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PART 1 of this essay, published in the Winter 1991 issue of the Bulletin , discusses some important current ideas about the cognitive processes underlying reading and learning to read in a foreign language; analyzes the mental operations involved in the reading process; offers some clues from learning theory that can aid us in devising helpful learning activities; and, in conclusion, briefly addresses the question of appropriate reading materials for learners at various levels. Here, in part 2 of the essay, I provide practical examples of assignments that make sense within the theoretical framework outlined earlier. In part 1, I listed five “fields” of knowledge that each play a role in the reading process, and I now suggests ways of effectively applying this knowledge—in particular, knowledge in fields 4 and 5, “knowledge of probable structural relations” and “common knowledge.”
Exercises devised to assist learners in reading should meet the following requirements:
In all the exercises recommended here learners are presented with a handicap when reading the text. Something is missing, and they have to supply the missing part(s). If they are to succeed in doing so, the texts used must be relatively easy. Sample exercises, all designed for students working in pairs, are provided for each of the four requirements (for further ideas, see Westhoff, Deutsch and Didaktik; Nuttall).
Important for all reading strategies is skill in detecting the textual elements with the highest information load. Clarke hypothesizes on the basis of his research that concentration on semantic cues within passages is one of “the behaviors which appear most productive and which might be effectively taught” (120). Fostering this sensitivity at the sentence level also seems effective (Westhoff, “Voorspellend Lezen,” Didaktik ). The sample assignment that follows is based on a one-page article that includes several illustrations. Entitled “Let's Go to Longleat,” it describes an English “stately home,” and the text and pictures focus on the exterior, the interior, the grounds, and the animals of the estate.
1. Look at the visually striking part of the article (pictures, headlines, etc.). Write down what these suggest that the text is about and what makes you think so.
2. Read the text and check your inferences. Could you have made more or better guesses? How?
3. Read the text once again. Decide with your partner what the cue words are in each sentence and write them down, along with your reasons for choosing them, in the three-column format shown in the example below. To help you select only the crucial words, imagine that you have to send the basic information in the text as a telegram, which you must pay for by the word. Try to make the telegram as cheap as possible, but remember that the recipient must be able to understand or infer all the information you mean to convey.
EXAMPLE:
The relevant section of the text reads, “Longleat is not a town, a village, or an island. It is a huge house in Wiltshire. Wiltshire is a county in the southwest of England.”
| Sentence | Cue Words | Reason Selected |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Longleat | If you know it's a house you don't need to know what it is not. |
| 2 | huge house in | That's what it's all about. Otherwise you might think the house is called Wiltshire. |
| Wiltshire | Otherwise you wouldn't know where it is. | |
| 3 | county | – |
| England | – |
4. Compare your telegram with that of another pair of students. Try to agree on the cue words and the reasons for choosing them.
A study by Cohen et al. shows that foreign readers of English do not pick up on conjunctive words, and other research findings confirm this observation (Westhoff, “Voorspellend Lezen”). Teaching methods are being developed to increase the use of structure markers (e.g., Westhoff, “Voorspellend Lezen,” Didaktik; Williams).
Steffensen concludes on the basis of her research, however, that “a bit of caution is called for in using instruction in cohesion as a methodology for overcoming the problems involving reading a foreign language” (150). I agree. “Structuring” should not be restricted to using conjunctive words. In advocating structuring, I am talking about coherence, which is more than cohesion. The structure markers meant here are more than cohesive ties.
There is an additional practical problem in training students to use this sort of knowledge. Very often they know the meaning of a structure marker but do not understand its function. For instance, they know that because is the English word for the German structure marker weil , but they do not appear to know that its function is to introduce the reason(s) for what was said before. In other words, they know the label but not the concept it covers. To use a coherential cue properly, they have to understand the way it operates.
It is difficult to make such concepts clear to younger learners. In our experiments, we obtained the best results by describing a marker as a hinge that links two parts and indicates the relation between them. Training that increase students' awareness of the ways in which structural markers function is integrated into the following assignment. Students are first asked to create their own hinges between sentence parts and to explain the relation that each establishes. When they can do this successfully, they are asked to think about the content of the assigned text and try to supply the hinges that have been blocked out.
To connect two parts of a text—for example, (A) “He did not go” and (B) “he was ill”—you can use a word like because to show the relation between them. The “hinge” you choose depends on what you think the parts have to do with each other. By choosing because , for example, you indicate that part B give the reason for part A.
1. List the following hinges in the first of three columns: because, like, unless, then, though, that's, so, too, but. In the second column, write two sentence parts that each hinge could link. In the third column, write what the hinge says is the relation between these parts.
EXAMPLE:
| Hinge | Parts Linked | Relation |
|---|---|---|
| because | A: He didn't go | B gives the reason for A. |
| B: he was ill. | ||
| like | A: He did nasty things | B is an example of A. |
| B: badgering animals. | ||
| unless | A: The ceremony will be held outdoors | B gives the only circumstances in which A will not be true. |
| B: it rains. |
2. Look at the visually striking parts of the assigned text. Write down what these suggests that the text is about and what makes you think so.
3. Read the text and check your inferences. Could you have made more or better guesses? How?
4. The hinges you worked on in part 1 of the assignment have been omitted from the reading text, and the resulting gaps are numbered. Indicate which hinge belongs in each numbered gap by filling out the columns under the four headings shown in the following example.
EXAMPLE:
The relevant section of the text reads, “Work starts at one o'clock, so I have lunch around twelve: just a packet of crisps or some soup ——— I've got to watch my weight. Then I catch the 12:40 bus into Cambridge.”
| Gap | Connected Parts | Relation | Hinge |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | A: just a packet of crisps or some soup | B gives reason for A. | because |
| B: I have got to watch my weight. |
Students can effectively use their prior knowledge to help them read unfamiliar material. Research documenting success in this respect, however, consists mainly of experiments in which learners were provided with information related to the passage to be read (e.g., Hayes and Tierney; Stevens). It is not possible, of course, to give learners all the information they would need for whatever texts they might confront in the rest of their lives. Moreover, as we have seen, the knowledge we are discussing there is not only extensive but also, on the whole, rather trivial and already in the readers' possession. Instruction in this respect should therefore concentrate not on providing students with knowledge in the form of advance organizers but on training them to construct such organizers as a reading strategy.
One approach makes use of the fact that the beginnings and ends of paragraphs tend to contain more information than do the middle sections. A way of activating prior knowledge is to have students read only these beginnings and ends and then try to infer what is said in between. In the sample assignment that follows, the reading material occupies one column on a single page and bears the boldfaced heading “The Tallest Man in the World.” beside the column is a picture showing two men, one very much taller than the other. Students are presented with the text from which everything has been omitted except the heading, the illustration, and the beginnings and ends of the paragraphs.
1. Write down what the heading and the illustration suggests that the text is about and what makes you think so.
2. Write down what you think has been omitted from the paragraphs and indicate your reasons, using the format shown in the example. Remember to look for hinges as clues.
EXAMPLE:
The relevant text is the first and last sentences of the first paragraph: “The ten-year-old Muhammed from the mountain village Schwan, about 300 km north of Karachi, the biggest city in Pakistan, was a quite normal boy. … That has made him famous, and now his name is in the Guinness Book of World Records. ”
Paragraph: 1
Text Cues and Argumentation: That is a hinge. Part A is omitted. Part B says that something has made Muhammad famous. That indicates that part A is this “something.” From the title and illustration you can infer what that is. The beginning says that he was quite normal until the age of ten.
Conclusion: After his tenth birthday, he suddenly started to grow exceptionally.
3. Compare your prediction with that of another student pair. Try to agree on the argumentation and conclusion.
4. Read the complete text and check your inferences. Do you think you could have made more or better guesses? How?
Learning theory suggests that reasoning is perhaps the most crucial factor in developing successful reading strategies. The preceding sample assignments demonstrate some ways of developing these strategies—for example, by having students work in pairs to arrive at joint conclusions through “argumentation.”
In my experience in many classrooms and with many teachers and learners, this verbal stage is not popular, especially if the inference or conclusion can be easily stated without explicit argumentation. To deal with this problem the instructor must first make learners understand that they are involved in a training program, that they learn from repeating an action and not from the result alone. They are much like athletes, who do training laps not to arrive at a certain point in the gym but to become more fit.
Second, the assignments have to be clear, concrete, and carefully structured. For that reason students are asked to write their responses in columns, one of which is headed “Text Cues and Argumentation.” It helps to underscore the importance of this activity, both to the students and the teacher, if the homework includes learning the content of this column. In future lessons students will need to know not so much the conclusions they reached but the reasoning but led to the answers.
Third, the reasoning assignment should have some function in the setting of the exercise. That is why the paired students are asked first to agree on an inference and the supporting argumentation and then to work with another pair of students to arrive at a joint conclusion from the two the pairs have proposed separately. This procedure not only facilitates the final plenary discussion, since the solutions offered by the groups of four tend to be less different from one another than were the original solutions, but also lengthens the learning activity.
A good example of an exercise requiring reasoning is one in which students must guess words that have been omitted from a text. In this exercise the verbal stage can be structured very clearly: four assignments that together form a sort of heuristic word-guessing strategy activate the various fields of knowledge one after the other.
Students should learn not only how they can guess but also that they can guess. They should discover first-hand that application of the strategy yields success. Therefore only guessable words should be omitted, and identification of the omitted words should enable the learner to complete the strategy easily and successfully.
Readers tend to guess a missing word on the basis of cues in the text that precedes the omissions. Experiments have shown that foreign language readers rarely correct a guess when cues disproving their hypothesis come after the element they have guessed. They are more likely to adapt these cues to their own interpretation than to revise their first impression (Westhoff, “Voorspellend Lezen” 215, 275). Perhaps because their native language supplies them with redundant cues, they think that their linear strategy of hypothesizing is good enough in a second language. In foreign language reading instruction, therefore, particular emphasis should be placed on finding decisive cues after the hypothesized element.
Research suggests that systematic training can help learners make more use of cues that follows a guessed portion of text (Westhoff, “Voorspellend Lezen” 241–43, 277–78). Schouten-van Parreren experimented with such word-guessing strategies. The students were given an orientation chart with heuristic rules to guide them in their guessing. Armed with this chart, they worked their way through a few texts containing unknown words. “Although only a pilot study was carried out,” she reports, “the results were promising. The attitude of the pupils towards the program was positive and they seemed to profit from it” (286). A sample assignment designed to train students in guessing unknown words follows.
1. Look at the visually striking parts of the text. Write down what these suggests that the text is about and what makes you think so.
2. Twelve words have been omitted from the text. Try to guess what each one is by using the following word-guessing strategy.
Try to arrive at a joint guess and argumentation and record them in the format shown in the example.
EXAMPLE:
The relevant section of the text reads, “It appears that France has more than 365 kinds of ——— . Thus it is possible to finish one's meal every day with a different cheese.”
Missing Word: 1
Application of the Word-Guessing Strategy:
Word guessed: cheese.
3. Compare your guesses with those of another pair of students. Try to agree on your answers and your argumentation.
The discussions of theory in part 1 of this article and the descriptions of practice in part 2 should lead readers to one inescapable conclusion: learning to read a foreign language is largely up to the learner. If we accept this, then we have also to accept that teaching activities in the classroom should be for the most part procedural. To be effective, teachers should not provide solutions. When students ask for help, teachers should try to confine themselves to the kind of assistance that enables students to solve problems on their own.
Unfortunately, many teachers do not like this idea. The emphasis in instructional situations is usually on questioning and explaining, perhaps because value is attached to functions that seem consistent with the teacher's desired self-image. Explaining something, preferably something difficult, is felt to contribute more to one's self-esteem than merely creating conditions in which students learn to work things out by themselves. The second approach is hardly considered teaching at all; it seems more like running a day nursery or coaching a football team than like doing the work of a professor. Or, as the teacher might put it, “I haven't studied for many years, written dissertations, and passed examinations simply to walk around a classroom with my hands behind my back, having students get on with the job of learning by themselves.” As if it were that easy!
Another reason that instructors are reluctant to abandon their traditional roles is that they involuntarily associate being comfortable in the classroom with being in control. It seems to reassure a teacher to stand up there in front of the class as the central figure, questioning and explaining. It is easier to feel that everything is under control when classroom activities are not making the students more independent, putting the teacher at risk of losing hold of the situation altogether. Questioning and explaining are the acts of an indispensable expert; they confer authority and provide the feeling, albeit often illusionary, that one is better able to cope with problems of discipline.
Nevertheless, if the ideas that I discuss in this article are to take hold in the foreign language classroom, then traditional modes of teaching, no matter how cherished, will have to be modified. There will have to be a considerable shift of emphasis in our activities as teachers. The new emphasis will, in summary, have to be:
| less on | more on |
|---|---|
| teaching and explaining | learning |
| assessment | practicing |
| asking questions of students | generating questions from the students |
| content | strategies |
| explaining unfamiliar words and having students learn the meanings | having students discover what words mean and how the meanings are conveyed |
| avoiding mistakes | encouraging guesses and rewarding clever approximations |
I do not by any means advocate abandoning the role of teacher, but I do suggests that, whether we are teachers of language or literature or both, we need to ask ourselves whether it is more important for us to teach in the way that we are used to or for our students to learn to become independent and enthusiastic readers.
The author is Associate Professor and Head of the Modern Language Department at the Institute of Education, State University of Utrecht, Netherlands. This paper was prepared by the author in conjunction with a course he taught at the 1989 Summer Linguistic Institute cosponsored by the Modern Language Association and the Linguistic Society of America at the University of Arizona.
Clarke, M. A. “The Short-Circuit Hypotheses of ESL Reading: Or, When Language Competence Interferes with Readings Performance.” Modern Language Journal 64.2 (1980): 203–09.
Cohen, A., H. Glasman, P. R. Rosenbaum-Cohen, J. Ferrara, and J. Fine. “Reading English for Specialized Purposes: Discourse Analysis and the Use of Student Informants.” TESOL Quarterly 13 (1979): 551–64.
Hayes, D. A., and R. J. Tierney. “Developing Readers' Knowledge through Analogy.” Reading Research Quarterly 17.2 (1982): 256–80.
Nuttal, C. “Recent Materials for the Teaching of Reading.” English Language Teaching Journal 39.3 (1985): 198–207.
Schouten-van Parreren, M. C. Woorden leren in het vreemdetalenonderwijs [Vocabulary learning in foreign language teaching]. With a summary in English. Apeldoorn: Van Walraven, 1985.
Steffenson, M. S. “Changes in Cohesion in the Recall of Native and Foreign Texts.” Interactive Approaches to Second Language Reading. Ed. P. L. Carell, J. Devine, and D. E. Eskey. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1988. 140–51.
Stevens, K. “Can We Improve Reading by Teaching Background Information?” Journal of Reading 25.4 (1982): 326–29.
Westhoff, G. J. Deutsch als Fremdsprache. Studieneinheit 1 A: Arbeit mit Texten. Psychologische Einsichten und das Lesen im DaF-Unterricht. Tübingen: Deutsches Institut für Fernstudien, 1984.
———. Didaktik des Leseverstehens. Ismaning: Hueber, 1987.
———. “Some Common Teaching Practices and Their Effectiveness in Foreign Language Reading Instruction.” European Journal of Teacher Education 12 (1989): 121–30.
———. “Voorspellend Lezen” [Predictive reading]. With a 5,000-word summary in English. Diss. Utrecht U, 1981.
Williams, R. “Top Ten Principles for Teaching Reading.” English Language Teaching 40 (1984): 42–45.
© 1991 by the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages. All Rights Reserved.
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