Reading in foreign language teaching and learning

University of Kassel, Department of English
Course: The Interaction of Interest and Strategies in EFL Reading
Summer term 2002

Reading in Foreign Language Teaching and Learning

by: Andreas Hohmann

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 INTRODUCTION 4

2 READING AND READING COMPREHENSION 6

2.1 READING COMPREHENSION AS A PROCESS 6
2.2 RELATION OF MOTIVATION AND READING COMPREHENSION 8

2.2.1 Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivation 8
2.2.2 Interest and Intrinsic Motivation 9
2.2.3 Flow – Experience 10
2.2.4 Results on Learning 11

2.3 LEARNING TECHNIQUES AND LEARNING STRATEGIES 12

2.3.1 Definition of Learning Technique and Learning Strategy 13
2.3.2 Reasons for teaching learning techniques 15
2.3.3 Learning Techniques according to the Types of Reading  16

3 READING IN SCHOOL – A PRACTICAL APPROACH 22

3.1 THE DEMANDS OF CURRICULUM (REFERRING TO THE CURRICULUM OF THE HESS. KULTUSMINISTERIUM 03.06. 2002)  22

3.1.1 Didactical Basics 22
3.1.2 Communication skill of Reading  23
3.1.3 Dealing with texts 23

3.2 ROLE OF THE TEACHER 24

3.2.1 The teacher as coordinator and facilitator 24
3.2.2 The teacher as manager and organizer 24
3.2.3 The teacher as instructor 25
3.2.4 The teacher as investigator and researcher  26

3.3 TRANSFER OF READING COMPREHENSION TECHNIQUES INTO EVERY-DAY LIFE OF SCHOOL 26

4 CONCLUSION 30

5 REFERENCES 31

Abstract:

When learning a language, reading is one of the most important skills students need to acquire. In order to screen this importance, this research paper focuses on reading comprehension dealing with it as a process, with the relation of motivation as well as interest and reading comprehension, and lastly, with learning techniques and strategies concerning reading comprehension. After having given an overview of the theory of reading comprehension, this paper wants to transfer the essential key thoughts into language teaching and learning in school.

1 Introduction

Reading comprehension as information processing is a steady act of meaning construction. There are various reading situations, for example, in every-day life, school, work, leisure, self-education. There are three different functions of reading. First, one might read to get information, for instance, to figure out with the help of a manual how a video recorder works. Second, reading because of psychological-emotional driven incentives, for example, reading a novel that one is interested in. And third, one might read to acquire a foreign language. Thinking of the question about what can be read, a multitude of reading situations might be enlisted. Here are just a few examples: one can read any kind of book, magazine, newspaper, manual , subject specific and scientific literature, medical instruction leaflets as well as letters and even any signs.

Generally, in leisure time one tends to read out of personal interest. In contrast to that, in school, students often read about topics in which they are not actually interested. Both situations describe two different incentives for reading: 1) reading because one is interested and 2) reading because one is forced. These points already include two different kinds of motivation for reading. For example, while reading Harry Potter self-driven motivation based on one’s own interest keeps one reading, even if the last pages are not entirely understood. The other kind of motivation for reading can be seen in the following situation: imagine you are trader’s secretary and your boss tells you to get the contract signed by a Japanese trading partner. Now, as an excellent secretary, you are going to try hard to impress this trading partner with some Japanese vocabulary. In this situation, your motivation is externally driven. Considering these two examples, prior knowledge plays an important role to which extent the reading process is fertile. Reading comprehension is higher when a greater store of prior knowledge can be referred to.

Latest research has shown that German students lack reading literacy compared to the international standard. Therefore, teachers have to observe their students’ existing learning techniques and strategies in order to recover obvious gaps by providing further and more appropriate learning techniques and strategies. This paper wants to enlighten the above introduced topic more closely. The first part of the second chapter deals with the explanation of the process of reading and reading comprehension, followed by introducing the term of motivation and its connection to reading comprehension whereas the third part of this chapter (2.3) takes a closer look onto the terms of learning techniques and strategies. The following chapter is considered with reading in school as a practical approach. Therefore the demands of curriculum, the role of the teacher and last, the transfer of reading comprehension techniques into every-day life and school are regarded more closely.

2 Reading and Reading Comprehension

“Reading is perhaps the most thoroughly studied and least understood process in education today” (Clarke, 1984, p. 114). According to Barnett (1989, p. 38), reading comprehension is an invisible process. It is a skill which has to be acquired and learned consciously. This acquisition takes a long period of time in primary school (Hermes, 1998, p. 229). Furthermore, it is developed gradually and has to be practiced regularly (Grabe, 1991, p. 379). To give a general overview to the topic, some more aspects and terms have to be considered and explained in detail. The first part deals with the process of reading comprehension and is followed by the part which enlightens the relation of motivation and reading understanding. Reading techniques and reading strategies will be explained in the third and last part.

2.1 Reading Comprehension as a Process

Generally, comprehension might be defined as “the building of a mental model of the meaning of the text” (Oakhill & Garnham, 1988, p. 149). Therefore, comprehension is the process where new information is brought into interrelation with prior knowledge and thus gets elaborated on a higher level. With good comprehension one recognizes differences and similarities between new data and prior knowledge. (Finkbeiner, 1996, p. 92). Reading comprehension is an act of steady construction of meaning (Hermes, 1998, p. 230). Information is stored in memory as propositions. Propositions are the smallest “meaning units”. They can be falsified or verified, and are linked together in a hierarchical structure. Furthermore, propositions refer to certain facts which are connected to each other according to situational experience. Thus, the meaning of a text is constructed by building up relations between mental representation and text propositions. (Dijk & Kintsch, 1978, 1983). For a better understanding it is necessary to have a closer look on the one hand at topdown- processes and on the other hand at bottom-up-processes. The bottom-up-process is defined as the recognition of graphic symbols that represent certain phonemes. The readers recognize combinations of letters and learn orthographical regularities as well as rules concerning the interrelation between certain phonemes and graphic symbols. They identify words, phrases and on a higher level even learn to dissect sentences into meaning units. These processes, which are running while reading, are also called subskills. (Oakhill & Garnham, 1988, p. 68ff). In contrast to the bottom-up-process, in which understanding is derived only from the graphic structure, in reading as a top-down-process, reading comprehension is lead by prior knowledge and one’s own life-experience. Familiarity with a special topic and special vocabulary simplify the comprehension of the content. If prior knowledge is lacking, comprehension is more difficult. (Hermes, 1998, p. 230). Literal comprehension happens by bottom-up-processes, interpretation based on prior knowledge by top-down-processes (Grabe, 1991, p. 383). Both bottom-up and top-down-processes have to interact while reading to perceive the real meaning of a text (Hermes, 1998, p. 230).

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