Educational policies requiring scripted reading curriculums limit early childhood pre-service teacher candidates

When educational policies require pre-service teacher practicum mentors to continuously implement a mandated scripted reading curriculum, limits are placed on pre-service teachers observing only these reading instruction methods. Novice teachers, who are developing their reading pedagogy, need the opportunity to explore a variety of methods identified as best reading instruction practice. When the pre-service teacher candidates are repeatedly exposed to the scripted methods in practicums, the partnership between the university professors and practicum school systems can suffer. When attempting to bridge theory and practice, the pre-service teacher candidate is affected when they observe conflicting viewpoints between college professors and the hosting practicums during a stage of professional growth and teacher development. If pre-service teachers are without practicum opportunities to try creative reading teaching methods, a result of increased negative outlooks on the profession and future teacher burn-out is a possibility.

Investigation into the efficacy of text modification: What type of text do learners of Japanese authenticate?

<p>The dissertation is a study of the efficacy of reading materials for learners of Japanese as a foreign language (JFL). It discusses the merits of 'authentic' materials written primarily for native speaker-readers compared to 'modified' texts adapted in some way for learners. Further, it compares various sorts of modifications: simplification, elaboration, marginal glosses and the use of onscreen computer pop-ups. More broadly, it locates the study within the wider discourse of pedagogy concerning reading materials for second language learners, especially JFL learners. Reading in Japanese as a second language is generally thought to be more demanding than reading in some other second languages. The study therefore argues that the authenticity debate and efficacy of text modification must be addressed specifically in the JFL reading pedagogy. In the context of the authenticity debate, there are, broadly, two opposing views. One favours the predominant use of unmodified texts while the other promotes the efficacy of modified texts. While there have been numerous theoretical discussions and empirical findings in the reading pedagogy of English as a second or foreign language (ESL/EFL), the JFL reading pedagogy is currently lacking such academic endeavours. Hence, the present study seeks to fill the gap. The study is mixed methods research, consisting of three projects in which both qualitative and quantitative methods are employed. This approach investigates equally the effects of text modification on participating learners' cognitive changes (reading comprehension) and affective changes (motivation and perception). The results indicate that learners of Japanese comprehend modified texts statistically significantly better than they do unmodified texts. Findings include that modified texts for Japanese are more efficacious than they are in the ESL/EFL context. However, modified texts that are insufficiently challenging fail to enhance learners' motivation. Advanced learners especially were found to have a negative attitude toward reading modified Japanese texts.</p>

Investigation into the efficacy of text modification: What type of text do learners of Japanese authenticate?

<p>The dissertation is a study of the efficacy of reading materials for learners of Japanese as a foreign language (JFL). It discusses the merits of 'authentic' materials written primarily for native speaker-readers compared to 'modified' texts adapted in some way for learners. Further, it compares various sorts of modifications: simplification, elaboration, marginal glosses and the use of onscreen computer pop-ups. More broadly, it locates the study within the wider discourse of pedagogy concerning reading materials for second language learners, especially JFL learners. Reading in Japanese as a second language is generally thought to be more demanding than reading in some other second languages. The study therefore argues that the authenticity debate and efficacy of text modification must be addressed specifically in the JFL reading pedagogy. In the context of the authenticity debate, there are, broadly, two opposing views. One favours the predominant use of unmodified texts while the other promotes the efficacy of modified texts. While there have been numerous theoretical discussions and empirical findings in the reading pedagogy of English as a second or foreign language (ESL/EFL), the JFL reading pedagogy is currently lacking such academic endeavours. Hence, the present study seeks to fill the gap. The study is mixed methods research, consisting of three projects in which both qualitative and quantitative methods are employed. This approach investigates equally the effects of text modification on participating learners' cognitive changes (reading comprehension) and affective changes (motivation and perception). The results indicate that learners of Japanese comprehend modified texts statistically significantly better than they do unmodified texts. Findings include that modified texts for Japanese are more efficacious than they are in the ESL/EFL context. However, modified texts that are insufficiently challenging fail to enhance learners' motivation. Advanced learners especially were found to have a negative attitude toward reading modified Japanese texts.</p>

Reassessing second language reading comprehension: Insights from the psycholinguistics notion of sentence processing

Theories and practices in second language reading pedagogy often overlook the sentence processing description from the psycholinguistics perspective. Second language reading comprehension is easily associated with vocabulary learning or discourse strategy. Yet, such activities can lead to an unnatural way of reading such as translating vocabularies or pointing out information as required. Meanwhile the authentic way of reading should encourage a natural stream of ideas to be interpreted from sentence to sentence. As suggested by the sentence processing notion from the psycholinguistics point of view, syntax appears to be the key to effective and authentic reading as opposed to the general belief of semantic or discourse information being the primary concern. This article argues that understanding the architecture of sentence processing, with syntactic parsing at the core of the underlying mechanism, can offer insights into the second language reading pedagogy. The concepts of syntactic parsing, reanalysis, and sentence processing models are described to give the idea of how sentence processing works. Additionally, a critical review on the differences between L1 and L2 sentence processing is presented considering the recent debate on individual differences as significant indicators of nativelike L2 sentence processing. Lastly, implications for the L2 reading pedagogy and potential implementation in instructional setting are discussed.

Close(d) Reading and the “Potential Space” of the Literature Classroom after Apartheid

This article explores psychoanalyst D. W. Winnicott’s ideas about play and “transitional space” or “potential space” in relation to reading, pedagogy, and the legacy of apartheid in South African universities. Following the work of Carol Long, who argues that “apartheid institutions can be understood as the opposite of transitional spaces,” the author draws on her experiences of teaching in the English Department of the University of the Western Cape to reflect on how pedagogy is shaped by institutional culture. The article focuses particularly on “close reading” in the South African university classroom and how a rigid understanding of it has sometimes closed and constrained the experience of reading for students in order to argue for a more open model of “close reading” that values the immersive and creative aspects of reading as well as the analytic, following Winnicott’s understanding of meaningful cultural experience as rooted in play.

REVISITANDO AS BASES PARA UMA PEDAGOGIA DA LEITURA / Foundations review for a reading Pedagogy

Resenha do livro Modos de Ler: teoria e pedagogia da leitura, de Marcia Lisbôa Costa de Oliveira (Letraria E-ditora, 2020)

EFL Reading in Context

EFL reading pedagogy in Japan and elsewhere has been greatly influenced by popular approaches in English-speaking countries. Such approaches have tended to include whole language and whole word teaching, which have been shown repeatedly in recent decades to be ineffective for many students. Partly because of the influence of these approaches on L2 teaching in Japan, there continues to be an overreliance on visual memory, an underappreciation of the role of sound in reading (phonemic awareness, phonology, and memory encoding), a lack of focus on decoding and fluency development, a shortage of attention to certain features of vocabulary (morphology in particular), and insufficient teaching of comprehension strategies rather than just testing for it. This article gives a brief overview of the history of reading pedagogy, looks at some of the shortcomings of commonly used teaching approaches, and provides some suggestions for helping to compensate for these shortcomings. 日本において外国語としての英語読解指導は、歴史的に英語母語の諸国、特にアメリカの指導法に大きく影響されている。このように英語母語に由来する指導法は、ホール・ランゲージ／ホール・ワード・アプローチによる言語指導、語彙指導にも至り、今でも広く使用されているが、ここ数十年では、相当な数の学生に効果がないという研究結果が証明されている。これらの潮流の中で、日本での外国語指導は、視覚的記憶に過度に依存し続け、読解時の音の役割（音素声学上の認識、音韻体系、記憶の符号化）を正当に評価せず、流暢さの発達不足や語彙の（特に形態）特徴への注意欠如を招き、単なるテストより、内容把握のための指導法に十分な手立てがなされていない。本稿では、読解指導の歴史的経緯を概観し、一般に使用されながらも効果的でない手法を指摘する。その上で、その手法を修正し、足りない面を補う方法を提案する。

Training Tastes

This chapter turns to both volumes of Woolf’s Common Reader series (1925, 1932) to develop an account of them as exemplary pedagogical projects that model private taste-training. Challenging a critical consensus that emphasizes values of conversation and community in the study of Woolf’s essays, this chapter argues that her (common) reading pedagogy privileges solitude and privacy as groundworks for the free and idiosyncratic development of readerly taste. Elaborating Woolf’s practices and theories of reading, the chapter surveys the wide variety of approaches her criticism takes to fiction, poetry, and life-writing. It concludes with an assessment of her repeated references in the Common Reader essays to death, ruin, and the question of what remains when writers die and centuries pass. When read within the context of the solitude and freedom of her reading pedagogy, this preoccupation with human remains motivates a mode of ethical and critical acknowledgement attentive to traces of the dead’s life and labor.

A comparison of the impact of extensive and intensive reading approaches on the reading attitudes of secondary EFL learners

Extensive reading (ER) which encourages second or foreign (L2) learners to engage in a great deal of reading, has long been recognized as an efficient approach in L2 reading pedagogy. While many attempts have been made to understand the effect of ER on the cognitive domains of L2 learners, there has been insufficient investigation into how ER influences their affective domains. Particularly, reading attitudes, one of the key elements of affective factors involved in L2 reading, have received little attention. This classroom-based intervention study investigated the impact of ER on English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ attitudes toward English reading compared to the influence of the traditional intensive reading (IR) approach. In addition, this study explored whether the impact of the ER approach on EFL learners’ reading attitudes is different depending on L2 proficiency. The study included two intact classes of EFL secondary learners (N = 72) who received either ER or IR instructional treatments for a 12-week period. For the results, ANCOVA showed that the ER approach fostered positive reading attitudes significantly more than the IR approach. In addition, the analysis indicated that the participants’ proficiency levels did not have a significant effect upon changes in their reading attitudes. That is, regardless of proficiency level, the ER approach demonstrated a significantly positive effect on participants’ reading attitudes in comparison with the IR approach.

Approaches and Activities Adopted by M. Ed. Student Teachers of English to Teach Reading: A Critical Assessment

Literature on second language reading suggests that the effectiveness of teaching reading depends largely on theoretically-guided and contextually-informed classroom methodology. In this study, we investigated the classroom methodology adopted by the students of Master of Education (M. Ed.) specializing in English from Mahendra Ratna Campus, Tahachal, who were teaching Bachelor of Education (B. Ed.) reading courses during their practice teachinghence defined as ‘student teachers’ (STs). Foregrounding the role of reading in the overall language development and academic achievement of English as a foreign language (EFL) students, the present B. Ed. English curriculum under Tribhuvan University has adopted a content-based approach to teaching reading. In order to understand how those reading courses were taught, we purposively selected ten M.Ed. STs and observed two classes of each, employing a semi-structured classroom observation scheme. In order to cross-compare STs' classroom performance with their theoretical knowledge about reading pedagogy and overall objectives of the reading courses, we also analyzed the English language teaching course the STs had studied in the M.Ed. program as well as B. Ed. reading courses and coursebooks they were teaching. The collected data were coded and analyzed thematically. The findings show that the teaching methodology adopted by the STs goes counter to the principles of ESL/EFL reading and expectations articulated in the reading courses. These findings illustrate the urgent need to reassess the methodology of teaching reading at the tertiary level and minimize the gap between the M. Ed. English students’ pedagogical knowledge and their classroom performance.