Midterm: Han YM

I.                  The difference between first and second language reading process

 

Before the first language learners learn to read, they have listened to the stories a lot, have been read to and have interacted with adults about stories and books.  When they start to learn, they have several thousand vocabulary words which they will meet in reading books and knowledge of grammar, and they are familiar with the stories.  That is, they are well prepared for reading at early age.   However, when the second language learners learn to read, they have very little second language vocabulary; they do not know grammar of the second language at all; and they are not familiar with stories.  Therefore, the second language learners need a lot of pre-reading activities and they should read books with vocabulary- regulated books.  There are some advantages for the second language learners.  First, second language learners can already read their first language; second, they have many reading strategies like guessing from context, scanning and skimming; and third, they have more developed cognitive skills because they are usually older than the first language learners.

 

II.               What intensive reading means in ESL setting

 

In intensive reading, the teacher explains the meaning of a text using the first language sentence by sentence.  Such intensive reading usually involves translation into the first language.  This program aims at developing the ability to comprehension of texts and gaining knowledge helping understand next reading texts.  Intensive reading focuses on comprehension of texts, regular and irregular sound- spelling relation, vocabulary, grammar, and cohesion.  In worst case, intensive reading only focuses on comprehension of a particular text with no consideration to whether this features will be useful on the next other texts.  However, when used with other reading skills like extensive reading, scanning, and skimming, intensive reading can be effective and can give general knowledge of subjects.

 

III.           What extensive reading means in ESL setting

 

Extensive reading involves a large quantity of varied enjoyable reading at a reasonably fluent speed.  Graded readers are usually used in extensive reading.  Extensive reading is a good way of learning and a source of enjoyment.  In extensive reading, 95 to 98 percent of the running words are already familiar to the learners and there should be no grammatical features they do not know.  Extensive reading should be no burden at all to readers.  Extensive reading can result in a variety of substantial proficiency gain.  However, these gains require considerable time and effort.  Learning through extensive reading is largely incidental and fragile, and therefore a quantity of input with vocabulary repetition is required.  Extensive reading needs planning, and monitoring.  For this, learners should read at least one graded book per week; read more than five books at a level; and this reading should continue over several years, and during the life time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

IV.           Create a mini-lesson plan for 1) intensive ESL reading and 2) extensive ESL reading

 

1.      Intensive ESL reading

Class setting: EFS

           Middle school 7^th grade

           20 students

Level-intermediate

Aim: Develop intensive reading skills and improve vocabulary power

Activity: Intensive reading exercise

l  Explain the different kinds of reading skills- skimming, scanning, intensive reading and extensive reading.

l  Explain our focus of intensive reading.

l  Read the following passage to the students.

l  Explain the meaning of passage in Korean sentence by sentence.

l  Explain the meanings of vocabularies and parts of speech in the sentence.

l  Explain grammatical features in the passage.

l  Make students translate one sentence into Korean in turn.

l  Solve the comprehension problems according to the passage.

l  Do the crossword puzzle.

l  Homework: read the following passage and then solve the comprehension problems and vocabulary problems.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2.      Extensive ESL reading

Class setting: EFS

           Elementary school 3^th grade

           20 students

Level-intermediate

Aim: Improve a general understanding of subjects and enjoy reading a variety of books

Outline: Extensive reading exercise

l  Read a Magic tree house per week.

l  Before reading the book, select five or six unknown words, explain them or make them look up the dictionary.

l  Train guessing from context.

l  After 6 months they will read 24 books of magic tree house.

l  Make students tell briefly about Magic tree house they read.

l  They will learn repeated vocabulary words in the books and gain knowledge according to the books.

l  Make students write reading logs.

Activity: Read Magic tree house #24- Earthquake in the early morning.

        After reading, students do one of two activities.

     Oral book report: Present a commentary on the book they read to the class.

     Group discussion: Bring students together who have already read the same book.  Discuss about the book.  After discussion, they prepare a written book report to present to others in the class.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

V.               Make a summary paragraph for the above

 

In the above, I discuss about intensive reading and extensive reading.  Each of reading program has unique advantages and disadvantages.  Through intensive reading, students can learn exact comprehension of a text and can build vocabulary; and through extensive reading, students become to enjoy reading and can get a general knowledge of subjects.  Therefore, when we make a reading plan for students, we should not stick to one program, but consider including both programs.

 

 

 

Comment:

 

In your intensive reading lesson plan, I could not identify your teaching 'material.' (following passage?  What is it?)

 

Your lesson plan should have specific information so that others can adop your lesson plan and teach it.  Do you think teachers can teach following your lesson plan?  I think you should offer more specific information.

 

Thank you for your efforts.

 

 

Midterm: Han SH

(1) The difference between first and second language reading process.

 

L1 learners are prepared for reading at an early age by listening to stories, being read to, and interacting with adults and others about the stories they hear. When native –speaking children start to learn to read, they already have a large vocabulary of several thousand words which includes most of the words they will meet in early reading. They also have good control of the grammar of the language, have a lot of knowledge about books and reading conventions, and have had many stories read to them, so they are keen to learn how to read. The techniques used to teach are largely meaning-focused with shared reading, guided reading and independent reading. However, L2 learners are usually older than L1 beginners. Learning to read an L2 involves a great deal of language teaching, thus they need very controlled texts and a greater amount of pre-reading activities. However, L2 learners can already read in their L1, and they have general cognitive skills and language specific skills such as greater meta-linguistic and meta-cognitive awareness. Also, L2 beginners do not need to learn what they can transfer from the L1 like Italian. It is easy to transfer L1 skills and to be much more able to learn from direct instruction.

 

(2) What intensive reading means in ESL setting?

 

Intensive study of reading texts can be a means of increasing learner’s knowledge of language features and their control of reading strategies. It can also improve their comprehension skill. It fits into the language-focused learning strand of a course. The classic procedure for intensive reading is the grammar-translation approach where the teacher works with the learners, using the first language to explain the meaning of a text in every sentence. Intensive work on reading text can focus on the aspects such as comprehension, regular and irregular sound-spelling relations, vocabulary, grammar, cohesion, information structure, genre features, and strategies. If these characteristics of intensive reading are offered to ESL learners, they could learn faster and stably where time is short and where learners have not succeeded in learning to read by other methods as a minority or newly comers in the target society. Also, the effect of his kind of intensive reading can help ESL learners learn specific features and make them aware of these so that they notice them in the future reading and thus have a greater chance of learning better. Last, as a surviving skill, ESL learners have to read correctly their textbooks, the road signs, bus schedules, newspaper articles, recipes, web information, and so forth.

 

(3) What extensive reading means in ESL setting?

 

     Extensive reading fits into the meaning-focused input and fluency development strands of a course, depending on the level of the books that the learners read. When the books contain only a few unknown vocabulary and grammar items, extensive reading provides the conditions for meaning-focused input. Where the books are very easy ones with virtually no unknown items,

extensive reading provides the conditions for fluency development. Considering the ESL learners’ difficulty to do their schoolwork and to adjust foreign society and culture, it is very important that ESL learners should have the opportunity to gain meaning-focused input through reading plenty of material that does not contain too many unknown or difficult items, which can provide them with lots of experience in foreign society and culture, thus allow them to apply what they have learned in other parts of the reading course and schoolwork. For this reason, they should have the opportunity to work with very easy material so that they can develop fluency and positive motivation in reading for successful schoolwork and lives.

 

(4) Create a mini-lesson plan

 

A. For intensive ESL reading

 

Lesson	13. What did you do yesterday?	period	2/4(40min)
Objectives	1. Students can listen and repeat the expressions of the past.  2. Students can read and find out the expressions of the past.
Classroom Setting	6th graders, 20students
Procedure	Teaching and Learning Activities	Time	Materials
Introduction	■ Greetings and daily routines ■ Presentation of the objectives ■ Look and listen - T : Let's listen to the dialog Ⅰ,Ⅱ - Ss : (Students watch TV and listen to the dialogs.) ■ Listen and repeat(1) - T : Let's listen the dialog Ⅰ,Ⅱ - Ss : (After students listen to them line by line and repeat one after another.)	10min	CD-ROM Projection TV
Development	■ Before reading activity ▶ Brainstorming - T : Let's brainstorm the words for the pictures. - Ss : (Students brainstorm the words for the pictures.) ■ During reading activity ▶ Finding the expressions of the past - T : Let's find the expressions of the past. - Ss : (Students make a circle to the expressions of the past.) ■ After reading activity ▶ Answering the questions - T : Let's answer the questions. - Ss : (Students write the answers in the sheet based on the detailed information from the article.) ▶ Solving the crossword puzzle - T : Let's do the crossword puzzle. - Ss : (Students solve the puzzle and check the answers.)	5min           10min         13min	English newspaper article       worksheet
Closing	■ Review - Main expressions of the past, words	2min	PPT

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

B. For extensive ESL reading

 

Lesson	8. What will you do this summer?	period	3/4(40min)
Objectives	1. Students can listen and repeat the expressions of the future.  2. Students can read and find out the main story within 10minutes.
Classroom Setting	6th graders, 20students
Procedure	Teaching and Learning Activities	Time	Materials
Introduction	■ Greetings and daily routines ■ Presentation of the objectives ■ Look and listen - T : Let's listen to the dialog Ⅰ,Ⅱ - Ss : (Students watch TV and listen to the dialogs.) ■ Listen and repeat(1) - T : Let's listen the dialog Ⅰ,Ⅱ - Ss : (After students listen to them line by line and repeat one after another.)	10min	CD-ROM Projection TV
Development	■ Before reading activity ▶ Brainstorming - T : Let's brainstorm the words for the pictures. - Ss : (Students brainstorm the words for the pictures.) ■ During reading activity ▶ Finding the main story of the book - T : Let's find the main story of the book. - Ss : (Students read the book individually finding the main story of the book.) ■ After reading activity ▶ Checking the story - T : Let's check what the story is about. - Ss : (Students answer the questions from teachers and check what the story is about.) ▶ Making a cartoon - T : Let's make a cartoon. - Ss : (Students make a cartoon based on the main story of the book they read.)	5min           10min         13min	English storybook       worksheet
Closing	■ Review - Main expressions of the future and story	2min	PPT

 

(5) Make a summary paragraph for the above.

 

     The difference between first and second language reading process is clear in the age of starting, cognitive and language skills, teaching methods, using materials, and activities. L1 and L2 reading processes have their own special characteristics and strength. Intensive study of reading texts can be a means of increasing learner’s knowledge of language features and their control of reading strategies. Thus, intensive reading has a meaning of helping ESL learners learn faster and stably where time is short and where learners have not succeeded in learning to read by other methods as a minority or newly comers in the target society. Whereas Extensive reading fits into the meaning-focused input and fluency development strands of a course, depending on the level of the books that the learners read. Thus, extensive reading also has a meaning of assisting have the opportunity to gain meaning-focused input through reading plenty of material that does not contain too many unknown or difficult items, which can provide them with lots of experience in foreign society and culture, thus allow them to apply what they have learned in other parts of the reading course and schoolwork. ESL learners should have the opportunity to work with very easy material so that they can develop fluency and positive motivation in reading for successful schoolwork and lives. A good reading course can be the core of the language program as it can give rise to activities in the other skills of listening, speaking, and writing, and can provide the opportunity for a useful, deliberate focus on language features. It can become as effective means of showing that language learning can be successful and enjoyable.

 

 

Thank you for the good example.