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Foreign Language Teaching Methods
Dr. Janet Swaffar, Reading Module Instructor
Definitions of Reading
Among the many definitions of reading that have arisen in
recent decades, three prominent ideas emerge as most
critical for understanding what “learning to read” means:
• Reading is a process undertaken to reduce
uncertainty about meanings a text conveys.
• The process results from a negotiation of meaning
between the text and its reader.
• The knowledge, expectations, and strategies a
reader uses to uncover textual meaning all play
decisive roles way the reader negotiates with the
text’s meaning.
Reading does not draw on one kind of cognitive skill, nor
does it have a straightforward outcome — most texts are
understood in different ways by different readers.
Background Knowledge
For foreign language learners to read, they have to be
prepared to use various abilities and strategies they
already possess from their reading experiences in their
native language. They will need the knowledge they
possess to help orient themselves in the many dimensions
of language implicated in any text. Researchers have
established that the act of reading is a non-linear process
that is recursive and context-dependent. Readers tend to
jump ahead or go back to different segments of the text,
depending on what they are reading to find out.
Goals
Asking a learner to “read” a text requires that teachers
specify a reading goal. One minimal goal is to ask the
learner to find particular grammatical constructions or to
identify words that relate to particular features or topics
of the reading. But such goals are always only partial.
For example, a text also reveals a lot about the readers
for which it is written and a lot about subject matter
that foreign language learners may or may not know or
anticipate.
A Holistic Approach to Reading
The curriculum described here is called a holistic
curriculum, following Miller (1996). Holistic education
is concerned with connections in human experience –
connections between mind and body, between linear
thinking and intuitive ways of knowing, between academic
disciplines, between the individual and the community.
A holistic curriculum emphasizes how the parts of a
whole relate to each other to form the whole. From this
perspective, reading relates to speaking, writing, listening
comprehension, and culture.
Pedagogical Stages of Reading
Ideally, each text used in such a curriculum should be
pedagogically staged so that learners approach it by
moving from pre-reading, through initial reading, and
into rereading. This sequence carefully moves the
learner from comprehension tasks to production tasks.
In addition, these tasks should build upon each other in
terms of increasing cognitive difficulty.
• Pre-Reading: The initial levels of learning,
as described in Bloom’s Taxonomy, involve
recognizing and comprehending features of a
text. As proposed here, pre-reading tasks involve
speaking, reading, and listening.
• Initial Reading: Initial reading tasks orient the
learner to the text and activate the cognitive
resources that are associated with the learner’s
own expectations. For example, discussions of
genres and stereotypes may help the learner
to identify potential reading difficulties and to
strategize ways to overcome these challenges.
Simple oral and written reproduction tasks should
precede more complex production tasks that call
for considering creative thinking about several
issues at the same time.
• Rereading:In rereading, the learner is encouraged
to engage in active L2 production such as verbal
or written analysis and argumentation. These
activities require longer and more complex
discourse. At this point, the language learner’s
critical thinking needs to interact with their general
knowledge. Ideally, cultural context and the
individual foreign language learner’s own identity
emerge as central to all acts of production.
Available at: <https://coerll.utexas.edu>.
Acessed on: August 8th, 2018.