4 posts tagged “reading english”
How can we learn to write English better? The following is a message from an English teacher on the TESL-L Listserve, a community of over 20,000 English teachers on the Internet. "I'm appalled that anyone would believe that giving students books would help them learn how to write an essay. Learning (and teaching) a second language is MUCH more complicated than encouraging students to read." and " I am sooooooooooooooo tired of these simple "just give them books" solutions."
My answer to this was as follows.
Different people learn in different ways, although there are certain universaI principles. The power of reading is one of them.
I have learned many languages, mostly by reading and listening. I would not go to a class to learn how to write better in any language. I would read more, and I would listen more. I would choose content with the style and use of words that I want to learn from. I would notice words and phrases and save them for review. I would consult articles on the Internet, or books which explain the style that is most appreciated for the language I am learning and the kind of writing that I need to do. These materials abound, especially for English writing. I would do it all on my own. Reading would be my most important activity and where I would spend most of my time.
I fully recognize that a majority of learners may take a different approach. But I believe that nobody can improve their writing without spending most of their time reading. The challenge for the teacher is to find ways to encourage, facilitate or stimulate their students' reading. Providing advice and feedback may be necessary for a majority of students ( I agree that I may be an exception), but the reading is the most important activity. This is based on my experience as a learner and as a teacher.
The fastest way to increase English vocabulary is to read. If you can then listen to what you have read, so much the better. It will reinforce your memory of what you read, and improve your reading rhythm and speed.
There are problems, however. It is not pleasant to read material with more than 5% new words. But to increase vocabulary you need to discover new words in interesting contexts. Consulting a traditional dictionary is hopeless because it is so time consuming and the words so quickly forgotten. Reading on line is better because you can consult an electronic dictionary but the words are still quickly forgotten. It is also easier to read a book than to read online.
If you are lucky you can find special graded readers with prepared word lists. Even with a prepared word list, all too often it seems that the editors of these readers deliberately provide translations of obvious words that you already know and do not provide translations of difficult new words that you do not know.
We think the The Linguist is an excellent solution since members can use the content in our library which self-grades to their invidual vocabulary level. They can also import any content they like, and build their own vocabulary databases and use our vocabulary learning methodology.
Whatever you do, you canot avoid reading a lot if you want to master lots of vocabulary.
The champion word learner at The Linguist is one of our members from Japan, Sada... Matsu..... He has been with The Linguist since Oct 30 2005, in other words over two years. I see him on the site almost every day. In about 27 months he has saved 11,3999 words and 3882 phrases. He has studied 809 items, of which 299 are from The Linguist Library and 510 are imported from elsewhere. He listens 1-2 hours per day. ( He actually records his listening hours!) His total known words is 26,419. He never writes. He never participates on any Skype discussions. He just reads and listens, just about every day.
Ai, go for your goal of 20,000 words! But I am glad you are also going to join us on the Vox blog and hopefully join some discussions as well.
Some thoughts on how to get a better TOEIC score. To improve in TOEIC, especially the reading section, but in fact all of TOEIC, you need to improve your reading skills. Here are some suggestions on how to do that.
Extensive reading. (to increase your reading speed)
A) Read a lot of easy content where the number of new words is not greater than 10 % of the total number of unique words. (Note that this information is provided when you click on the title of new items in the Linguist Library).
1) Read a new item quickly once. Then try to summarize out loud to yourself what the item was about.
2) Listen to the item and read along at the same time. Make sure that you can read faster than the audio file you are listening to. If you cannot, read the item again and continue practicing to try to increase your reading speed. Note that most articles, including news reports are read at about 140 words per minute, whereas conversations are around 160 words per minute and Dr. Laura is closer to 200 words per minute. You will need to get your speed up to 200 words per minute or faster to really do well on TOEIC.
3) Select a new item and do the same again. You can use imported content if (as in the case of VOA) there is a sound file provided. If there is no sound, do as in B) below.
Note that you should read these easy items at first without listening, and then read along while listening. The objective is to increase your reading speed.
B) Read newspaper articles, magazine articles, or other handy material, including web sites, on subjects of interest to you.
1) Make sure you are interested in the content.
2) Do not look up any words. Just read, scan and try to figure out the meaning.
3) Do this daily and try to enjoy it. Do not look up any words in a dictionary!!
4) Try to summarize the meaning to yourself.
The goal is to develop the ability to scan, and to guess at meaning.
Intensive reading. (to increase your vocabulary and ability to use phrases)
A) Choose content items with more than 10% new words and up to 20% new words as a percentage of unique words. (See the Linguist Library information on each new content item.)
1) Read through once, saving new words.
2) Listen and read. Save additional words and phrases that cause trouble.
3) Listen to the text 3-5 times.
4) Read the text 2-3 times.
5) Review the saved words and phrases.
6) Continue listening and reading to the item 3-5 more times.
Practice a mixture of extensive reading and intensive reading. Your reading will improve and so will your TOEIC score. But remember to stick to articles that you find interesting, as much as possible.
I would be interested in people's ideas about how to increase reading speed.
I will offer some of my ideas and look forward to yours.
I think that it is in the interest of any language learner to strive to reach at least the low end of a native speaker's reading speed. In the case of English, this is around 200 words per minute. How can this be achieved?
1) First of all, read more. The more you read, the more familiar you will become with the language. The better you will be at converting writing into meaning, without translating. Reading skills are constantly self-reinforcing. The faster you read the more you can read, and the more you want to read. So get started on it now. It is kind of like learning to type with ten fingers, you just get faster and faster until you reach your level. So start right away!
2) Treat yourself and allow yourself to read content that is interesting and easy. If you know all the words, and you are interested in the content, you will naturally read faster, thinking about the meaning, without worrying about looking up new words.
3) You still need to increase your vocabulary so that you can read a greater variety of content. To do this you need to read content with more new words, so that you can learn these words in context. This seems like a contradiction to point 2).
The solution is to vary the difficulty level of your reading. Mostly try to read content that has 5 - 10% new words ( as a percentage of unique words). These are the numbers you see in the Linguist LIbrary. When you feel like working on learning new vocabulary, choose content with a higher percentage of new words. But if you want to practice increasing your reading speed, stay with easy content.
4) Read all the Beginner or Easy Starter content in our Library once and "update known words" when you finish each item, even if you have not saved any words or phrases. As you continue to more difficult content make sure you continue to "update known words". This will make sure that your "known words" total is updated in The Linguist system.
5) Listen and read at the same time. You can listen and read at your computer. Or you can print the content and read on paper while listening. Make sure you can keep up, or even try to read faster than the voice you are listening to. Remember that most content is around 125 - 150 words per minute, conversations are around 160-170 words per minute and Dr. Laura is 180-200.
6) Increase the font size in The Linguist or any other content. Go to View in your browser's tool bar, then choose Text Size. With larger text , not only are the letters and words larger, making it is easier to read, but each line is shorter so it is easier to look at 3-4 words at the same time, or to focus on one or two key words in each line.
I look forward to your feedback.
