Comprehension Qs - week 5

Read p.123-135

• What is "strategy"? how is this different from skills?

Strategy refers to conscious effort that a learner makes throughout the whole reading process to achieve the desired purpose. The key distinction between the term "skill" is the presence of consciousness.

• Discuss the reading comprehension strategies. What are they? Summarize them based on Table 5.1.

The table is an useful categorization of strategies implemented throughout the reading process. 

• What is metacognition? Explain metacognitive knowledge or skills on your own word and give an example in reading.

Week 4 - comprehension questions

<Comprehension Questions>

- What are language skills?

    acquired abilities to perform appropriate language functions in need. Usually composed of several separable sets of skills which enables more specific needs. 

- Discuss 'separability of skills' and 'hierarchy of skills'

   1) separability of skills: Skills can be broken down to several subskills that enable higher level of skills. Those subskills are usually distinguished to discriminate the process how a skill is done. However, there is no clear-cut. Those subskills closely interact to perform higher activities. For example, the four skills mentioned in pp 97-98 always interact to perform the activity, "reading".

   2) hierarchy of skills: Skills are organized in a somewhat vertical way. For example, realizing spelling patterns and recognizing phonemic symbols would be a very basic underlying skill, in terms of reading. In this case, those skills takes lower positions in the hierarchy. In contrast, inferring specific information out of a context demands much more complex cognitive ability. This skill, needless to say, occupies the higher position in the hierarchy. In this way, the hierarchy of skills is established.

- Discuss lower-level processing in L2 Vs. Higher-level skills in L2

    Lower-level processing means that active interaction of lower-level skills to convert raw text to literal meaning. Skills such as identifying letters and recognizing phonemes are involved in this processing. It usually demands less cognitive capacity, however, higher reading comprehension will be impeded unless automatized enough. For example, American students learning Japanese as L2 should spare appropriate attention on reading Kanji, otherwise they will have problems later in their reading skill.

    Higher-level processing, in contrast, requires grater cognitive capacity to produce deep interpretation on the given text. Skills such as inferring information or guessing the author's intention will be involved in this kind of processing. Those higher skills are not possible unless lower-level skills supports them. And there is considerable disagreement on which skill is more difficult than others.

- From Table 4.1-4.4, think back what reading skills you haven't used before when you read English textbooks. Do you think ESOL learners should practice these skills (the skills you haven't used)  in English class?

    In my case, I found I haven't even heard of several skills labelled as lower-level skills compared to my repeated experiences on practicing higher-level skills. I never was explicitly taught consonants, vowels, subtle differences on pronunciation, morphemes, and so forth. I think it is due in part to the fact that most children acquire those skills in their early years. Children just 'pick up' those very fundamental skills if enough input is given, at least in my experience. 
    However, the higher skills demand more cognitive capacity and extra attention which are partly responsible for its difficulty. Unless children are cognitively ready to acquire those, they will suffer or even fail. Even though they seem to be ready, they need to achieve the goal step by step. In this regard, I think I was taught about those higher skills much in my schooling.
    This is the reason I argue that both intensive and extensive attention on those skills are in need without any doubt. I myself is also an evidence in this approach, who (relatively successfully) acquired the skills up to mature level, although I was not taught lower-level skills directly. Children learning L2 are already able to pick the skills up, thanks to their cognitive ability and knowledge about their L1. If they are exposed in a reasonably good environment, it is merely a question of time. If they seem to be stuck in a stage, then we need to provide them with more explicit explanations and trainings, which would lead them to acquire higher skills.

Fair Trade, Responsible Travel and Appropriate Technology

     First, the term "fair trade" is well-known term for most of young populations worldwide, I guess. As the name denotes, fair trade generally aims to pay the workers and farmers to the money they deserve. It emerged against subordination of the third world by multinational corporations, such as Nestle, Nike, and so on. The typical example of this could be "Peace Coffee" led by YMCA in Korea. They pay reasonable price - which is enough for the farmers to maintain their basic human rights - to Brazilian farmers. Compared to the big corporations paying very little money to them, they are doing the right thing, I believe.
     At the same time, YMCA hires adolescents or young adults who ruined their life because of a small mistake. They are educated as baristas or CEOs who are responsible for their own coffee shop. They work in Peace Coffee Branches to make money. And later, if they have accumulated enough money to buy the branch they work in, they can be an owner of their shop.







     Second, "Responsible Travel" could be somewhat a new concept in Korea. The purpose of Responsible Travel is to pay the travelling expenses to local, not to big multinational corporations. For example, the money we pay goes to multinational corporations up to 90%, because we take AA airlines, stay in Hilton hotels, hire guides from well-known travel companies. The money promotes the gap between the poor and the rich. Although we are travelling developing countries, we are donating our money to the rich.
     Responsible Travel takes the opposite direction. Responsible travel aims to pay money to the people who deserve it. If you travel developing countries, your money should directly go to them, not multinational corporations. At the same time, you deserve enjoying local culture and distinctive features of the region, other than well-known tourism attractions and franchise restaurants. Pay to the local, not the corporations.
     This is how it works. The travel agency for responsible travel receives the same amount of money as other travel agencies do. It takes up to 10~20 percent of your overall travelling  expenses. However, you take local airlines and stay in local communities. Experience how the local people live by staying in local houses, not luxurious hotels. Watch the authentic culture by ticketing local performances, not national well-known troupes. By doing so, more than 70% of your travelling expenses go to local, not the rich.
     In Korea, '착한여행' travel agency provides responsible travel programs. Responsible travel not only guarantees the local people, but also your memorable travelling experience.


     Last but not the least, appropriate technology provides hands-on technology for developing countries. The pictures show how small changes in design affects them. The first picture shows a round bucket. The users do not have to carry water with their power, but just roll them on the ground. The second picture shows how to use sunlight to provide sufficient electricity for the house. The last picture is a famous example of appropriate technology, which is called 'life straw'. The straw has internal structure for purifying water, so the user can drink water with the life straw.

Feelings on MBTI test, again.

The type I've got is "ENTJ", which is slightly changed when I was a freshman. When I first took the test, the result said that I'm a type of "ENTP". Well, I believe that the change of the results precisely reflects the internal change of my personality. When I was a freshman, I was not very organized and tend to do all things at once. After I felt it is not the way I go, I changed my personality - because my ego was pretty malleable - at the time.
According to Keirsey.com., I am a "field marshal" who controls and organizes everything as a leader. Up to 95% correct, I think. Whenever I am engaging in a group activity, I was the leader, although the fact was unsaid.
And also I was kind of surprised that I have only the assets of "Extroversion". When I saw my answer sheet, none of my answer reflected "introverted". I myself sometimes think that I extroverted, however, it might not be true, I feel.




Here is the link I got the result from: http://keirsey.com/4temps/fieldmarshal.asp.

Journal 1: how can I help my brother enjoy reading?

   First, I will identify the problem precisely. Is his hesitation attributable to cramming methods and physical punishments the hakwon adapted? If not, is that because of his unwillingness to study? Several problems are possible. And perhaps it is also plausible to say that two or more problems occurred at once. Clear identification of the cause should be preceded than any solutions.
   However, I will avoid asking it directly. If I do, he will feel uneasy. Instead, I would put it in indirect ways: why do you hate the hakwon?, do you feel the books are difficult?, have you ever punished physically in the hakwon?, etc. By eliciting the cause, I think I will be able to find the reason why he hates studying English. 
   After that, I will come up with solutions which are specific to the problems. In this journal, I will suppose a very general situation that he had lost interests on English.In this case, watching Disney animations or English cartoons together would motivate him again, I think. All of young learners of English love cartoons and animations whether they are in English or other languages. We will watch English version for sure, but caption is necessary. I am not going to say anything related to English rules or words until the very end of the animation. In the same regards, I am not willing to force him to understand the movie without caption. We will enjoy, laugh at, put ourselves into, the animation. Soon after we the animation ended, I will ask him how to write the title of the movie in English. For example, he will write "Aladin" if we watched Aladin. If he has any problem, it is totally okay to glance over a video cover or poster. Then I will cover what he had written with a paper, and sound out each phonemes of "A-L-A-D-I-N" as I uncover the letters I am pronouncing. And I will let him do the same thing with me. If he seems to copy my sounds, I will bring few names more from the movie and repeat the same process, but not too much. only two or three names are enough. We have tons of time to watch other movies and practice in the same way. The more important thing is that not to distress him.
    But this method can be too mechanical and boring, just like the crucial weaknesses of phonics activities. So I will try other methods as well. One thing I thought is that I can buy some books in English, something like pop-up books, toy books, or books related with his interests, such as car, dinosaurs, etc. For example, the book named "The very hungry caterpillar", which is redesigned as pop-up book, was fascinating when I saw that. To be honest, I lost all the words at the moment I opened the book because of its attractiveness. At the very first glance of the book, he would probably just look at all the attractive pop-ups rather than its contents. However, he would be interested in the contents as well in a short time. Human is a curious being. At that point, I will read it aloud first, and do it again with him, and then translate the sentence into Korean. For other example, I will buy him a book in dinosaurs if he is a big fan of dinosaurs as other boys are. He will find familiar pictures of dinosaurs and see the names or simple sentences written in English. It might be written as follows: tyrannosaurus, pterosaurs, stogosaurus, etc. Then he will be able to link the spoken forms of names of dinosaurs to the English names. Further, he might be wondering what the sentences mean. I can do the same thing as I mentioned above, anytime. In those ways, I can certainly motivate him to read.
    In sum, I believe that young readers have to be motivated first. Without any interest in English, it is simply impossible to learn it in their lives. To achieve this, we have to take a detour. In other words, motivation should come first although it would take time. The methods I mentioned are certainly time-consuming, however, I suppose they are highly likely to succeed. 




-- pictures of books mentioned--

A self-reflective diary: a speech from the president of "English MouMou"

    To begin my diary, I think I can't help but admit that I am lost somewhere between my ideal and my reality. During my junior year in America, I believed that I had discovered my destined way to go, and what I can do is just run to the end of the way. I tried my best, while I was living in there. However, now I am getting to realize that even I am not at the entrance of the way. Still my belief is very firm - and it is also the reason why I named my blog as it is - no matter how many mixed feelings visited me without any notice. I was nothing but a drifting ship on deep blue sea, relying on shimmering light comes from far away.
    After listening to the speech, I felt at least some crucial parts of my agony was washed away. Unconsciously, I kept being afraid of failures and mistakes in front of me, even though I was self-hypnotizing that I am not afraid of such a thing. I have some selected ways to go; I don't know what is a detour or a shortcut. I was obsessed with running all the way to the shortcut with all my might. 
    From my freshmen year, I was always an earlier person than others. I was able to perform as others do despite of three years of age gap, sometimes outstanding, though I could not have mature thinking. Perhaps I did know the answer from the time: whether a way is a detour or shortcut, the ways have their unique strengths and weaknesses. If the way I chose turned out to be a detour, I can just keep walking on the road, without complaining, because it is all rewarding process. The detour would teach me meaningful life lessons a lot more than the shortcut does. I was worried being left behind, even though I knew that it is totally "okay" to be left behind. I just hated to admit the fact. The imaginary role model of "Miso" in my mind should be successful than anyone at all times.
    The speaker let me realize, sometimes it is okay to be left behind, because I have infinite opportunities in front of me. I heard similar statements times after times, but it is the first time for me to realize the real meaning of the statement. The examples he adopted were by all means truly meaningful, because it told me something about life experiences. Sometimes those life lessons are a lot more important than theoretical lectures. Generally, I thought that the speaker and me have very similar personality and value system. Perhaps this fact has moved my mind.
    I am still drifting this borderless sea only with shimmering light, but I think at least I've got a strength to keep looking for directions from his speech.

Mar. 15th - discussion questions

<Comprehension Questions>

1. Defined these terms on your own words:

 - phonemic awareness: understandings of the canonical principles that words are made up of different phonemic elements. For example, if a learner can pronounce both a word in a full form and individual sounds which make up the word, the learner has phonemic awareness of that word.

 - Item learning: learning a language through accumulating infinite knowledge. Typical example would be picking up high-frequency words which are stored in full forms, usually for ease of retrieving. Or, unique words difficult to apply rules are also learned through item learning.

 - System learning: developing linguistic rules that compose a word or grammar. Applying rules of affixes would be one of examples of system learning.

 - word attack skills: a method to raise phonemic awareness. Both putting the phonemes together and distinguishing the phonemes in a word would be a good practice of word attack skills.

 - Four approaches to spelling improvement: 

  1) spelling and meaning-focused input: more exposure to the text written in the target language would lead to more learning. If texts provide rich, meaningful input to learners, the learners would construct spelling by themselves.

  2) spelling and meaning-focused output: Perhaps the very fundamental skill in writing is how to spell. Meaningful writing activities would provide teachers with an opportunity to check their students' spelling skills, whereas students can practice their spelling.

 3) spelling and language-focused learning: Especially for the beginning-level readers, spelling should be highlighted as a form of language-focused learning. However, according to the text, this should not be excessive.

 4) spelling and fluency development: Retrieving the spelling of a specific word should be automatized, especially in the case of high-frequency words. Writing on a topic in limited time is an example for fluency development.

2. Discuss all the ways of recognizing letters and words that you have read in this chapter and you have known from your experience.

     First, I agree with the prerequisites for reading instruction up to 100 percent. I have taught English to female adults who were refugees from Somalia several months ago, but I was completely frustrated at the first time because they were even not literate in their L1. The conventions and very fundamental knowledge of reading are often considered as just naturally emerging skills, or even their existences are neglected because it is too "natural" to know them. However, it was not the case, at least for them. They had nothing related to reading experiences. I had to instruct all the conventions, such as how to grab a pencil and how to write from left to right. After we have covered alphabets in a month, we were able to move on to the phonics part. They were supposed to understand the words are made up of different alphabets which have their unique sounds. While I was devising techniques for my students and planning my lesson, I have considered about all those things, so I couldn't help but agree with the prerequisite part the most.
     When it comes to my own experience, I learned phonics after I had learned how to construct meanings out of a given text. I did not know how to read the sentences aloud, but I did know what did those mean. Therefore I think that reading skill can be more improved if phonics lessons are combined with reading lessons. If I were able to read it aloud, I might be more competent in pronunciation and English language itself. To achieve this, I strongly believe that children's literatures written in English are necessary. I've taken a course named "Children's literature" while I was living in the US. The literatures were full of authentic, vivid, and intriguing stories that would attract many young readers in Korea as well as kids in the US. For instance, "Green eggs and ham" written by Dr. Seuss does not involve difficult grammatical structures or vocabularies. Rather, it is his main purpose that make young readers feel the rhymes and rhythms of language. Thus if appropriate assistance is given, I think there would be no serious problem for them to understand those literatures.

3. Discuss the ways of spelling words that you have read in this chapter and you have known from your experience.

Looking my experiences back, I was learning how to spell "incidentally" rather than deliberatively. I did not make conscious efforts to understand the spellings of words; instead, the spelling just came into my mind without losing its original form. But one point to note is that I was able to pronounce all the words as well. I think I have internalized pronunciation rules - "system learning" what the text calls - before I began to memorize spellings of difficult words. Therefore, I guess I was able to apply the pronunciation rules to spellings, instead of retrieving the whole spellings from my memory. 

4. Many English teachers in Korea have their students spend much time practicing phonics (in case of young learners) and memorizing words. Explain the strengths and weaknesses of this instruction from the knowledge that you have built through this chapter.

The strength of this approach is, I believe, that the building blocks of language could be well established through this method from the very first stage of learning L2. Without knowing words and phonemic items, it is obvious that learners neither can construct meaning out of a text nor read the text aloud. In opposition, I believe there is high possibility that the learners taught only through this method would lose their interests on English. They cannot enjoy meaningful texts and conversations in English only with the knowledge of phonics and words. Enjoyable materials motivate readers of English; however, if they are deprived of this fun, it is very likely for them to lose interests.

Mar.8th - my answers on comprehension questions posted

<Comprehension Questions>

• Based on Actvity 1.2 what do you usally read in English? List up all the cases in which you read texts in English. ex) cereal boxes, street signs, textbooks etc. And also in your future what texts will you be able to read in English in what situations? ex) business emails, TIME magazines etc.
  
  The first thing came up in mind was texts used in my classes. Now I am outside of English-speaking countries, so limited accesses were provided to me, I realized. Others would be mails, internet resources, facebook, street signs, obviously this blog, too.
  I think I will be buried under professional documents and articles related to my field very soon. I must be able to comprehend those bunches of paper thoroughly and correctly. And also I guess I would have many opportunities to share informal textings, often full of slangs and abbreviations, to communicate with others. 

• What makes you English reading difficult? Analyze your reading process yourself and try to find your barriers to fluent reading.
  
  The biggest obstacle for me is my own idleness. I am a type of person who sincerely complete all the required readings and assignments with my best, however, often temptations and sudden impulses disturb me when reading. Especially for some boring texts, I often doze off, or dream of me going out and having fun. If I can concentrate my mind on reading, I think I will be a fluent reader in any texts.
  
• Refuse the idea "The readers is simply a receiver who plays a passive role in the written communication process." with as much contradictory evidence as possible from the chapter.
  Readers do not simply decode the message in texts. Readers keep looking for cues, making predictions, thinking on issues presented, filtering unnecessary information, as mentioned in page 10-11. Readers have their own purpose to read a given text. To achieve this, readers pave their unique way into the text. This fact means all readers are active in decoding messages in texts. Even though they are faced with problems, they have their autonomy to find out where the problem came from, how to solve it, making actual efforts to solve it. 

• Explain each term of "Reading Process"
  
• Schema: an abstract mental structure that is activated to help understanding in meaning. For example, "A young girl is eating a candy" can be interpreted in our minds with the help of schemata about "a young girl", "eating" and "candy". If the writer and the reader do not share similar schemata, the writer's message can be misunderstood because what they have in mind is different.
• Shared assumption: Certain things the writer and reader have in common. If you are reading this text, at least you have a same code with me. Maybe you are older than secondary schoolers, and the level in English is beyond intermediate level. Those things could be "shared assumption". The example presented here is somewhat broad, however, in professional fields, the share assumption would be much more.
• Presupposition: Conscious or unconscious guesses readers make about the text.
• Prediction: Expectations on a given text. It can be a word-by-word level to sentence, paragraph, or a whole text level.
• Explain three different unconscious reading processes
• Top-down: Taking a sight into the text in a broad sense. The purpose is to understand the overall purpose of the text, not to look for minor details.
• Bottom-up: The reader builds up meaning from words and letters to the whole. The purpose here is to carefully observe minor details.
• Interactive: Adopting the two methods at once. The reader constantly changes the point of view, in order to achieve his/her purpose.

• Explain the principles of teaching reading(Williams 1986).
  
  According to Williams, the principles are fourfold. First, the input given to students should cover likely purposes they would have on reading in outside world. The input should be interpretable in their current level, with some challenging points. In other words, the input should be meaningful itself. Second, students should be supposed to produce outputs related to the reading. Third, special attention on language should be given in reading classes. Last but not the least, students should be provided with ample resources to speed up their reading process.

Review: a reflexive journal on critical pedagogy

Lin, A. M. Y. (2004). Introducing a critical pedagogical curriculum: A feminist

reflexive account. In B. Norton & K. Toohey (Eds.), Critical pedagogies and language learning (pp. 271-290). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Brief summary


This paper is a reflexive diary of a professor educating teachers in Hong Kong. Beginnig with her introduction to her course on critical pedagogy, the author confesses her difficulties, realizations, frustrations and new findings on critical pedagogies in the realm of language teaching.
The course the author had created was labelled as "language, culture, and education" albeit it had originally been a theoretical course on critical pedagogy. Coupled with the author's failure to estimate the students' current level, the frustration felt on the students' shoulders when faced with the reality in school became worse. The students, who were teachers in secondary schools thenselves, were critically observing the oppressive regime and find ding ways to work out what they have learned.
In addition, the course was also an opportunity for the author to retrospect upon her life as a teacher-educator. She calmly says, "To be honest, I was caught up in this sense of frustration and helpless myself ... How ineffective my critical curriculum was in the face of teachers' sufferings agonized and almost paralyzed me".


Reflection


This easy-to-read article gave me insights of how thr critical pedagogies in reality are complicated. From the very beginning, the course title, was embarassing for me because the title itself was implying that critical pedagogies could not emerge as they are, in Hong Kong context. It was something that should be hidden under the label of "mainstream", I felt.
In addition, her honest confession helped me understand the hands-on issues on critical pedagogy. Without any doubt, critical pedagogy has its nature in practice, not theory. How teachers get depressed while they practice critical pedagogies in reality? And why? This article obviously provides the answer.
I was pleased while I was reading this, thanks to her honest reflection and descriptions. It is my first time to read an article such as this, which is full of experiences and humanistic affections.

Love this T-shirt!

I've discovered this pic while I was searching for some resources to share.

Of course I am literate, as the shirt is saying.

But also it's a kind of tragedy that there are lots of people who are not able to read even in  their first language.

Well, anyway, I felt sudden impulse to buy this ;)

I've brought this from the following link:

http://www.zazzle.com/if_you_can_read_this_you_are_literate_tshirt-235513367688306051

A brand new blog :)

Just opened this blog here.
It is very certain that I'd fall in love with blogging, very soon.


The main theme in this blog would be "literacy", with a special focus on reading.
Let's see how this would be.