参加第五十届国际阅读学会年会与会心得 --国立台湾师范大学英语系教授 陈秋兰 民国九十四年八月 第五十届国际阅读学会年会暨学术研讨会,於今年五月二日到五月五日在美国德州圣安东尼市举行,我和东海大学外文系助理教授廖敏旬,台南大学语教系副教授邹文莉及新竹三民国中傅惠美老师,新店高中张碧珠老师原订以Symposium的方式参加,然而二位中学老师临时未能成行,因此只有我和廖老师,邹老师参与此次研讨会,并发表三篇主题为以文学为主的教学法来推广英语为外语之阅读.发表时间为五月四日早上九点到十一点四十五分,该场论文发表参与人数虽不多,但讨论十分热络,我们三位发表者都觉得很有收获.
此次研讨会的地点在德州圣安东尼市,此城市很有历史意义,研讨会的重要据点「会议中心」地点紧临运河,风景十分优美,因此吸引了世界各国及美国国内阅读学者,各级教师共二万多人参加.此次年会适逢国际阅读学会五十周年,活动内容十分丰富.国际阅读学会主席Mary Ellen Vogt邀请电影明星及童书作者茱莉安德鲁丝 (Julie Andrews) 开幕致词演讲,茱莉安德鲁丝主演的电影「真善美」家喻户晓,但却不是每一个人都知道她也写童书并致力於推广阅读,她的风采气度过人,演讲内容很有启发性,也十分贴切的呈现出阅读学会五十年来用心推广阅读的努力及影响力.
除了开幕演讲外,我也聆听了很多场学术性的报告,其中包括如何提升阅读教师专业成长,及如何评量阅读等议题.除此之外,我也参与Scholastic出版社邀请的晚宴,因此有机会和曾到过台湾访问的国际阅读学会理事 (Rita Bean) 及前会长 (Donna Ogle) 交谈.也得知今年十月亚洲阅读学会将在北京开会,届时不但有亚洲各国阅读学者参加,国际阅读学会理事也会参加此一亚洲阅读盛会,值得期待.
国际阅读学会年会特色之一是颁奖典礼,及新旧理事之交接典礼.颁奖项目包括博士学位论文奖,最优良区域性分会,最佳年度阅读推展计划,及补助小学老师参加年会的旅费奖,荣誉分会奖等多种奖项.这是每年的庆功和感谢的时刻,场面十分温馨感人.
除了演讲外,书展也是国际阅读学会每年会场的重要活动之一.今年参展书商有300多家,展出内容十分多元,有教具教材,也有研究用书籍,可以满足不同与会者的需求,我也趁著研讨会购书折扣的机会,采购了不少书寄回台湾,这也是参加国际研讨会的另一种收获.
(精简版论文)
Adult EFL Students\' Responses to A Literature-Based
Reading Class
Chiou-lan [email protected]
Department of English, National Taiwan Normal University
Reading is no doubt the most important channel for EFL students to learn English. However, in Taiwan, reading had always been taught with a grammar-based approach that emphasized bits and pieces of linguistic knowledge to be tested on the exams (Chen, 2003). But, what is a good approach to reading
Studies have pointed out a direction for reading instruction; i.e., reading instruction should focus on a global picture of the text through the integration of activities. Palincsar and Brown (1984) proposed a dialogue-based procedures to reading that help students see the big picture and monitor their own reading at the same time. It is called Reciprocal Teaching
Reciprocal Teaching is an instructional approach that incorporates structured dialogues to help students improve reading comprehension. According to Vygotsky (1978), much cognitive development is mediated by experts providing information to novice with gradual decreasing provision of expert support as a learner\'s competence increases. Along the same line of thought, Palincsar and Brown (1984) advocated a
Research Method of this Study
The research method employed in this study is ethnographic in nature. The participants included 15 staff members from a national university in Taipei. These participants were assigned to a reading-writing class based on their placement scores, which were at the top 25% of the people who took the same test. The participants have had at least six years of English learning experiences and were working at various offices in the university chosen for this study. However, many of them didn\'t have the experience of reading the whole book in English. The instructor, also the researcher, surveyed their needs and explained to them the rationale for using simplified readers as the reading materials. Three simplified readers based on the stories written by John Grisham were chosen as the reading materials in the first semester. The three titles of the books are: The Street Lawyer, The Client, The Pelican Brief, all Penguin Readers at either Level 4 or Level 5.
The participants were told to read 10-12 pages before each weekly meeting and wrote their clarification, prediction, summary, and questioning on a worksheet. Class time, two hours per week, was spent mostly on book talk. Each book, no more than 70 pages, was read in 5-week time frame.
The instructional procedure of this class adopted Reciprocal Teaching approach similar to the one used in Palincsar and Brown\'s (1984) original version of four-phase design. In other words, teachers first explicitly led the whole class to use the four strategies, i.e., predicting, questioning, clarifying, and summarizing through demonstration and modeling. Then students worked in groups to read and apply the four strategies. For two of the books, The Client and The Pelican Brief, movies based on the same stories were viewed half way through reading the book.
The data collected in this study included questionnaires to tap students\' attitudes of this literature-based approach to reading and writing and the effectiveness of the worksheet in helping them read with comprehension. They were also asked to write a reflection essay at the end of each story. These data were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively to tap the effect of this innovative approach to EFL reading instruction. As the focus of this study is on learners\' perceptions of the instructional approach rather than their growth in language, the analysis of the reflective notes was beyond the scope of this study and therefore will be not be discussed.
The Findings of this Study
The results of the first survey using Reflection Sheet I showed that all students liked reading storybooks to learn English because they could learn many things from storybooks, including the English language and the descriptive details of the storyline. They also thought that the worksheet helped them to read more carefully, to synthesize different information in the story, and to think and read more critically.
As to which part of the survey was most helpful with understanding the story, most of the participants considered Summarizing and Questioning as helpful. As to the part that is least helpful with understanding the story, half of them identified Appreciate and one-fourth of them indicated Summary and New Words. Summary was also ranked as the most favored part on the worksheet, though Appreciate was also raked very high. When asked to evaluate their own achievement after the 16-week program, almost all of them ranked reading and writing, which matched the title and the goal of the course. However, when asked what other improvement they would like to make, many expressed the need to practice speaking, learn vocabulary, and read shorter articles. It was because of the results from this survey that motivated the researcher to experiment with different reading materials in the second semester.
In the second semester, four articles were chosen from an ESL reader, Rethinking America (Sokolik, 1999), as the reading material in the first month, with one article for each class meeting.
A survey was conducted at the end of the first month after all four articles were read and discussed in class for participants to compare their experiences of reading storybooks and articles. The second survey results showed that six participants liked both types of reading; four liked storybooks better and five liked articles better. Six felt that storybooks were more helpful with their learning of English and nine thought articles were more helpful. They all agreed that the worksheet was helpful with heir reading of the articles.
Their reasons for preferring storybooks were as follows: Storybooks are easier to read and they felt relaxed and fun reading stories. They could skip words and still understand the whole story. However, those who preferred reading articles almost all mentioned that articles helped them learn vocabulary and appreciate beautiful sentences and that articles were more informative.
As to the utility of storybooks, the reasons mentioned by the participants included that the language used in the storybooks was easy and practical in daily life. Some of them also mentioned that the plot in the storybook was easy to understand. Nine participants considered articles to be more helpful in learning English because they could learn a lot of vocabulary items and grammar points from the articles. They also thought that the articles were well-written and had beautiful patterns and expressions therefore could enhance their reading ability and gain knowledge.
Participants\' specific choices of which storybook and article they liked most are tabulated. The results showed that the simplified reader read most recently, The Pelican Brief, was chosen as the favorite by almost half of the participants. The reasons mostly centered around the interesting/exciting/breathtaking plots and character descriptions. Those who liked The Street Lawyer commented on the touching storyline and endings. As far as articles are concerned, How Starbucks are Created on a Budget, was the favorite for almost half of the participants. The article was chosen, other than being the one read most recently, for its easy language and relevance to daily life. Those participants who liked Home and Bittersweet Farewell mentioned the closeness of the ideas to their hearts as the reasons for their preference. The most difficult article, A Multi-cultural Society (Flesch-Kincaid Difficulty Index 12), was not chosen by any of the participants as favorite.
Discussion and Conclusion
This study found that the adult EFL learners in this study generally like reading storybooks and short narratives that they can finish reading and discussing it in one class. They also showed that they liked reading materials that are linguistically non-threatening and contextually relevant to their life experience. It was also obvious from the reasons stated for their preferred reading materials that the discussion based approach of Reciprocal Teaching had successfully led participants to focus on meaning and content, rather than discrete linguistic points. However, when it comes to helpfulness in promoting their EFL proficiency, they believed that articles with substantial vocabulary items and complex sentence structures would be more beneficial to the improvement of their language. Teachers still have a long way to go to convince learners that extensive reading of simple stories will make EFL reading a natural experience and eventually develop language skills.
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