production (PPP) (Harmer, 2009). Only
that here the element of cohesion is the text, and the text is understood as an element
of pleasurable immersion in the L2.
The following purpose is sequenced in three procedural steps, which are
explained in detail in each of the following sections. This three-step structure attends to
method exigencies rather than to a temporal sequence, because various elements
occur synchronically and all of them take part in the action plan guided towards the use
of the text in the classroom and out of the classroom. However, the independence of
the reader is confirmed in the selection and management of one particular text, in and
out of classroom and the collaborative lessons are given around various other texts
that the teacher or students bring to class.
The strategies included on the reading program below have taken into
consideration the number of difficulties the students deals with, such as teenage
students’ lack of involvement, vocabulary deficits and the structural dissimilarities
between their L1 reading and the L2. It coordinates the two most important missions: to
read for pleasure, on the one hand, and to learn from the motivation derived from it, on
the other. “Becoming a competent reader has a direct effect on the motivation for
reading, a fact that, in its turn, helps acquiring reading abilities.” (IFIIE, 2011, p. 65)18
6.1. Pre-‐assessment and the Process of Selection
The structure of this first step is primarily established around the teacher’s role
because he or she would make the effort in which resides the importance of the overall
program. Their role depends on their preliminary and continuous professional
18 Convertirse en un lector competente también incide en la motivación por la lectura, lo cual, a su vez, facilita la adquisición de destrezas lectoras. (Translated into English by Mara González).
40
development, which will guarantee the quality of their guidance as reading models.
This development enriches their knowledge about sociology, psychology, literature and
the arts, science and the news. The new role of the teacher demands new awareness
and orientation, the supply of their conformism with constant research and work
towards building on a proficient generation of readers and learners. Teachers’ personal
experiences and the development of strategic uses of the text will have a positive effect
on the students.
The dialectic of the program consists on, as followed from the table (Fig. 1), the
pre-assessment as a preliminary study and dialogue among teacher and students and
the periodic assessment, as the maintenance of that dialogue and interchange of
ideas; all in sake of finding the most suitable and interesting of texts. This periodic
assessment is to be preserved all through the course. Then, the teacher’s selection
and adaptation of the authentic materials begins while the class dynamics is
established and the method of the approach to ELT is explained to students.
Fig. 1
Of course, the development of a program like this would require infrastructural
adaptation as well (Biancarosa & Snow, 2006), as long as the reading tasks require:
the adaptation of the room for the reading sessions, the school library and the class
library association, research materials to values assessment and text reports, teacher
teams; “meeting regularly to discuss students they have in common and to align
1st STEP
Pre-‐assessment
Student
Teacher
Selection CRITERIA
Interest
Variety
Authenticity
Suitability
Adaptation
Text-‐Reader Mediation
Prediction
Action Plan
Infrastructural exigencies
Room Adaptation
Library
Research Supplies
Teacher Teams
Periodic Assesment
41
instruction” (Biancarosa & Snow, 2006). In relation to this point, collaboration with
organizations and institutions out-of-school will also help to achieve our goals. For
example, the idea of some lectures and professionals’ visiting the high school to talk
about anything related to reading acts will break with monotony and revive our
student’s interest. In order to make the selection process more accessible to teachers,
search engines and other web resources should be organized by the school, apart
from a list of up-to-date analysis and text reports that would orient the search.
Later during the adaptation process, the teacher works as a text-reader
mediator and responds at the same time to the infrastructural needs. By text-reader
mediator this author understands the series of facilitations that the teacher can bring
for the successful result of the reading-communicative act. Of course, the interpretation
and the imaginary entailed on the process stay within the reader-text domain, this is
primarily independent, and although later the exchange of ideas will be propitiated.
6.2. Self-‐sustained Reading In order to maintain a feasible program in the action plan, we have to consider before
some of the goals that students must be asked to fulfil. These are introduced here for
the first time although in relation to independent reading tasks that being non-
compulsory will demand strategic rewards to encourage them. When the teacher
presents the texts to the students, they make their own choice among the variety they
have been given access to, yet some norms have to be discussed before, like the non-
reversibility of their choices. Students might argue that they do not like the text after all
and that they cannot finish it for various reasons. All those who sustain their reading
and elaborate on a good critique and a text report will get prized at the end: either with
points or with other system that would win their participation.
Considering their choices or their possible disinterest or incapability to choose
among the texts given, they must understand how likes and dislikes change in relation
to the amount of experiences that we have as readers. Of course we might encounter
difficulties and boredom sometimes, but through all of these experiences, as stranger
as they may appear, we explore ourselves.
42
Fig. 2
In the first place our students will choose their reading text attending to social
factors. They will probably be careful with choosing something that their peers won’t
find strange or different. They will try to make their choice in accordance with their
expectancies and values, but more and more these choices will turn personal or will be
roundly based on the recent experiences or in view of the goals they have to reach.
Fig. 2 of this point shows the structure of the second step, when students make
their reading choice and start reading independently as a means to acquire more
autonomy in their personal learning interests. They will read independently in the class,
precisely to try fostering new self-sustained reading encounters out of it: at their home,
on the bus or in the library. These encounters with the text during long sessions of
silent sustained reading practices will create a favourable atmosphere in the class, a
context of common interest and study, which is very motivating. They will learn from
the respect of others concentration and try making of their particular experience a
positive one. The teacher will profit these sessions to bring them strategies and to work
as a model: the teacher reads as well as uses her text to advise the students and to
2nd Step
Student Choice of TEXT 1
OUT-‐of-‐class Reading
eFolio
Portfolio
Self-‐sustained Reading Report Sheet
IN-‐class Reading Reading Strategies
L1-‐L2
Dictionary
L2
Independent Reading
Collaborative Dialogue
Teacher
Role Model
Goal Provider
Activities
Tests & Quizzes
Strategies Provider
Comprehension of the Text
Linguistic
Aesthetic
Speci[ic
43
stimulate their reading. The steps through comprehension can be divided into three
main meaning mechanisms: the linguistic, the learner’s familiarization with the
structure of the target language, the aesthetic and the specific, entailing cultural
understanding.19
Independent reading could be encouraged through reports20 and activities to be
organized and compiled by them in their portfolios either electronic or not. Although
folios have various possibilities that would help sustaining their motivation, like voice
recorders to hear the student read-aloud sessions, with quizzes, photos and post
advices, etc. There is a research study going on in Canada, they have elaborated on a
model of efolio, ePEARL: Electronic Portfolio Encouraging Active Reflective Learning21.
It can be a useful suggestion, that proves how important is the portfolio “to capture
students' metacognitive processes and evidence of learning” (CSLP, 2009). They
declare “self-regulation”, so important at this point of the program, “a LIFE SKILL”.
The reflective mood of our students, triggered by reading, is later used to
debate and dialogue. The teacher assures an effective dialogue that includes the
opinion of everybody and whose topics are more or less negotiated through.
6.3. Collaborative Learning
This point resumes the main ideas concerning that step of the program that
corresponds to class dynamics: reading texts together and putting them in common at
the level of its linguistic, aesthetic and specific meaning (see Fig. 3). The process is
task oriented and is divided into pre reading activities, while reading and post reading
activities. Meanwhile, the rest of skills get involve to bring students the opportunity of
learning from various perspectives, although the element of cohesion continues being
the text.
19 Some other authors have used similar categories to approach text instruction, but those are not useful for this purpose. The current classification is based in Krashen and Terrel (1988, pp. 131-142) sequential strategies for comprehension issues that resemble the ones here explained; Nuttal’s (1982), who rated the strategies again from the most important to the more accessory and the Fifteen elements of Effective Adolescent Literacy Programs (p.12) in the report Reading Next: A Vision for Action and Research in Middle and High School Literacy, written by Biancarosa and Snow (2004). 20 See Report Sheet Model attached. 21 A Software of the Centre for the Study of Learning and Performance (2009). The Learning Toolkit [Computer software]. Montreal, Canada: Centre for the Study of Learning and Performance, Concordia University. Version 1.0. Location: http://doe.concordia.ca/cslp/ICT-LTK.php
44
Fig. 3
Interdisciplinary text usage is the main strategy of a classroom dynamism that
will motivate FL students. So that the text now not only mingles with the lessons, but
with other disciplines that widen the context and its implications for learning. All such
theories (Harmer, 2009) about the organization of the classroom according to
psychological and pedagogical reasons, like the variable levels of attention, the variety
of activities, the cooperative work, etc; are related to the secret of the PPP structure:
Presentation, practice and production. With intensive reading practices we can do that
again and devote presentations to capture the students attention or to introduce any
enigma or clues about the following session, then we practice while reading. The levels
of exposure to the target language while reading are meaningful and get the reader
involve in real language use, the same use that a native speaker makes of its
language. In Spain, while our students won’t have many chances to practice the
3rd Step Choice of Text 2
Student
Task-‐oriented
Pre-‐reading
While-‐reading
Post-‐reading
Collaborative Learning message
linguistic
aesthetic
speci[ic
Teacher Interdisciplinary activities
Lessons
Presentation
Practice
Production
45
language out of the school setting, we have to exploit the text and questions read in the
text through interaction. That would be the main activity of production in the text-based
approach, but what about writing? This skill could also get integrated easily with the
literacy-based curricula. Students can start expressing themselves through reading and
do it proficiently because they are more and more immersed in their reading activities.
Multi-strategic activities and goals reveal the real turn of education that the
program strives for. Without course books and workbooks but within discourses of
various kinds and enjoying activates the design of supporting materials and resources
could resemble some of these ideas:
! Taboo games can be played in order to help them memorized some vocabulary
they are familiar with, probably through reading.
! In order to potentiate their imagination, they are asked to make a drawing
picture of anything they are reading about.
! The use of slogans or engaging messages on the board in which they can
participate too. Like with the analogy fiction/reality inspired by reading: “I READ,
I Master the World”, “I READ I fly high above the moon”, “I READ I fight in an
epic battle”, “I READ I feel in love with the gardener”, etc.
! Sustained reading sessions can be accompanied by soft music that inspires
them and help them get concentrated on their reading.
! The teacher introduces a different part of a book, or types of texts each day
adding more vocabulary knowledge and engaging them in the class dynamics.
! Students are asked to evaluate ambiguity in a text and to discuss about the
examples with their classmates.
! The teacher could compile the texts that are going to be used in the class in a
funny and colourful anthology and give a copy to each student.
! Project work might be a very good goal for our students and their evaluation.
Either in groups, pairs or individually they are told to project something related
with their texts.
! The teacher uses visual strategies to encourage more reading for pleasure out
of class. He/she could show the students photos of famous people reading,
quotes or aphorisms that would inspire them to read more, to explore more.
! Identify the book by the cover or by a famous quote.
! Match the title of the text with its blurb or short summary. (Bamford & Day,
2004)
! Visiting public libraries and bookshops as a reward to expert readers.
46
! Make them know about the force of the first paragraph, the information
contained, its importance at the level of expectations and its function as
evidences of talent.
! The Best Reader certificate of merit. (Bamford & Day, 2004)
! Encourage them to have a notebook along with their reading text, to take notes,
quotes or reflections recorded easier. This means being active readers.
! Texts and the movies based on them, the relation between cinema and
literature through movie clips and text extracts could be analysed, and even
role-play might be very influential.
! Reading and writing micro-texts or micro-tales.
! Activities with poetry, like creating a chain poem from a preliminary model, or
brainstorming feelings from words or images.
! Discover them book-treasures, such as bookplates: their history and some witty
examples. Tell them to search for more examples on the web.
! Work with comic-books reading
! Cryptograms and Ideograms, the beauty of language from various perspectives.
! The teacher works on a study guide for the students in order to incorporate
some narrow reading about an author or a literary style.
47
7. Conclusions
It was the aim of this work to demonstrate that a program based on the primacy of
reading texts would be more coherent and precise with the demands of the modern
world and the needs of Spanish educational system than the present circumstances of
language instruction. With so abundant flow of information and our access to multiple
media and technology the linguistic abilities, both at the level of reception and
production, have been widen out so much that recent studies have totally changed
their perspective in favour of a more basic education, that is, a new concern for
literacy. Furthermore, this pedagogy not only regains the consciousness of the
practitioners and students involved, but recovers the joy for more subjective
participation: creativity, imagination, etc.
This investigation addressed all those professionals that work to adapt the
curriculum of middle and high school foreign language teaching, from the Ministry of
Education in Spain to the particularity of the classroom exercise, without leaving aside
organisms or institutions of coordination: families, libraries, bookshops and editorials,
media and web resources, etc. The curricular guidelines for ELT must be re-evaluated
along with the orientation of language instruction in intent to establish a dialogue
between traditional and conventional uses of the text as an educational resource.
Harvard researchers point that this “curriculum now, needs to mesh with different
subjectivities, and with their attendant languages, discourses, and registers, and use
these as a resource for learning.” (Cazden, et. al 1996, p. 72)
First, the theoretical overview revealed the emerging research in favour of a
more artifactual instruction, in which lessons get build up between teachers and
students at the same time and whose development is more led by intuition and the
interchange of ideas. Other studies had already proposed that the teacher selected
and adapted an amount of texts for the free use of students, but the majority of
innovations in this regard, were directed to English native speakers. We explained that
such authentic texts could be much more motivating, and those strategies could get
good results even in L2 if those were properly integrated in our modern curriculums.
Everything indicates that text exposure at the level of exploitation gives a “critical turn”
to pedagogy, rather than letting the class get developed around a structured course
book of decontextualized language instruction with dehumanized addressees, now
multiple texts will respond to the needs of every student and every reader in the
classroom.
Other innovations have been lately planned to SLA in our public educational
system, the so-called programs of immersion. Still, these other programs had forgotten
48
the fact that students are individual subjects with particular experiences; therefore, we
suggested that in foreign language instruction the only terms to orient adequately are
variance, variety and choice. They have also forgotten the most efficient and
productive of the learning processes, the reading act. We insisted all through the study
on using the term “act” because reading implies an action that the reader has to
undertake, otherwise the experience is incomplete. It is the result of that action what
determines their involvement, their participation and propitiates the learning process.
Second, and supported on the statistical results obtained, this study reasserts
the importance of interest and enjoyment in the resources that are to be used in the
classroom, so demand our students. It is important, especially in middle and higher
education, to motivate adolescent students to be avid readers, sustained in the fact
that they always long for new experiences. Adolescents have already turned an age of
discovery in which their amazement and capacity for abstraction allow them go beyond
the factual reality and step into the inner world of imagination and creation. Their new
abilities along with the guidance of teachers and peers can bring them motives and
interesting choices to explore.
Reading is more than a pastime; it’s a subliminal education. Artistic expression doesn’t always need a conscience and some of the best books I’ve read were escapism. But they and more serious books have the power to entertain while also enriching vocabulary, reinforcing spelling and prompting profound analysis not only of the story’s characters but, in comparison, that of the reader. (Harrison, 2012)
The final focus of inquiry was the elaboration of a reading program combining the
exercise of the classroom with the maintenance of motivating attitudes among
students, specially through pleasure and free-to-choose reading texts of multiple
orders, with discourses of different origin and nature, trying to cope with the best
choices for them. The program articulates two uses of the text, both extensive and
intensive practices but the two propitiate dialogue and collaborative learning either in
respect to language learning and acquisition or to negotiate content meaning and
individual interpretations.
49
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10. Attachments BOX 1. 2 Reading and You
1. How much time do you think you spend reading in an average week? _______________ Hours.
2. What kinds of things (novels, magazines, TV guides) you usually read?
3. What is your favourite…? Magazine? Why? Newspaper? Why? Book? Why?
4. Who is your favourite writer? Why?
5. Do you enjoy reading? Why or why not?
6. Of all the different literary genres, what is the one you like the best? (ex: sci-fiction, adventures, romantic, terror, etc.)
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7. What is the most interesting thing you have ever read in English?
8. If you could easily read anything in English, what would you like to read?
9. Do you think reading more literature in English would help your English ability? How? In what way?
(Adapted from) CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2004
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TEACHERS’ OPINIONS ABOUT IMPROVING READING IN L2: Name (voluntary): Nº Classes/ week: Institution: This Questionnaire is designed to help me understand more about teachers’ beliefs and involvement in encouraging students to read books in the English Classroom. It is also intended to know more about the methods and approaches they use at this respect and the need for a change that would not only help students’ career on a general basis, but that would reconsider the aims and objectives of every L2 learning and teaching exchange.
1 2 3 4 5
Disagree Slightly Disagree Undecided Agree Strongly Agree Circle the appropriate digit: 1. During the reading process you can manage sustaining their concentration in the text.
1 2 3 4 5
2. You help them think critically about the text.
1 2 3 4 5
3. You are able to lead an effective and fruitful discussion about the text or book they are reading.
1 2 3 4 5
4. It is necessary to provide them with a context before starting to read.
1 2 3 4 5
5. Maybe it would help assessing their likes, interests and preferences for reading before.
1 2 3 4 5
6. The books or texts chosen have to be originally graded for more help by the editorials.
1 2 3 4 5
7. You receive a list of books given for each term, you do not decide the reading materials.
1 2 3 4 5
8. You are aware of the new trends in literature for young people and know about the advantages of some genres and tendencies. E.g.: comics, hyper textuality, sci-fi, cyber fiction, graphic novels, etc.
1 2 3 4 5
9. Some technological advances can be good allies in order to motivate students to read more.
1 2 3 4 5
10. You prefer the traditional books to
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eBooks. Young people should give value to this source on the first place.
1 2 3 4 5
11. Students try inferring the meaning of the more complex words found in the text by themselves.
1 2 3 4 5
12. Their comprehension of the text allows them discussing some terms and giving their own opinion about it. They can even predict what is going to happen next.
1 2 3 4 5
13. Secondary students are well aware of how a library works and the different types of books there are available for them to read.
1 2 3 4 5
14. You are well aware of the importance of reading. Indeed, it is considered among your main priorities in teaching L2.
1 2 3 4 5
15. Students use the monolingual dictionary appropriately during their reading activities.
1 2 3 4 5
- About the different literary genres and topics existing, what are the ones young people would better accept to read? List a few of them…
- What is your main strategy for reinforcing reading activities between students?
- You surely have observed important differences, not only in relation to their academic results, among reading students and those who do no like reading anything. Could you tell me what differences are these?
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