Reading Skills (p. 95-122)
1. What are language skills?
There have been lots of definition of language skills in history. For me, language skills are well-organized behavior that we acquire to understand reciever's message and express learner's opinion. According to the textbook,writer mentions the definition of "skill", which is goal-directed, well organazed behavior that is acquiredthrough practice and performed with economy of effort. The difinition implies 1) silled behavior isn't innate; ) is acquired to make use of it unconsiously without big effort. Therefore, it doesn't need a lot of cognitive demands. Second, author talks about language skills including reading, listening, writing, and speaking. Each skill has several subskills such as word recognition, or scanning of the text.
2. Discuss 'Separability of Skills' and 'Hierachy of Skills"
Are skills-reading skills- separable ones? Or can we set a hierarchy of reading skills? The issue is still controversary in teaching L2 reading. In general, reading skills are separable into three categories:
1) word attack skills-decoding skills; are required to change orthographic symbols into language and are related to following areas; phonemes, syllables, and words.
2) comprehension skills; are the competence to use context for reading. (e.g. grammatical competence, knowledge of morphology, syntax, and metacognitive knowledge)
3) fluency skills; involve some abilities such as sight word recognition, extensive vocabulary, and speed reading.
4) critical reading skills; are for analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating the text. (e.g. cause and effect, and comparison)
Gordon(1982) also classify reading skills into three different parts; reading skills development, reading comprehension development, and reading research and study skills.
Although there seems to be rigid boundaries between skills, good readers may organize some reading skills depending of what they are reading, what reading purposes they have, and what tasks they get (organizational flexibility).
Concerning hierarchy of skills, you may find a bunch of theories on the issue. The probelm is like that; scholars are even confused about the exact meaning of "higher-level skills" and "lower-level skills." For instance, Clymer(1968) presented a taxonomy of reading skills accoding to the level of each skill: 1) literal comprehension; 2) reorganazation; 3) inferential comprehension; 4) evaluation; and 5) appreciation. He argued that the number of skills is proportional to the difficulty of them. On the other hand, Lunzer et al(1979) suggested the totally different description of reading skills; they are ordered based on the level of complexity and reading process.
3. Discuss Lower-level processing in L2 Vs. Higher-level skills in L2
L2 reading skills have gotten a certain consesus that they can be classified into lower-level skills(word processing skills) or relatively higher-level skills(comprehension skills).
1) Brown and Haynes(1985); L1 skills are applied to L2 language contexts
2) Koda(1987); different phonological coding strategies are used among subjects with contrasting orthographic systems. some phonological processing skill transfers from L1 to L2
3) Haynes and Carr(1990); Eng readers benefited from the orthographic cues to a certain extent than did the Chinese readers-speed and accuracy. Longer exposure to Eng help to get vocabulary-learning measures, not to reading speed and comprehension. there is no meaningful relationship bet. comprehension and reading speed. Both influence on new word learning.
4) Koda; the effect of orthographic processing on word identification
5) Chern(1993); reading is dependent on visual info.
The researches indicate that lower-level processing in L2 is influenced by visaul and orthographic coding. L1's orthographic conventions impact this coding. Efficient visual processing is required for lexical access and comprehension.
The following is the results from researches on higher-level skills in L2.
1) Munby(1978); made a taxonomy across the Ls skills of listening, reading, and writing within a communicative framework.
2) Mecartty(1998); locating details-recognition and paraphrase > simple inferential skills-understanding words in context and recogniaing cause/effect . complex inferential skills
3) Alderson(1989); some identification of level of comprehension seems to be possible judgmentally.
overlapping parallel interactions bet. language skills, interactions that are independent of skill levels designated as higher or lower, top-down or bottom-up.
4. From Table 4.1-4.4, think back what reading skills you haven't used before when you read English textbooks. Do you think ESL learners should practice these skils(the skills you haven't used) in English class?
Recalling my past, I can list the reading skills I haven't tried before; sight words, rhyming words, classify books (Table 4.1), reactions to the author's use of language (Table4.3). When it comes to sight words and rhyming words, I can say that I'm not the person who uses visual and audio aids to develop my ability of English words recognition. Relatively I rely on visual information for reading skills development. I also haven't tried to classify books according to certain criteria. One big reason for it is that I've never assigned homework that I had to with many English textbooks. On the other hand, I usually classify Korean books according to contents or genre to do my assignment in university. The final one I've never tried is reactions to the author's use of language because I didn't have much knowledge of vocabulary before my learning English began in earnest. So, my reading was just like 'bottom-up" approach that didn't allow me enough time to feel the writer's language and response to it.
I personally believe that the skills that I haven't used would be beneficial for ESL classes. It doesn't mean that ESL class should mainly focus on practice these skills. However, just introducing the skills would help learners to think about their reading skills and modify them it necessary. First, preference for types of aids for reading skills development is different person to person. So, while one student prefers to learn words with visual materials, another student would like to do with audio sources. Classifying books skill is also a good method to decide if a book is useful or not. Students who don't have enough time to read books as references for their paper may use the strategy. Final method "reactions to the author's use of language" can be adopted in English literature class. However, it's important that ESL teachers have to have broad lexical vocabulary and knowledge of English use in written form.
