OnQCUE
For the Language Professional in Higher Education

SPECIAL ISSUE

Special Issue, Summer 2004

"About Literacy Across Cultures"Q

IN THIS ISSUE

JALT2004

Message from the Editors . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
FeaturesDavid & Don: Deconstructing advertisements:
uncovering ideological bias . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Conferences

Language Learning for Life
November 19 – 22, 2004
Tezukayama University
Gakuenmae Campus,
Nara, Japan

Krashen & Lee: Competence in foreign
language writing: progress and lacunae . . . . 10
Redﬁeld: Faculty of freshmen reading habits:
survey results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Rabbini: Genre framing facilitates structural
knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Lemmer: A brief look at an extensive reading
program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

From the Chalkface
McCasland & Poole: Playing with rabbitsa guide to helping students interact with
Steinbeck . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

ReviewsBarﬁeld: Phraseology: Theory, Analysis,
Applications [A. P. Cowie] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Crawford: Websites for testing and increasing
reading speed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Q

Thoughts to Ponder‘Read in order to live.’– Gustave Flaubert –‘But who shall be themaster? The writer or
the reader?’– Denis Diderot –Japan Association for Language Teaching College & University Educators Special Interest Group
Retail Price for Non-Members: ¥700/ $7

Special Issue: About Literacy Across Cultures

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About CUE

Message from the editors of About
Literacy Across Cultures

W

elcome to this special jointly produced issue of On CUE and Literacy Across Cultures (LAC).
Under the theme of teaching and learning FL/SL reading at the tertiary level, we are very
happy to have been able to put together a wide-ranging collection of articles which we are suregives an overview of current research and practice, not only in Japan but in neighboring regions
as well. Two papers approach reading from a genre perspective. Zuraidah Don and Maya David
argue for foregrounding critical reading skills for learners with relatively high level decoding skills,
while Roberto Rabbini shows how explicit teaching of the features of a particular genre can havetangible gains in accuracy even at post-beginner levels. On a different tack, Stephen Krashen and
Sy-Ying Lee look at the relationship between reading and writing, and between ﬁrst and second
language literacy, and ﬁnd some evidence that composing strategies in a ﬁrst language do indeed
transfer to a second. Rube Redﬁeld also investigates ﬁrst and second language literacy connections,and concludes that a major problem for his students in becoming literate in English is simply thatthey read very little, and not very well, even in Japanese. There are two practical articles in thisissue. Richard Lemmer gives a blow-by-blow account of setting up an extended reading programin his institution, while Phil McCasland and Brent Poole describe how they use Steinbeck’s Of
Mice and Men as a frame for a comprehensive class project. Finally Andy Barﬁeld reviews A.P.
Cowie’s Phraseology, Theory, Analysis, Applications; and Michael Crawford introduces readers
to some useful web resources for increasing reading speeds.
We’d like to thank CUE and LAC for supporting this special issue, and we wish readers happy
and instructive reading. Any feedback on the issue is very welcome. If you would like to respondto any of the articles within it, please feel free to do so. Address responses to the CUE Opinionsand Perspectives editor, Keith Ford <jf6k-ford@asahi-net.or.jp>.
Michael Carroll and Charles Jannuzi<carroll@andrew.ac.jp><jannuzi@edu00.f-edu.fukui-u.ac.jp>

1

From the Editors

CUE consists of approximately 300 members throughout Japan. Our goal is to provide a forum
for the presentation and discussion of educational activities, ideas and research of broad interest to
College and University Educators. If you are involved in tertiary education and are committed toprofessional development, you are CUE too. For information about becoming a member contact
Juanita Heigham <jheigham@sugiyama-u.ac.jp>.
The CUE website is at <http://allagash.miyazaki-mu.ac.jp/CUE>. Our goal is to keep you informed
about what’s going on at CUE. Check for UPDATES on the 15th of every month and please don’t
hesitate to contact us, it’s your CUE too.

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Deconstruction of advertisements:
uncovering ideological bias

Feature Article: Don & David

Zuraidah Mohd Don and Maya Khemlani David
University of Malaya
Background to the study

Aim of the study

Critical analysis is the ability of a reader to
respond critically to the intentions, content andpotential effects of texts. Texts should always
be read critically and interpreted within theircontext or contexts. Contexts could include both
linguistic context - the words or sentences surrounding any piece of written or spoken text - andextralinguistic context (context of situation) - thewhole situation in which an utterance is made,including the backgrounds of speakers, writers,
listeners, and readers.
In a study, focusing on reading skills, Govindasamy and David (2002). . .

This paper explores the issues of feminine representation and identity in advertisements foundin contemporary popular magazines published in
Malaysia. The focus is on how femininity andsexual identity are represented and shaped in theadvertisements of items of beauty that appear inthese magazines.
Critical discourse analysis is used to scrutinize
the prevailing stereotypical representations offemininity in the development of “productive
suspicion” (Mills 1995:7) about texts and to help
us negotiate our position in relation to gender
identities socially and culturally constructed at
the discursive level. The ultimate goal is to use
such awareness in the tertiary language classroom so that readers, having such knowledgeof the power of language in creating meaning
and forming legitimate or illegitimate images,
learn to decode such texts and their sociallyconstituted meanings and in time become morepersuasive writers.
The ﬁrst part of this paper will provide somebackground to critical language awareness andwill lead on to a cultural construct of femininity.
This will be followed by an analysis of advertisements which will in the second part of the paper
be followed by pedagogical applications of suchknowledge in the reading classroom.

‘examine 32 articles from The Economist
magazine, and discuss the journalists
choice of textual features, such as word
order, sentence initial adjuncts, use of
expletive there and discourse markers andthe signiﬁcance and effect of these featureson the reader.’In a similar way, this research using a framework of critical analysis argues that advertisements are ideal subject matter for examining
ideological bias.
This kind of critical discourse analysis canmake tertiary language learners who are fairly
proﬁcient in the target language, English, awareof the power of discourse in empowering or
disenfranchising speciﬁc groups of people. Age,
gender and ethnic identities can be and are socially and culturally constructed at the discourse
level. The analysis of texts like advertisements
can help adult ESL learners become aware of
how language is used to create images and inﬂuence readers.

Critical language awareness

It has been said that part of understanding language in society is developing critical perspectives. Drawing on the theories of Habermas andother European critical theories, a critical language awareness approach examines language insocial contexts with attention to power relationships. A critical language perspective takes into
consideration not only the abstract structure of2

Special Issue: About Literacy Across Cultures

On CUEThe data

The materials for this analysis consist of advertisements drawn from women’s magazines
which are targeted at a particular audience. In
these magazines women appear all the time as
illustration, hundreds of anonymous faces appear on every cover, in advertisements, and in
most articles as a visual aid. We have decided
to examine the portrayal of women in advertisements because it is believed this is the aspect ofadvertising most in need of critical analysis. Advertising discourse is a type of discourse which
embodies ideologies that legitimize existingsocietal relations. It embeds the public within thecapitalist commodity system by assigning them
the legitimate and desirable role of “consumers”(Fairclough, 1989: 36).
As popular culture texts, magazines are pervasive in contemporary societies. While the aim of
popular magazines is to inform, they also function
as a commercial vehicle for the sale of products
and presentation of images of sexuality, successand normalcy. The magazines become the site
for the marketization of goods, delivering the

Femininity – A cultural construct

In this paper, we assume a broadly social constructionist perspective on femininity whereby
femininity is viewed as a cultural construct
3

Feature Article: Don & David

whose deﬁnitions vary and change over time andare based on cultural expectations of behavior. It
is believed that femininity is shaped by a numberof inﬂuences among which is the print media
whose inﬂuence can be seen in terms of images
and representations. As mainstream popular
culture, advertisements in magazines generally
act to reinforce the status quo. In sum, advertisements portray versions of femininity whichemphasize a dominant or hegemonic version offemininity.
Femininity is bound up very closely with theway in which the female body is perceived andrepresented. Visual representations in popular
culture help to shape social ideals about femininity. Thus, the construction of a feminine ideal
which is heterosexual, fair, young, tall, thin andable bodied denies and renders invisible women
who do not ﬁt in because of their skin, color,age, physical attractiveness and physical ability.
Such a dynamic perspective of femininity will
provide us with a more developed understanding of media construction of gender roles andgender relations, gender stereotypes and imagesof women.

language, but also its use as discourse within asocial and historical context and explains how theuse of language and society inﬂuence each other(Fairclough, 1990). Given its critical approach,critical language awareness provides the meansof uncovering the underlying ideological bias intexts and exposing the hidden forms of power
through the manipulation of language. In general,
ideology refers to the ability of a dominant socialgroup to impose its interpretations and meanings of social reality on other groups in society
through language (cf. Thompson 1990:4).
Highlighting the effect of contemporarychanges on the role of language in social life,
Fairclough (1992) brings to light the need fordeveloping critical language awareness “aspart of people’s resources for living in new
ways in new circumstances”. As societies enter
the age of post-modern information economy,
the importance of mass-mediated language isalso increasing. As every life becomes morepervasively textually mediated, our lives are increasingly becoming shaped by representations
produced elsewhere. The politics of representation becomes increasingly important: Whose
representations are these? Who gains whatfrom them? What social relations do they draw
people into? What are their ideological effects,
and what alternative representations are there?
(Fairclough, 1992)
Based on the formal features of the text, thereader, who draws on his/her assumptions andexpectations, constructs his/her interpretationof the text. Therefore text interpretation is theinterpretation of an interpretation. Critical awareness of discourse (Fairclough, 1989:77, 84) can
help us get past the ideological common senseof texts, in this study advertisements and ideological representations of women, and examine
texts critically to unearth hidden meanings andideological slants. It thus asks critical questions
about a text. Such critical questioning of a text
is vital in the reading classroom as it helps thereader decode hidden meanings and ideologicalslants taken.

Special Issue: About Literacy Across Cultures

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audience to advertisers. Advertising should not
only attract but hold the reader’s attention, andconvince the reader that the product will gratify
some need or even create a new, unexpected
need. The success of selling a beauty product for
example, depends not only on instilling a desire
for it but also convincing women that without it
she is unloved and undesired.

Extract 4

It’s the shine that attracts (Source: Cleo,
November 2001)
The extracts turn women into objects whose
various parts are constantly in need of improvement and enhancement. What is stressed here is
women’s sexual attractiveness to men.
In Extracts 1 and 2 women are dismembered,their bodies are just collections of physicalfeatures that require some repair work. The
Cellesane slogan (Extract 1) … show off smooth,toned hips and buttocks objectiﬁes the lower
part of the body, i.e. thighs, hips and buttocks.
In the Elaniq advertisement (Extract 2) reader'sgaze is directed to a woman’s breast which iscompared to a guava representing a visual image of a sagging silhouette. The slogan whichaccompanies the advertisement If you have asagging silhouette … further brings to light the
ﬂaw in the female form (i.e. the sagging silhouette), and this ﬂaw can be “corrected” if the
product advertised is used: Reverse the signs ofa sagging silhouette with Elaniq Breast Firming
Cream. Women are portrayed as sex objects. The
advertisement in Extract 3 contains an alluring
and seductive looking woman saying If you
shouldn’t, you should I am Martell. The woman
is reduced not only to a sex object but also theobject promoted. Her words suggest that she isattempting to induce readers to try Martel whichrefers to both the woman herself and the productadvertised. The caption in Extract 4 It’s the shinethat attracts directs our attention to the model’shair that shines with vibrant color after using
the coloring product. The advertisement whichmarkets a brand of coloring shows an attractive
woman, who having trouble with her car, was notable to stop any vehicle until she removed her
hat to reveal her beautiful brightly colored hair.
Here, the hair is objectiﬁed by turning it into an
object that attracts attention and it attracts a man
driving a Porsche!
Turning to the grammar of the clause in Extracts 1, 2 and 3, our focus is on features of modality, mood and transitivity. In all three extracts,
clauses are declarative with subject-verb-object
structure. The grammatical person of the agent ismade explicit, i.e. the second person (you). The
synthetic personalization of readers as “you”

Feature Article: Don & David

Analysis of Data

Although magazines are multi-modal semiotic
constructs, this analysis deals only with language
used in the advertisements. The selected data
were analyzed using the framework of critical
discourse analysis (henceforth, CDA) whose
concerns include such issues as the constitution of social reality through discourse, thedissemination of ideology through discourse
and the relations between discourse and socialchange (Fowler 1991, Hodge and Kress, 1993;
Fairclough, 1992).CDA views text as somethingthat is constructed and anything that has been
constructed can be deconstructed. Fairclough(1989:80) regards the production of a text andits interpretation as creative, constructive interpretation. The text producer constructs the text
as an interpretation of the world.

Objectiﬁcation of women

Examination of the data shows how women
have been objectiﬁed as sex objects and objectsof display for the approval of men. The objectiﬁcation of women can be seen in the way womenare represented in the following captions fromselected advertisements:

Extract 1

The Naked Truth. With Cellasene you can show
off smooth, toned thighs, hips and buttocks.
(Source: Female, May 2002)

Extract 2

If you have a sagging silhouette like this … reverse the law of gravity with ﬁrmer results.
(Source: Female, May 2002)

Extract 3

If you shouldn’t you, should: I am Martell(Source: The Malaysian Women’s Weekly, November 2001)
4

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identiﬁes readers as individuals and simulatesa relatively personal and informal relationshipbetween the advertiser and the reader. “You”
also avoids any ambiguity concerning who theaddressee is.
In terms of modality, the deontic modality“should” in Extract 3 … you should .. imposes
an obligation on the reader to try the product.
Extract 1 contains a modal verb “can” which isambivalent between “possibility” and “ability”… you can show off … . This seems to suggestthat that by consuming the product a woman isable to have “smooth, toned thighs, hips and buttocks”, thus making it possible for her to “showoff” her beautiful transformed self.
In Extract 4, the writer uses the “it- construction” in order to postpone a subject clause toa later position for end-focus. The non-modal
simple present tense presents the information(that it is the hair that attracts) as categorical
truth, i.e. facts.
One of the writer’s central purposes in the captions of product advertising is to draw attention
to the parts of the body. These are described interms of their positive and negative qualities. A
number of expressions whose function is to carryout this purpose are used. Smooth, toned, ﬁrmer
and sagging are the most salient examples. Whilesmooth, toned and ﬁrmer are positive attributes,
sagging is a negative attribute.
Extract 5 which advertises a slimming productperpetuates the ideology that women’s worth
is contingent on how they look: In Extract 5,
women are told that men value their appearance
more than their inner self. Her body, that has tobe slim in order to be desirable, is an object to be
displayed in a ﬁgure-hugging outﬁt. The implication is that only a slim ﬁgure is worth showing
and that only slim women attract men. “The
Little Black One,” which refers to the outﬁt thatwomen would want to wear, casts women in therole of a sex object, an object of pleasure for men.
The non-modal simple present tense, i.e. “looks”.
in “Everybody looks at your external body ..” isused to present the proposition as categorical
truth, as an undeniable fact. Incidentally, the useof the address term ‘honey’ can in this context
be seen as sexist and condescending.

Extract 5

Honey be real! Everybody looks at your external
body ﬁrst before appreciating your internal. …
Want to be clad in form ﬁtting “The Little BlackOne”? And show of those slim ﬁgure of yours.
(The Malaysian Women’s Weekly, Nov. 2001)

Commodiﬁcation of Femininity

Commenting on the role of contemporary advertising in creating an artiﬁcial image of womenbased on superﬁcial beauty, Kilbourne (2000,
237) states that this narrow image of womencauses them to be continuously dissatisﬁed with
their own appearance. Indeed, advertisements
promote the ideology of what women shouldlook like (crystal clear complexion, visibly
young looking skin, smooth sexy curves, beautiful body shape and contour, etc) and perpetuate
the belief that it is possible to attain this idealized feminine beauty by consuming the productadvertised.
Advertisements of beauty products are constructing subject positions for readers as a community of commodity consumers which they are
induced to join. Femininity in these advertisements is constructed in terms of purchase and useof beauty products such as anti-ageing cream,anti-gravity ﬁrming eye lift cream, bust beauty
lotion and body ﬁrming lotion, which are said
to correct women’s imperfections.
It is fair to say that the current beauty standards promoted by these advertisements, are atodds with reality. Women are not mannequins;
indeed few women have perfect bodies and ﬂawless complexion; women age and have lines andwrinkles as they advance in age; most women
expand after giving birth and as they growolder. Advertisers are well aware of this. To sell
products they manipulate the various images ofbeauty and promote the ideology that women’s
5

Feature Article: Don & David

Analysis of the action in the advertisementsshows that overall women are portrayed as being
passive or less active than men. The languagethat accompanies these visuals further objectiﬁes
women as sex objects. In short, the marketizationof women’s bodies and sexuality (i.e. womenas sex objects, women’s distorted body image,severance of women’s body parts) is seen as
acceptable.

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Feature Article: Don & David

beauty can be artiﬁcially created with the helpof products. What is implied in most of the advertisements is that the product advertised canhelp women achieve the speciﬁc new image ofbeauty that they desire. Thus, idealized beauty
is commodiﬁed in the form of the product that isclaimed to help women attain such beauty. The
following extracts promote images of femininitythat are associated with certain products:

relatively frequent occurrence. These descriptive words (i.e. adjectives or adverbs) indicate
judgment about someone’s looks and they caneither denote desirability (fairer and ﬁner skin;rounder breasts; ideal bustline) or undesirability(unsightly cellulite, small and sagging breasts).
Another group of lexical items are thosewhich indicate judgment about products and thisjudgment further enhances its positive qualities.
For example, to bring out the special quality of
the cream, it is not just any ordinary cream but
a “brand new exclusive enhancement cream”(Extract 7). Likewise the action of the product is
described using verbs which assert its effectiveness (e.g. … visibly improve the appearance ofskin already damaged by the ravages of time;.. reduces wrinkles around the eyes; actively
stimulates the production of collagen ﬁbers).
And to enhance the product’s action the verbs areaccompanied with adverbs. The product does notjust improve the appearance of skin but visibly
improves it; it does not only stimulate the production of collagen ﬁbers but does so actively.
Advertising discourse that promotes particular
standards of feminine beauty usually contains
contrasting descriptions of the female form: theundesirable form before the use of the productand the desirable form after its use. Extracts
10-11 illustrate how advertisements create thiscontrasting image of femininity:

Extract 6

Trim off access ﬂab and unsightly cellulite fora slimmer body contour (Source: Female, January, 2002)

Extract 7

This brand new exclusive enhancement creamhelps enlarge small breasts, ﬁrm the sagging
breasts, make the breasts even rounder and let
you have your ideal bustline (Source: Her World,
January 2002)

Extract 8

Beauty without surgery! Bio-essense Marvel
Mask provides you with fairer and ﬁner skinsimilar to cosmetic surgery. (Source: Female,
May 2002)

Extract 9

For an Ideal Body Shape, I Know Who I canReally Trust. (Source: The Malaysian Women’s
Weekly, June 2002)

Extract 10

Is your skin looking dull? Reveal bright, freshand healthy skin instantly with St. Ives rangeof Head to Toes Apricot cleanser and scrubs.
(Source: The Malaysian Women’s Weekly, November 2001)

In Extract 6 images of beauty are associatedwith having a slimmer body contour and cellulite-free, Extract 7, full, ﬁrm and rounded breasts,
Extract 8, ﬂawless pale skin and Extract 9, ideal
body shape. In all, the claim is that the productis able to give women the kind of beauty that is“on sale”. Their narratives about beauty create
a stereotyped image: feminine beauty is associated with having a particular shape and form
- slim, ﬁrm rounded breasts, ideal body and fairand smooth complexion. What is implied here isthat if women buy proper products, they too can
improve on their natural state in order to generate
a greater degree of beauty.
Certain lexical items seem to dominate advertisements of beauty products, partly through their

Extract 11

Plagued by dull skin and open pores? Turn to
L’Oreal Skin Reﬁner for a smooth, clear complexion. (Source: Female, May 2002)
The writers/advertisers systematically establish semantic contrast by choice of appropriate
and contrasting lexical items. Flaws are highlighted through negative lexicalization. Positive
lexicalization comes about as a result of using
the products advertised!

6Special Issue: About Literacy Across Cultures

On CUEThe grammatical features of Extracts 10 and
11 are somewhat like a dialogue between the
text writer and the reader, but unlike normal
dialogue the writer has complete control overthe discourse. The texts shift in the kinds ofrelation they adopt to their readership, and theway they position their readers with respect tothe conditions described. They begin with directquestions (Is your skin looking dull? (Extract 9);
Plague by dull skin and open pores? (Extract 10).
The close-ended questions are directed to thereader and control the response to either yes or
no. Although questions position the addressee as
information provider, in this instance the writerseems to assume that women do have problems
with their physical appearance. Among the presuppositions of these questions are: the addressee
has dull looking skin and she is plagued by dull
skin and open pores. Such presuppositions are aneffective means of manipulating readers throughattributing to their experience things that thewriters want to get them to accept.
Solutions to the presupposed problems thatthe addressees are assumed to be facing are provided. Extracts 10 and 11 provide advice in theform of explicit instructions to the reader: Reveal
bright, fresh and healthy skin instantly with St.
Ives range of Head to Toes Apricot cleanser andscrubs(Extract10); Turn to L’Oreal Skin Reﬁner
for a smooth, clear complexion (Extract 11). This
instruction presented in the imperative form isdirected to the reader. While the word “reveal” (Extract 10) focuses on the result of using the product,“turn” focuses on the action that one should take inorder to have “a smooth, clear complexion”.
The language in Extracts 12 and 13 conjures
up images of war. The product is seen as ﬁghting
a war. Because the woman’s body has now been
turned into a battle ﬁeld, there is the emergenceof militarization of discourse in the narrativedrawn upon the wording of the product as “miracle weapons”, results as “DYNAMITE” (Extract
12) and action as “combat” (Extract 13).

Extract 13

Unpleasant symptoms like hot ﬂushes, palpitations … Take a traditional approach as an alternative to combat these symptoms. (Source: The
Malaysian Women’s Weekly, June 2002

Extract 14

All my attempts to lose weight gained no result.
…I started taking Bestrim. Just three boxes, myweight had signiﬁcantly dropped 15 kg approx.
33lb. Now I am a mere 58kg. I am truly overjoyed. (Female, May 2002)

Extract 15

After six weeks, I can deﬁnitely see improvement in my skin. It is smoother and the pores
are less visible. I feel that my skin is really clean
and make-up application is easier too. I willdeﬁnitely introduce it to all my friends who arehaving problems with large pores (Her World,
January 2001).
The texts in Extracts 14 and 15 are secondary
discourse added to the primary discourse forthe purpose of instilling belief in the product.
However, instead of merging the voices of thesecondary and primary discourse, they are kept
apart. In Extracts 14 and 15, this demarcation ismade by retaining the ﬁrst person pronoun “I”
which clearly identiﬁes the secondary discourse
as that of the product user instead of the advertiser. The narrator in Extract 14 relates her own
experience as a consumer of the product which
she ﬁnds to be effective and which has helped
her to lose weight. By telling people how the
product beneﬁted her she is actually promoting
the product on behalf of the advertiser. She draws
attention to the effectiveness of the product bycomparing her previous failed attempts to lose
weight with her success in losing weight afterusing the product. By using the simple past tense,
she presents the effectiveness of the product

Extract 12

Separately, these new potent substances are“miracle weapons” in the war against wrinkles.
We’ve just put them together and the results
are pure DYNAMITE! (Source: The Malaysian
Women’s Weekly, June 2002)
7

Feature Article: Don & David

In order to sell, advertising must be able toconvince readers of the products’ “curative”
properties. One way of doing this is to give
advertising space to the users’ personal experience narratives. Extracts 14-15 exemplify how
the beneﬁts of the products are presented in the
narratives as facts:

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Feature Article: Don & David

as categorical truth. In Extract 15, the narrator
stresses that it took her only six weeks to see
improvement in her skin which she describes as
being smoother with the pores less visible. The
adverb “deﬁnitely” (deﬁnitely see …) further
enhances the degree of certainty. The focus of the
discourse is on the outcome of product use. The
users using their own words lend credibility to
the claims made about the product by reporting
how the product has beneﬁted them.

• What tenses are used and why? (syntax)• Why is the modal “should” rather than“can” used? (syntax)• What is the effect of using the direct voice(for instance personal experience narrative) and of passive voice? (structure)• Are rhetorical questions asked and,if so, what is the purpose of suchquestions?(structures)• Which adjectives/adverbs/verbs/nouns areused and why?( lexical choice)• Which pronouns are used and why? (lexical choice)• Are metaphors, similes and other literary forms used and, if so, what do they
achieve? (lexical choice-literary language
use)• Are there any semantic contrasts ( positive or negative?) and what is the effect ofsuch contrasts?(semantics)• What are the textual concepts and features(e.g. given/new information) used andwhy? (semantics)• Are any speech acts used? What are they
and why are they used? (discourse)

Pedagogical Implications in theReading Classroom

In the reading classroom undergraduates canand must be made to realize that language canand is used as a powerful instrument to reﬂect,
shape and manipulate people’s beliefs, actions
and relationships .In settings where English is asecond or foreign language, it is even more vitalthat the language learner’s skills to interpret andconsciously reﬂect on language used in the text
must be developed.
It is important that the language teacher, in aforeign language learning context, should ﬁrst
focus on the development of the decoding skills
to create consciousness of the role of languagein empowering the writer or the institution herepresents. At tertiary levels such higher level
reading skills such as inferences, innuendos,“hidden” meanings must be decoded so as to help
learners become critical readers and writers.
It is clear from this analysis that no linguistic act is ‘neutral’ or unaffected by contextual
variables. Language is value-laden and deeply
engrained into the beliefs and cultural background of the participants in the communicative
event. Consequently, for effective understandingof the power of advertisements in the readingclassroom a cooperative teacher-learner joint
deconstruction of texts is necessary. Such a
decoding and deconstruction of advertisements
will help in the understanding of the signiﬁcanceof choice of language including formal/informal
use and syntactical and lexical choices in creating
speciﬁc meanings.
The reading teacher can act as a facilitator andask asking leading questions such as:

Using a range of advertisements to anchor
discussions on language related issues will help
tertiary learners realize and appreciate the need tobe critically aware of the language used in texts
and how such language positions men/women,
young/old, majority/minority ethnic groups,
priests/laymen etc. Through such language awareness sessions, readers can be made to realize thepower of language. Language is not an end in
itself. Language is a means of acting in the world
in order to establish relationships, to integrate newknowledge into existing knowledge, to obtain andconvey values and attitudes, ideas and information, and to inﬂuence signiﬁcant others.
Readers must be made to see the effect of texts
in relation to emotions (e.g. sympathy, empathy),
relationships (e.g. power relations), knowledge(e.g. related to history, social conditions, personal
experiences) and aesthetics (e.g. appreciation of
the artistic elements). In the reading classroom,
undergraduates can be made to engage with arange of appropriate texts by:8

Special Issue: About Literacy Across Cultures

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1. identifying and analyzing verbal featuresof texts;
2. critically reﬂecting on the writer's point ofview;
3. identifying language which reﬂects bias
and manipulation.

References

Readers can be made to respond to the aesthetic, affective, cultural and social values intexts through exposure to a wide variety ofgenres. Within the range of genres the effect ofstructures and syntax (features of modality, moodand transitivity on the representation and world
view created) can be explained. It is hoped thatwith such awareness of language used in texts,
readers can in time, become not only more critical readers but also more effective writers.
In summary, this paper argues that the reading
and joint and active deconstruction of texts likeadvertisements in the second language classroom
must be seen as an act that empowers tertiary
learners to understand the relationship between
language and power and become critical readers. Readers must be made, through active andjoint deconstruction of texts in the language
classroom, to develop and reﬂect critically on
attitudes and values and language used in a text.
Constant reading and deconstruction of a wide
variety of texts in different genres may in time
also help readers to become more effective usersof language and learn to express their thoughts“appropriately,” bearing in mind their hidden
agendas.

Check out Literacy Across Cultures online at<http://www.literacyacrosscultures.org>
Join our yahoogroup at<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/
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Feature Article: Don & David

Clark et al (eds.). Language and power. Papers
from the 22nd Annual Meeting of the British of
the British Association of Applied Linguistics.
London: CLT.
Fairclough, N. (1989). Language and power.
London: Longman
Fairclough, N. (1990). ‘Critical linguistics, “NewTimes”, and Language Education.’ In R.
David, M.K. and Hashim, F. (eds) (2002).
Developing Reading Skills. Petaling Jaya:
Sasbadi.
Fairclough, N. (1992). Discourse and Social
Change. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Fowler, R. (1991). Language in the news. London:
Routledge.
Govindasamy S. and David, M. K.(2002) Literacy
Practices: developing hypothesis about thefunctions of English word Patterns in texts in
M.K. David and Fatimah Hashim, (eds.)
Hodge, R. and Kress, G. (1998). Social semiotics.
Cambridge: Polity Press.
Mills, S. (1995).Language and gender:interdisciplinary perspectives. London:
LongmanSpecial Issue: About Literacy Across Cultures

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Competence in Foreign Language
Writing: Progress and Lacunae

Feature Article: Krashen & Lee

Stephen Krashen, University of Southern California
Sy-ying Lee, National Taipei University
In this paper, we examine some of the factorsthat contribute to success in foreign language writing. Although our emphasis is on the composing
process, the strategies good writers use to discover
meaning and “stay on course” while they write, wemust, of necessity, ﬁrst review the role of reading
in developing writing competence. We turn next
to the role of actual writing, and the developmentof the composing process.

newspapers; textbooks about them will not sufﬁce. For magazines, browse through magazines
rather than through correspondence courses onmagazine writing. To write poetry, read it.”How writing contributes to writing

There is no evidence that writing contributes
to writing competence; those who write more do
not write better and increasing writing does not
result in better writing (Krashen, 1984, 1994).
Writing, however, makes a different kind of contribution: Writing can make you smarter. Whenwe write something down on the page, we make arepresentation of our thoughts, of our “cognitive
structures.” Once on the page, the brain ﬁnds it
irresistible to come up with a better version of
our cognitive structures. Improving our cognitive
structures is real learning (using “learning” in thegeneral sense, not as contrasted with “acquisition”). Writing is not the only way of doing this,of course, but it is a very effective way.
The insight that writing makes you smarteris shared by many observers. Elbow (1975), forexample, concluded that meaning is not what
you start out with in writing, but what you end
up with. Boice (1994) noted that inspiration is
the result of writing, not the cause. In addition,
there is empirical evidence supporting this assertion, experiments showing that writing can aid inthinking and problem-solving (Krashen, 2003) aswell as positive correlations between eminence
and amount written among professional writers
and thinkers (Simonton, 1984).

How reading contributes to writing

Reading provides writers with knowledge ofthe language of writing, the grammar, vocabulary, and discourse style writers use. This “Reading Hypothesis” is consistent both with general
theory and with the research. It is a corollary of
the more general Comprehension Hypothesis(a.k.a. the Input Hypothesis, Krashen, 1984,2003), the hypothesis that we acquire language in
only one way, when we understand messages. It
is also consistent with a number of studies in bothﬁrst language and second language development
showing that those who read more acquire moreof the written language. This is the consistent result of correlational studies (EFL studies include
Gradman and Hanania, 1991; Y-O Lee, Krashen,
and Gribbons, 1996; S-Y Lee and Krashen, 1996:
S-Y Lee, 2001), studies of free reading in school(e.g. Mason and Krashen, 1997), as well as casehistories (Krashen, 1993, 2003).
Different writing styles have different linguistic characteristics, but there is also considerable
overlap among styles (Biber, 1986): So-called
narrative style has, for example, some, but not
all of the characteristics of formal, expository
prose. Thus, reading anything at all will help all
writing, to at least some extent. Smith (1988),
however, is undoubtedly right when he advises:“To learn to write for newspapers, you must read

The composing process

One of the great triumphs of the language
arts profession has been the description of the“composing process,” strategies writers use tosolve problems and make themselves smarter.
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Studies have shown that good writers utilize
several strategies:
Before good writers write, they have a plan.
They are, however, willing to change their planas they write and come up with new ideas.
Good writers are willing to revise. They
consider their early drafts to be tentative, andunderstand that as they move from draft to draft
they come up with new ideas.
Good writers delay editing. They concern
themselves with formal correctness only after
they are satisﬁed with the ideas they put on the
page.
Good writers stop frequently and reread what
they have written.
The above are the “classical” components ofthe composing process. There is good reason to
add two more components:
Productive writers engage in “regular daily
writing” rather than “binge writing”; insteadof waiting until they have large blocks of freetime, they write a modest amount each day, astrategy demonstrated to produce more writing
as well as more new ideas (Boice, 1994). Also,
good writers understand the importance of short
breaks that encourage “incubation,” new ideas
and solutions to problems that emerge when
writers leave their writing and give their minds
a rest (Krashen, 2001).
It is reasonable to suggest that the strategies
that make up the composing process perform twovaluable functions: In addition to encouraging
the emergence of new ideas, they keep writersfrom losing their place. Losing one’s place isvery easy to do when problems are complex. A
plan obviously helps writers know where they
are, rereading reminds writers where they are,delaying editing prevents losing the train ofthought, and failure to write regularly is a guarantee of losing one’s place.
The strategies that make up the composing
process are most valuable when writing involves
complex issues and difﬁcult problems. There isless need for planning, rereading, and revision
when writing simple descriptions and summaries, and more need for these strategies whenwriting requires the integration of a great dealof diverse information, when a complex analysis
is called for, or when data can be interpreted indifferent ways.

Writer’s block

1. Premature editing, an excessive concern
with form while writing, was covered inseveral questions, such as: Each sentence
I write has to be just right before I’ll go on
to the next sentence. Premature editing is,of course, a failure to apply a crucial composing process strategy, delaying editing.
2. A lack of strategies for dealing withcomplex writing tasks was covered by a“complexity” subscale, e.g. I’m not sure,at times, of how to organize all the information I’ve gathered for a paper. The
questionnaire, unfortunately, does not ask
about what speciﬁc strategies were used
to deal with complexity.
Rose reported that for each of his subscales,scores on individual items intercorrelated witheach other, as well as with the total subscale, a
11

Feature Article: Krashen & Lee

Failure to use these strategies when writing on
complex topics is one cause of writer’s block,deﬁned as “an inability to begin or continue writing for reasons other than a lack of basic skill orcommitment” (Rose, 1984, p. 3).
Rose has presented a number of cases of writer’s block that are clearly due to lack of masteryof the composing process (Rose, 1984) inspected
the composing behavior of college students whoscored high on the blocking subscale and notedthat they tended to engage in premature editing
more than subjects classiﬁed as low blockers,
and had inappropriate strategies for dealing withcomplexity. One high blocker, Liz, for example,
was so preoccupied with editing and correctnessthat she would often forget the thought she wastrying to express (Rose, 1984, p. 46). Liz also
failed to engage in sufﬁcient planning before
writing, “but planned in increments as she wrote”(p. 48), which prevented her from getting a senseof the whole essay.
Rose also operationalized writer’s block in theform of a questionnaire. The questionnaire has
items dealing with the existence of writer’s block(eg “There are times when I sit at my desk forhours, unable to write a thing.”), referred to as the“writer’s block subscale” as well as subscales thatcover hypothesized causes of writer’s block:Special Issue: About Literacy Across Cultures

Feature Article: Krashen & Lee

On CUE

least some aspects of the composing process are
similar in Mandarin and English. Again, however,
we have clear evidence for only one speciﬁc strategy, delaying editing. Additional research should
examine other strategies to conﬁrm that writers
in different languages deal with complexity andavoid blocking in similar ways. In addition, we
need to look at more advanced writers.

result consistent with Rose’s claim that the subscales each represented one concept.
Rose administered the entire questionnaire to
351 university students, and obtained signiﬁcantcorrelations between scores on the blocking
subscale and both the premature editing (r = .37)
and complexity (r = .59) subscales.
These results are consistent with the hypothesisthat blocking is in fact related to a failure to apply
strategies of the composing process. This is quite
clear in the case of premature editing, but, as noted
above, the questionnaire does not specify actual
strategies used in “dealing with complexity.”

Does the CP transfer from the ﬁrst
to the second language?

If writers in different languages do indeed use
the same strategies for discovering meaning anddealing with complex writing tasks, we can thenask if some or all of the strategies transfer fromthe ﬁrst to the second language. This question isimportant practically as well as theoretically. If it
is true, the strategies that make up the composing process are part of a “common underlying
proﬁciency” (Cummins, 1989), deeper than any
speciﬁc language, and need only be developed
once, in the ﬁrst language. Also, it will be mucheasier to develop these strategies when writing in
the primary language, as developing writers will
have less concern with mastery of the language
and theconventions of writing and can thus focus
more easily on meaning.
The results of several studies suggest that atleast some aspects of the composing process transfer. 1 Saraki and Hirose (1996) studied the writing
behavior of American and British studies majors
in Japanese universities. More of those considered“strong writers” in English reported planning fororganization before writing in both Japanese andEnglish, and more reported that they wrote “withorganization in mind” in both languges. Saraki andHirose reported no difference in revision behavior
between strong and weak writers, however, which
may have been due to the fact that subjects were
given only 30 minutes to write (but see their note
7 in which they suggest that the time allotted was
sufﬁcient to allow revision). Also, only about 30%of the strong writers reported planning in advance,compared to less than 5% of the weaker writers.
Pennington and So (1993) compared thecomposing process of college students in Singapore writing in their ﬁrst language (English
or Chinese) and in a language they were studying in school (Japanese), and reported “similar
patterns” in their writing process. They reported

The second language writer

Most of the research on the composing process has been done with writing in English asa ﬁrst language. The ﬁrst question we need toinvestigate when discussing the second language
writer is whether the composing process is thesame for all languages: Do writers in languages
other than English use similar strategies when
dealing with complex writing tasks for keeping
their place, and discovering new ideas? There issuggestive evidence that they do.
In a previous paper (Lee and Krashen, 2003),
we administered Rose’s blocking questionnaire
to subjects whose ﬁrst language is Mandarin
Chinese, undergraduate university students in
Taiwan. Mandarin is a particularly interestinglanguage to compare to English because there
are obvious differences in the structure of essays
in these languages (Cai, 1999; Shi, 2003; but see
Kirkpatrick, 1997). We translated the questionnaire into Mandarin and conﬁrmed that the translation was accurate using back translation, that is,
we asked highly proﬁcient bilinguals to translate
our Mandarin version back into English andcompared these translations to the original. We
also attempted, using factor analysis, to conﬁrm
that the items on Rose’s questionnaire grouped
together as subscales in Mandarin Chinese as
they did in English; in general, they did, although
we had to make some minor adjustments.
Our results were nearly identical to Rose’s:
those who reported more premature editing also
reported more blocking (r = .27) and those whoreported more difﬁculty with complex writing
tasks reported more blocking (r = .48). Our results
are thus consistent with the hypothesis that at
12

Special Issue: About Literacy Across Cultures

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would be even more convincing for writers in English as a foreign language, those
who developed high levels of competencein writing English with little or no explicit
instruction in writing. Do such cases exist?
If they do, were these excellent writers also
readers? Evidence in the foreign language
situation is more convincing than evidence
in the ﬁrst or second language situation, because input is available from fewer sourcesin the foreign language situation.
2. Additional study of different aspects of thecomposing process in a variety of ﬁrst languages, using multiple methodologies (observation, interviews, questionnaires), withwriters at different levels of development.
In addition to demonstrating the existenceof aspects of the composing process in different languages, it is especially convincing to demonstrate that a failure to utilize
these strategies results in blocking.
3. Additional study of the transfer of strategies
from the ﬁrst language to the second, again
using different languages, multiple methodologies and examining speciﬁc strategies.
If it is conﬁrmed that even some strategies
transfer across languages, the results will parallel those seen in studies of bilingual education inchildren: It has been demonstrated that reading
ability transfers across languages: those who readbetter in their primary language typically readbetter in the second language (given sufﬁcient
exposure), and pedagogical approaches that build
literacy in the primary language have been shown
to be successful in developing second language
literacy (e.g. Krashen, 1996, 2003).
If writers have not developed the composing
process in their ﬁrst language, it is likely thatit can be developed in the second language. As
noted earlier, however, it will be easier to be
develop an efﬁcient composing process in thelanguage writers know best, their primary language. Because writing makes such a profoundcontribution to intellectual development, andbecause the composing process allows us to use
writing as an intellectual tool, if the composing
process does in fact transfer, education in theﬁrst language is an efﬁcient means of promoting
intellectual development.

Lacunae

The results presented here are suggestive, butthere are huge gaps that need to be ﬁlled in the
research. Fortunately, the work to be done isstraightforward:
1. Additional study of the impact of readingon writing. Previous work has in most cases
utilized global measures of writing quality; it is important to determine whether all
aspects of the written language impacted byreading. Some of the most impressive studies showing the impact of reading on writing in English as a ﬁrst language are studiesof those with modest amounts of formal
education who became outstanding writers,
and who attribute their success to massive
reading (see Krashen, 1993). Such cases
13

Feature Article: Krashen & Lee

that “skilled writers” were more willing to revise
in both languages, but unskilled writers did not“experience writing as a back-and-forth processof generating ideas and revising texts to ﬁnd theirintended meaning” (p. 51). Unfortunately, no
details are provided supporting this claim. Hall
(1990), however, reported clear similarities in therevision behavior of foreign students in the US
when writing in their L1 and in English: in bothcases, about half the revisions affected the information contained in the essays, about 40% weregrammatical, and about 7% were “cosmetic,” i.e.
handwriting. Also, in both cases about 60% of therevisions were at the word level, 25 to 30% at thephrase level, and 10-15% at other levels.
In Lee and Krashen (2002), we administered
Rose’s questionnaire to university students in
Taiwan, asking about blocking, premature editing,and strategies for dealing with complexity in boththeir ﬁrst and second languages, Mandarin andEnglish. We grouped the premature editing andstrategies for complexity subscales together andlabeled them “composing process.” We found thatthose who reported having an efﬁcient composing
process in their ﬁrst language tended to have an
efﬁcient composing process in English (r = .43).
We also found that an inefﬁcient composing process in English was signiﬁcantly associated withblocking in English (r = .63) and we conﬁrmed thatan inefﬁcient composing process in Mandarin was
associated with blocking in Mandarin (r = .49).

Special Issue: About Literacy Across Cultures

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Such a result would conﬁrm the importance ofdeveloping all aspects of literacy in the primarylanguage. It would also show that developing
literacy in the primary language not only aids
in developing literacy in the second language, italso provides writers with a means of intellectual growth that can be used in any subsequentlanguage they acquire.

Krashen, S. 1994. The input hypothesis and its
rivals. In N. Ellis (Ed.) Implicit and Explicit
Learning of Languages. London: Academic
Press. pp. 45-77.
Krashen, S. 1996. Under Attack: The Case
Against Bilingual Education. Culver City, CA:
Language Education Associates.
Krashen, S. 2001. Incubation: A neglected aspectof the writing process. ESL Journal 4(2): 10-11.
Krashen, S. 2003. Explorations in Language
Acquisition and Use: The Taipei Lectures.
Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Lee, S.Y. 2001 What makes it so difﬁcult to write.
Taipei: Crane Publishing Company.
Lee, S. Y. and Krashen, S. 2002. Writer’s block: Is
it universal? Does it transfer across languages?
Selected papers from the Eleventh International
Symposium on English Teaching/Fourth
Pan-Asian Conference. English Teachers
Association/ROC. pp. 432-439.
Lee, S-Y. and Krashen, S. 2003. Writer’s block ina Chinese sample. Perceptual and Motor Skills
97: 537-542.
Lee, Y.O., Krashen, S. & Gribbons, B. 1996. The
effect of reading on the acquisition of English
relative clauses. ITL: Review of Applied
Linguistics, 113-114, 263-273.
Mason, B., & Krashen, S. 1997. Extensive readingin English as a foreign language. System, 25,
91-102.
Pennington, M. and So, S. 1993. Comparing
writing process and produce across two
languages: A study of 6 Singaporian university
student writers. Journal of Second Language
Writing 2(1): 41-63.
Rose, M. 1984. Writer’s block: The cognitive
dimension. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois
University Press.
Rose, M. (Ed.) 1985. When a writer can’t write.
New York: The Guilford Press.
Saraki, M. and Hirose, K. 1996. Explanatory
variables for EFL students’ expository writing.
Language Learning 46(1): 175-182.
Shi, L. (2003). Writing in two cultures: Chinese
professors return from the West. CanadianModern Language Review, 59(3), 369-391.
Simonton, K. 1984. Genius, Creativity andLeadership. Cambridge: Harvard University
Press.
Smith, F. 1988. Joining the Literacy Club.
Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Feature Article: Krashen & Lee

Note:(1) We have restricted this discussion of the transfer
of aspects of the composing process to studies inwhich both L1 and L2 are examined in the same
subjects, and correlations of some kind are made.
Several published reports show that those writing intheir L2 do use aspects of the composing process,which suggests transfer. It is possible, however,that these strategies were taught or were developed
through writing in the second language.

References

Biber, D. 1986. Spoken and written textual
dimensions in English. Language 62: 384-414
Boice, R. 1994. How writers journey to comfort
and ﬂuency. Westport, CT: Praeger.
Cai, G. 1999. Texts in context: Understanding
Chinese students’ English compositions. In C.
Cooper & L. Odell (Eds.). Evaluating writing(pp. 279-297). Urbana, IL: NCTE.
Cummins, J. 1989. Empowering Minority Students.
Ontario, CA: California Association for
Bilingual Education.
Elbow, P. 1975. Writing without Teachers. New
York: Oxford University Press.
Gradman, H., & E. Hanania. (1991). Language
learning background factors and ESL proﬁciency.
Modern Language Journal, 75, 39-51.
Hall, C. 1990. Managing the complexity ofrevising across languages. TESOL Quarterly
24(1): 43-60.
Kirkpatrick, A. 1997. Traditional Chinese text
structures and their inﬂuence on the writing in
Chinese and English of contemporary mainland
Chinese students. Journal of Second Language
Writing 6(3): 223-244.
Krashen, S. 1984. Writing: Research, Theory andApplications. Beverly Hills: Laredo.
Krashen, S. 1993. The power of reading.
Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited.

14

Special Issue: About Literacy Across Cultures

On CUE

Faculty of Engineering Freshmen
Reading Habits: Survey Results

Michael ‘Rube’ Redﬁeld
Osaka University of Economics

In a series of studies done in the 1990’s, I foundscant evidence that Japanese students could actually read English in a meaningful sense, although
they could decipher and at times translate written
English into Japanese (Redﬁeld, 1994a, 1994b,
1998). In a study now in preparation, I foundno meaningful correlations between formallyassessed English reading ability and perceived
reading ability and habits in Japanese (Redﬁeld,
in preparation). This ﬁnal study used survey data
gathered from freshmen engineering majors at
Kansai University, an elite private institution.
These learners were taking a non-streamed,
required English course. Previous research has
indicated that Kansai University Engineeringmajors are at a lower level of English than theother Kansai University faculties (Truscott &Redﬁeld, 1999, Larson & Redﬁeld, 1999, Leven,Redﬁeld & Truscott, 1999.). The classes were amixed group of regular entrance students, recommended students, and ronin (those having taken
Japanese entrance examinations in more than oneyear). Looking at the survey results, I noticed
a rather startling fact: many of these students
do not seem to read very much outside of theirschoolwork in their native language. If they do
not read and enjoying reading Japanese, there
is little wonder why they are not accomplishedreaders in English, in spite of all the time andeffort that goes into teaching them reading.

Results

The survey items, their means, frequency
counts and percentages are as follows:
1. Please rate your Japanese reading skills(X = 2.2459)
Poor

6 (10%)

Average

38 (62%)Good

13 (21%)

Very good

4 (7%)

2. What kind of grades did you get in Kokugo?
(X = 1.8688)

The Study

Subjects. Subjects were drawn from two intact
required freshmen English classes at the Facultyof Engineering, Kansai University (N = 61).
Instrument. A six-item survey was developedby the researcher to investigate a hypothesized
correlation between Japanese L1 reading skillsPoor

23 (38%)Average

23 (38%)Good

15 (25%)

Very good

15

0Feature Article: Redﬁeld

and EFL reading proﬁciency (see Redﬁeld, in
preparation). Four of the items from that survey
have been isolated for the purposes of the present
paper. The reliability of these four items (standardized alpha) is .7161, more than acceptable
for a survey of this size. The English version of
the survey items themselves can be found in the
results section.
Administration. The four-item Japanese Reading Habits survey was given to the combined
Faculty of Engineering classes before the course
ﬁnal exam, in January 2003. Not all of the items
were completed by all of the subjects.
Statistical analysis. Frequency counts and percentages for each item were derived, along withcorrelations and item means.

Introduction

Special Issue: About Literacy Across Cultures

On CUEA correlation matrix is provided below to show
how well the items correlate with each other.
As can be seen, only a few items correlated
well with each other. In social science as a ﬁeld,
correlations above .20 are considered meaningful. Higher correlations of course show a closer
relationship between the items.

Feature Article: Redﬁeld

3. How many books do you read in Japanesefor pleasure in a year? (X = 4.7678571)
0

9 (16%)1

6 (10%)

2

13 (23%)5

15 (27%)10

10 (18%)20+

2 (3 5%)

Discussion

We can presume that as students at a majorcollege these students have the ability to read in
their strongest language. Looking at the resultsfrom this study, it becomes obvious that a good
many of them do not however, read very muchin their native language. Twenty-six percent report reading one book or less a year, with forty
percent reporting not reading anything outside ofschool work on a daily basis at all. Twenty-one
percent say they do not like to read.
The question for EFL reading instructors ofthese students is how can we get them to read
English on their own when they do not even readmuch in their native language.
I have no answers to the above questions,although personally and professionally I am an
advocate of both the SRA Reading Labs, and Extensive Reading. I am presenting these ﬁndings
in an effort to alert the readership that at least
many of our science students do not actually readmuch in their native language, and that therefore
we should not automatically expect them to beavid readers in an L2.
The Japanese Reading Habits Survey usedhere is of course a blunt instrument. It was designed for different purposes, and may indeed
not get at the subjects actual reading habits. A
more elaborate survey might include items looking at newspaper, magazine, and even mangareading habits. It might look at reading on the
train, library visits for pleasure reading, book and4. How many minutes do you read non-school
Japanese a day? (X = 17.3275)
0

22 (40%)15

17 (30%)30

11 (19%)60

6 (10%)60+

1 (1%)

5. Do you like to read Japanese? (X = 2.2295)
No

13 (21%)

A little

24 (39%)Somewhat21 (34%)A lot

3 (5%)

These results indicate that many of theseengineering students do not read very much
(49% read two or less books a year, 40% report
not reading at all on a daily basis apart fromschoolwork), do not like to much (21% do not
like reading, 39% report only liking it a little),
did not do very well in Japanese language arts
classes (Kokugo) in high school (38% said they
got poor grades, with no one reporting getting
very good grades), and rate their Japanese reading skills as average (62%).

Table 1. Japanese Reading Habits Correlation Matrix

J reading skills
Kokugo grades#books read#minutes reading
like reading

J readingskills1.00000.53070.18490.06210.3338

Kokugogrades0.53071.00000.21530.23490.5198
16#books read
0.18490.21531.00000.47220.3338#minutesreading
0.0621
0.23490.47221.00000.4656like reading
0.33380.51980.33380.46561.0000Special Issue: About Literacy Across Cultures

On CUEmagazine purchases, and even time spent reading cell phone messages. As a very broad based
instrument however, Japanese Reading Habits
Survey does seem to point at single conclusion;these particular engineering freshmen do not as
a whole, seem to read much Japanese.

Redﬁeld, M. (1998). We Japanese can read, Part
III: Entrance examination data. KeiDai Ronshu.
KeiDai Gakkai. vol. 49, no. 1, pp 385-98.
Redﬁeld, M. (in preparation). Do Japanese reading
skills transfer to EFL reading: A preliminary
report.
Truscott, G & M. Redﬁeld, (1999). Comparative
Study of English Proﬁciency & Attitudes Across
Universities. Memoirs of the Osaka Institute ofTechnology, Series B. Vol. 44, No. 1 (1999) pp.
23-35.

Further research

References

Larson, S. & M. Redﬁeld, (1999). Comparing
University and College Learners: How Does
Shukugawa Gakuin College Rank? Shukugawa
Studies in Linguistics and Literature No.22,
March 1999.
Leven, D, Redﬁeld, M & G. Truscott, (1999).
Comparing science/engineering and businessadministration/economic learners: the case of
Ritsumeikan University Ritsumeikan Studies in
Language and Culture, Vol. 11, No. 3., 1999.
Redﬁeld, M. (1994a). We Japanese can all read...
And we know the grammar, too. SpeechCommunication Education. Communication
Association of Japan. 94 Vol. VII, 9p
Redﬁeld, M. (1994b). “Japanese can all read
English...” A replica. KeiDai Ronshu. KeiDai
Gakkai. 94 11 15, 6p.

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These activities only happen becauseof the work of CUE members who
volunteer their time and skills. The
more people who volunteer, the more
effective we can be in providing these
services to members.
If you would like to volunteer,please contact any of the membersof the executive board, listed on thefront page of On CUE.

Opinions andPerspectives

If you'd like to respond to thisarticle, or to any other article in
On CUE, address your comments
to Keith Ford, Opinion and
Perspectives section editor, at<fordkeith@hotmail.com>
17

Feature Article: Redﬁeld

A more detailed survey, including some possible additional items as discussed above, administered to other subjects afﬁliated with otherinstitutions and faculties would allow us to see
how far these preliminary results are representative of other groups.

Special Issue: About Literacy Across Cultures

On CUEAn Analysis of the Hypothesis that
Genre Framing Facilitates Structural
Knowledge
Roberto Rabbini
The genre perspective in applied linguistics,
which rose chieﬂy in Australia over the past
twenty years (Martin 1986; Martin and Rothery
1986; Swales 1990, Cairney 1992), attempts todevelop literacy across a broad range of identiﬁable categories by raising the learner’s awarenessof the linguistic elements of genres. This helps
students to better understand written texts, andalso assists in developing writing skills. The notion of genre is essentially based on functional
grammar (Halliday 1994), which describes how
a text is bound together to create meaning in its
particular context (Halliday and Hassan 1976).
This paper analyzes the extent to which the genre
approach consolidates structural knowledge
in the writing of non-native English-speaking
students based in Japan.
Although certain studies (Jarrell 2000) have indicated that using genre analysis increases writing
ﬂuidity and generic textual knowledge, quantitative research on the acquisition of structural forms
in the writing context is sparse. The objective of
this paper, then, is to provide a small empiricalbase to the claim that using genre-based classroom
activities not only builds writing conﬁdence, butalso develops greater grammatical awareness. I
will compare the rate of past simple usage fromtwo different classes: one, (experimental group)
which uses the generic framework, and one (control group) that does not. My hypothesis, therefore, is that there should be more correct examplesof the past tense in the experimental group thanthere are in the control group.

What Is Genre?

The Use of Frames

In functional linguistics the term genre isincreasingly used as a means of describing
text-types. Genre is similar to the lay notion of

How can these skills be practically developed?
One strategy designed to encourage students to
19

Feature Article: Rabbini

register, except that where register refers to thecategorization of texts on the basis of shared
meanings, genre refers to similarities of structural elements. So there can be a register of, say,teacher talk, or doctor-patient talk, since these
represent types of talk concerning similar meanings. On the other hand, examples of genre might
be narratives, essays, technical reports and so on,
since each category shares structural (grammatical and rhetorical) elements.
For the purpose of this study and its application to ELT, the term genre goes beyond the
traditional deﬁnition of a recognizable categoryof literary composition, to include any distinctive
form of text that has attained a general level ofidentiﬁcation.
Expectations of readers within a genre form apattern; and by using this pattern as a guideline,
the writer is able to model his or her work inways that readers will recognize. Consequently,
one advantage of the genre approach to language
learning is that it endows learners with speciﬁc
guidelines, at a textual level rather than a sentence level, that are of practical use in composing
various kinds of texts. This results in more efﬁcient and focused communication. Wood (1998),
tracing the pedagogic potential of ﬁlm reviews,
contends that text will recreate certain models
due to the “conventionalising function of thegenre” (p. 30). These patterns establish reference
points and produce the “contextual framing of
the text, the means of conceptually structuring
the text for the writer” (p. 30). That is, the genre
approach has the capacity to raise the learners’
awareness of the various choices on offer.

Introduction

Special Issue: About Literacy Across Cultures

Feature Article: Rabbini

On CUEﬂawed,” and the “worst in terms of rhetoricalcompetency” (p.153). These ﬁndings suggest thata genre based writing course may be useful inJapan where the greatest challenge for students
resides beyond the sentence level and in the creation of coherent and cohesive texts as whole entities. This is not to suggest that Japanese students
have no problems whatsoever at the sentencelevel, but that secondary education in Japan
concentrates on grammar within the sentence,and consequently students have little experiencein producing coherent texts such as essays andreports which are expected at the tertiary stage.
In addition, some research into writer-reader
relationships has suggested that in the English
language, responsibility for successful communication rests with the writer, whereas in Japan,
the emphasis shifts to the reader since, “there isa different way of looking at the communication
process” (Hinds 1987, p. 144). This kind of assertion is contested, but still may have cultural andschematic implications, of which teachers plying
their trade on ESL writing courses in Japanesecolleges need to be aware.
Genre is also important for English teaching in Japan as it allows for the exploitationof authentic materials. Gallagher (2000, p.14)
remarks that “an integral aspect of a genre approach is working with texts from the beginning;authentic texts that represent genres that areused outside the language classroom.” Jarrell(2000, p.4) echoes the sentiment that authentic
materials are motivating since they are “geared
towards the students’ interests and awareness.”
Using the anecdote section from an American
magazine for teenage girls, he identiﬁes threefurther advantages:

be more autonomous about their learning experience and to heighten awareness about theirwritten work, is that of writing frames.
A writing frame contains a unique genericset of starters, connectives and sentence modiﬁers which help students expand their writing
whilst acting as a substitute for the teacher’sinterventions (see appendix B for an example
of a recounting genre writing frame). Any given
writing frame is a template, acting as a tool
to enable learners to focus on communicating
their thoughts within a form rather than having
no coherent structure at all to lean on. Framesshould be used initially with teacher-led discussions and modeling of the generic form whichteaches vocabulary and connectives. Then, thelearner undertakes the writing phase supportedby the frame. In low-level classes, many oral
sessions with the teacher acting as a scribe may
be required before students are ready to write
using the frame. One aim of a project in British
primary schools was to practice writing frames
until the children “become familiar enough withthese written structures to have assimilated theminto their writing repertoire” (Lewis and Wray,
1992, p. 1). It is therefore proposed that teachers
wean the children off the frames as their knowledge of the generic pattern increases.
One of the great strengths of the writing
frames’ strategy is its unlimited applicability.
Moreover, teachers “have found the frames particularly useful with children of average writing
ability [sic]; and with those who ﬁnd writing
difﬁcult” (Lewis and Wray, 1992, p. 7), a note
pertinent to Japanese writers of English. Additionally, it was discovered that after one or two
applications of a frame, the competent languageusers annexed the genre and its linguistic elements into their repertoires and, “without using
a frame, produce ﬂuent writing of high quality
in the genre” (Lewis and Wray, 1992, p. 7). The
ultimate aim is for all the students to reach thisplateau of accumulating the generic patterns andlinguistic features into their writing banks.

1 the basic generic pattern is abundantly
demonstrated via numerous examples.
2 the material is ﬂexible enough to cater forlearners at differing levels.
3 a low lexical density exists within the subject matter which is “crucial to a writingtask where students need a model” (Jarrell, 2000, p.4).

Genre for Japanese Learners

In a study whose data allowed comparisons to
be made between ESL learners of ﬁve nationalities, Kroll (1990, p. 147) found that the written
work of the Japanese group was “the mostThe orientation element of the anecdotes
mentioned above revealed habitual use of thepast continuous tense in the ﬁrst sentence. Rather
20

Special Issue: About Literacy Across Cultures

On CUE

Results and Discussion

Analysis of the data indicates that students
who used the frames seemed to have a better
command of structure, in this case the simple
past tense. Students not exposed to the framing
activities displayed greater inconsistencies withpast tense conjugation and usage.
There are 25 fewer mistakes in the experimental group (which had access to the autobiographic
frames) than the control group (which produced
its texts “blind,” that is, without referring to theframes). Moreover, the ﬁrst group has 174 correct past tense verbs whereas the control group’s
ﬁgures have only 121. In other words the experimental group not only made fewer mistakes but
also used the simple past tense more frequently.
From this basic comparative analysis of the data,
it may be that exposure to the frame creates aheightened awareness of the simple past tensein the autobiographic writing genre. This ﬁnding
occurs consistently throughout the texts yet it is
only one effect of the genre approach.
In addition, the style and ﬂow of the work
is more ﬂuent in those students who practiced
with the frames. There are more examples ofthe Hallidayan ‘glue’ that binds a text together;a higher number of connectives, clause modiﬁers, pronominal references and demonstratives
are present in these short stories and lend thema more natural feel. They are, essentially, morebalanced and easier on the eye. The quality is
better.
On the other hand, texts from the control
group reveal a lack of cohesion and are rhetori-

Procedure

Fifty six 2nd grade senior high school studentsof the same age (16/17), and generally, of similar ability in English with the odd exception ateither end of the proﬁciency scale, took part in
the study. The majority of students was motivatedand seemed to enjoy communicating and writingin English and expected to enter university. One
group of 28 were exposed to the use of autobiographical (recount) frames for several weeks, after which time they were asked to produce a shortwritten story about an early memory or an incident from their childhood without reference to a
21

Feature Article: Rabbini

frame. Conversely, a control group consisting of
28 students from the same grade and institution
were asked to write a similar passage without the
beneﬁt of having used the frame at all. Data wascollected by counting the number of (in)correct
past tense verbs, connectives, clause modiﬁers,
pronominal references, demonstratives, and rhetorical markers in all assignments. Writing abouta past experience naturally lends itself to the useof the simple past tense, and thus any signiﬁcantdifferences between the two groups in their useof this aspect could be expected to be apparent.
The autobiography genre also requires a range oflinking devices that could be compared between
the two groups.

than presenting this structural item in isolation,
Jarrell maintains that by emphasizing the genericpattern in its writing context provides the learnerwith a deeper understanding of how to use thepast progressive. After the vital phase of exposure to the genre by reading, considering anddiscussing examples of it (Gallagher 2000:14),
Jarrell found that by using a generic structure,
students were able to decode the anecdotes andthat most were able to reproduce their own stories in the written form. This suggests that usedin an appropriate context, the incorporation ofauthentic materials within a genre approach canfacilitate foreign students’ comprehension of the
anecdote genre.
Although writing from personal experience isan essential element in the process of becoming
a competent writer, it is vital for instructors tojudge when ESL students require assistance inadopting other genres. In Japan, where college
students lack experience of different English
genres of non-ﬁction and their structural organization, writing frames and genre based pedagogy
may well reduce their textual inexperience andimprove their rhetorical competence. Like theelimination of copying, the use of frames is a
developmental process. As the genre and its
linguistic features are approximated, greater
responsibility passes over to the student and theframe is eventually discarded.
We have shown that genre is important forJapanese students precisely because of their lackof experience creating coherent texts above thesentence level. To what extent generic blueprints
enhance structural knowledge will be addressed
next.

Special Issue: About Literacy Across Cultures

Feature Article: Rabbini

On CUE

cally immature (see appendix A for a contrast of
samples). There is a distinct lack of linkers andsentence starters, and a prevalence of incorrect
past tense usage. In short, non-use of the frames
leads to inferior ﬁnal products. Use of the frames
leads to fewer grammatical mistakes and appears
to increase textual cohesion and coherence. We
can observe from this small-scale study a distinct
improvement in both the quality and quantityof the work produced by students who have
utilized the frames. The original contention that
exposure to generic framing yields improved
writing rhetoric seems to be, at least tentatively,
substantiated here.
In brief, the differences in the texts of students
who used the generic pattern are as follows:

sentence level. Numerous advantages of thegenre approach have been identiﬁed:• The experimental group used the target
structure 30.5% more accurately than thecontrol group.
• This approach is relevant for foreign
learners who lack exposure to practical
writing tasks, which is particularly thecase in Japan, where one study found thatJapanese learners had low cohesive writing capabilities.
• Its broad applicability and ability to employ authentic materials further conﬁrm
the value of the approach.
• It would appear that the use of genericpatterns offers learners real opportunities
to develop skills to reproduce coherent
and cohesive texts.

•
•
•
•
•

more correct past tense forms are evident
fewer incorrect past tense verbs appear
there is a higher number of sentences
there is a higher number of verbs
more writing occurs (i.e. the texts are
longer)• greater cohesion and coherence is evident

In conclusion, generic framing seems to cultivate Japanese students’ writing proﬁciency andlevel of grammatical awareness. More exploration is needed but initially, it seems that young
adult Japanese students of writing can only proﬁt
by its implementation.

It must be borne in mind that both sets ofstudents are of very similar abilities and motivation. The fact that a genuine textual difference
between the groups is palpable in spite of theiracademic and cognitive homogeneity, and despite the fact that recounting an event from one’s
past naturally employs the past tense, reinforces
the notion that genre frames enhance the ﬁnal
product both on a structural level (in terms of
the empirical fact that more correct past tenseverbs are used) and at the level of cohesion andcoherence (in terms of greater ﬂuidity and accessibility for the reader).

References

Cairney, T. (1992). “Mountain or molehill:thegenre debate viewed from ‘down under.’”
Reading. 26, 1.
Couture, B. (ed.) (1986) Functional approaches towriting: research perspectives. London: Pinter.
Gallagher, C. (2000) “Writing across genres”. The
Language Teacher. 24, 7, 14.
Halliday, M. A. K. (1994) An introduction tofunctional grammar. London: Arnold.
Halliday, M. A. K. & Hasan, R. (1976) Cohesion in
English. London: Longman.
Hinds, J. (1987). Reader vs writer responsibility: a
new typology. In U. Connor and R. B. Kaplan(eds.), Writing across languages: analysis of L2
text. (pp.141-152). Reading, Mass: AddisonWesley.
Jarrell, D. (2000) “Authentic materials for lowlevel writing classes.” Language Teaching
Ideas. 5, 1, 4-5.
Kroll, B. (ed) (1990) Second language writing.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Conclusion

The present paper explores the hypothesis thatgeneric framing facilitates a greater awarenessof structure and cohesion in writing. Althoughmodest in scale, it would appear that this theory
is corroborated to a degree. That is, we canattribute improved writing to exposure of theframes. It was also shown that genre is important for Japanese students because of their lackof experience creating coherent texts above the22Special Issue: About Literacy Across Cultures

On CUEgroom and bride wearing special costumes. They
were very nice. After that, I ate delicious lunch.
Especially steak dish was very good. Finally, I
went home. As you can see, I enjoyed it verymuch.

Lewis, M. & Wray, D. (1992) Writing frames:
scaffolding children’s non-ﬁction writing in arange of genres. Exeter: The Exeter Extending
Literacy Project.
Martin, J. R. (1986) Intervening in the process ofwriting development. In C. Painter & J. R. Martin(eds.), Writing to mean: teaching genres acrossthe curriculum. Applied Linguistics Associationof Australia: Occasional Papers. 9, 11-43.
Martin, J. R. & Rothery, J. (1986) What afunctional approach to the writing task canshow teachers about ‘good writing’. In B.
Couture (ed.), Functional approaches towriting: research perpectives. London: Pinter.
Painter, C. and Martin, J.R. (1986) Writing tomean: teaching genres across the curriculum.
Applied Linguistics Association of Australia:
Occasional Papers. 9, 11-43.
Swales, J. (1990) Genre analysis. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Wood, N. (1998) M.Sc Dissertation: Film reviews:
a corpus-based study of generic frames andlexis. Birmingham UK: Aston University
Language Studies Unit.

Sample texts from non-frame exposed
students
S25

S10

When I was an elementary school student, I
belonged to baseball club. Because I wanted
to be a baseball player and liked baseball. One
day, I play baseball as usual. Then, a ball which
someone throw hit my head. And I faint. But,
my friend snap my face, I

S12Appendix A

When I was 12 years old, I belonged to swimming team. I practiced swimming very much.
The ﬁnal game day, I played swimming hard.
The ﬁnal game was won by us. I am glad to won
the game.

Sample texts from frame exposed students
S11

When I was 12 years old, I played electrone
at a concert. It was held in Hibiki-no-mori in
Okegawa. It was afternoon. I was strained. But,
I could play as usual. When my performanceﬁnished, I was glad, because I could succeed in.
It was interesting that I played well. Now, I thinkthat it is important to practice very hard.

Appendix B
Example of Recounting Genre Writing
frame
Recounts retell events in an informative and/or
entertaining manner which are often written inchronological order, use the past tense and focus
on individual participants.

S10

One day afternoon, when I was 12, I played with
my friends in the Ayase river bank. We enjoyedmizukiri. Then, we found a tire in the river andI tried to catch the tire, but I missed it and fellin the river. Next, I thout that I will die….But
I lived. Finally, I went back home to wash mybody. Now, I never play in the river.

When I was
Next
Then
After that
It was interesting that
FinallyS6

As you can see / Now

When I was 10 years old, I was invited to myuncle’s marriage ceremony. Then, I met a bride23

Feature Article: Rabbini

I was teach piaro. I like to play piaro. But I don’t
like to lesson. I had good friends in the class of
piaro lesson.

Special Issue: About Literacy Across Cultures

On CUEA Brief Look at One Extensive Reading
ProgramFeature Article: Lemmer

Richard Lemmer
Chugoku Junior College, Okayama
A little over three years ago I had an opportunity to attend a class about methods of teachingreading in EFL. This was the start of my interestin Extensive Reading (ER). I began to search for
information on the subject and soon realized thatan ER program could beneﬁt my students. We
have just completed the sixth semester of ER,
and results have been very favorable. It is now
mandatory for all English majors. This article
will take you through the steps we followed inplanning, implementing and supporting the ER
program at Chugoku Junior College.

reading classes, the plan was to incorporate ER as
part of Oral English classes. Receiving approval
was surprisingly easy as the other department
members readily supported the idea.

Funding:

We approached the school librarians to discuss
the program. Our library did have about 400
graded readers on hand, but most of them were
unsuitable for our students because they werehigher level books, and many were duplicate
copies. Our initial order was for 20 books and 10
accompanying audio cassettes which the librarybought. We now use funds from the departmental
book budget to buy between 20 and 30 new readers a semester. In addition, there was a sizable
video library which included many of the same
titles as the readers. As the concept of comprehensible input is an integral part of ER, listening
to tapes or watching videos of the story, either
before, during or after reading can be of help tostudents. Students can check out the videos andcassette tapes from my ofﬁce for home use. We
provide them with an individual updated list of
titles available that is also posted next to the ER
section in the school library.

Information:

One need not have any formal training inteaching reading to start an ER program. The ﬁrst
step required is to learn about what ER consistsof, why it is considered to be a good learning
strategy and how it should ﬁt into the curriculum.
All the necessary information on ER and on starting a program is available online. Two web sitesof particular interest are the ER site at <http://
www.kyoto-su.ac.jp/information/er/index.html>
and “The Extensive Reading Resources” site at<http://www1.harenet.ne.jp/~waring/er/>. We
utilized both sites and found them to be very
helpful. We also read a number of books on thesubject. There is now an ER discussion groupfor teachers to exchange information and experiences related to ER <http://groups.yahoo.
com/group/ExtensiveReading/>.

Library:

Ideally, the readers should be in the actualclassroom where students have easy access tothem and the instructor can monitor student
selections and make recommendations. Thisis impossible in our situation so the librarians
agreed to designate a special section devoted
to graded readers. Then, with the help of a few
students, we proceeded to classify books into ﬁvegroups based on vocabulary levels. Each levelbook was then color coded and assigned a lettercode of A-E. A represents the lowest level (300

Planning:

I wrote a brief proposal for the Departmentof English Communication that consisted of arationale for introducing ER to our students, alist of necessary materials, the initial cost forbook purchases and an outline for implementing
such a plan. As native speakers do not teach any
24

Special Issue: About Literacy Across Cultures

On CUEwords) and E the highest (1500 words). When
new books are ordered I inform the librarians as
to their level and they do what is necessary to
put them on the shelves.

concepts to grasp at ﬁrst, because they are so
accustomed to the grammar-translation approachto reading. However, through more and more
reading these old habits begin to loosen. Our
students informed us that reading material theyﬁnd interesting is one of the key factors in thisattitude transformation.

Other Materials:

We designed some simple printouts to assist
in program management.
library log - a form kept at the librarycheck-out desk where students record
their name, the title of the books borrowed, their level and the dates they weretaken and returned.
student log - a form for each student tokeep a personal record of all books thathave been read by author and level, dates
started and ﬁnished and the number ofpages read.
book report- a simple two-sided sheet to becompleted after reading each book. Students use a 0-10 scale to rate books according to enjoyment, difﬁculty, vocabulary and characterization. On the back is asection where they write brief comments
about characters and plot and give reasonsfor their answers.
overview handout- a short paper explaining
the purpose, goals, grading scheme andtips on getting the most out of ER. At thispoint the handout is in English only.
placement test - an A3 page with a representative page from one book at each of
the ﬁve levels. Students read all of themon the ﬁrst day of the semester and choose
the selection they are most comfortablereading (8-10 lines a minute is a useful
guide to a good reading speed). If there isany doubt, we recommend one level lower
to start to ensure a successful experience
early on.

Related Activities:

Requirements:

In our program the ﬁrst semester ﬁrst year
students read 300 or more pages. The remaining
three semesters all students read 500 or morepages. One student has read 1240 pages. Of
course, the students thought this is an impossible
task when ﬁrst given the assignment but with afew successful readings behind them they realizethat it is a reachable goal. They receive credit
for as many pages as they have read and extra
credit if they surpass the target number. Students
are encouraged to stop reading a book if it is too
difﬁcult or not interesting and we are currently
exploring ways to incorporate newspaper andmagazine reading into the program.
Although ER is sometimes referred to aspleasure reading it is nearly impossible to get ourstudents to read merely for pleasure. Therefore,
it was necessary to assign a percentage of thetotal course grade to the reading assignment, allof which is done outside of class. This, and thepersonal sense of accomplishment and enjoyment from the reading, is the only reward offered.
For some, constant encouragement and proddingon the part of the instructor is still needed.

Introduction to students:

When introducing the idea of ER to students
we found it important to make clear the distinctions between intensive reading, which they areaccustomed to, and ER. Reading in volume, notusing a dictionary, reading easy material, andbeing satisﬁed with less than 100% comprehension: our students have found these difﬁcult
25

Feature Article: Lemmer

The short book report has already been mentioned. In addition, my students each make two
short oral reports to the class each semester
about their favourite titles. We plan to introduce
small discussion groups next semester to further
integrate the reading and speaking skills acquisition processes. Including such activities can help
in responding to criticisms from students andfaculty who fail to see the value and purpose of
ER in a conversation class. We do not have any
formal test of their ER work for two reasons.
First, it would be incompatible with the idea ofreading for pleasure. Second, there are too many
extraneous variables to adequately evaluate theeffect of ER alone on students’ progress.

Special Issue: About Literacy Across Cultures

On CUE

Feature Article: Lemmer

Including staff in preparations forthe program:Conference
Reviews

We found that if you plan to set up a programthat includes library staff and classes other thanyour own you should bring the others on board
at the earliest possible stage. Encouragement
and support for part-time teachers, who may
have many other commitments and whose involvement in the program may not be as strongas that of full-time staff, can go a long way inachieving success.

•Have you been to any good
conferences lately?
•Why not write up a report for
On CUE?
Contact the new Conference
Reviews Editor,
Phil McCasland<mccasland@rocketmail.com>

Conclusion:

While setting up an ER program is not difﬁcult,it requires careful planning and sufﬁcient time.
Gaining the cooperation of all those involved- teachers, librarians and those controlling thebudget - is essential in implementing and continuing a successful program. In order to be effective, a long-term approach should be taken, as
improvement can come only after reading many
pages. With many departments recently facing
budget restraints ER is a relatively inexpensive
way to attain student progress in acquiring English. From my observations and student feedback
I consider the time and resources devoted to our
ER program to have been well spent.

References

Extensive Reading Discussion Group. Retrieved
March 23, 2004 from http://groups.yahoo.com/
group/ExtensiveReading/
The Extensive Reading Pages Retrieved March
23, 2004 from http://www.kyoto-su.ac.jp/
information/er/index.html
Waring, R. 2000. Extensive Reading Resources
Retrieved March 23, 2004 from http:// www1.
harenet.ne.jp/~waring/er/

26

Special Issue: About Literacy Across Cultures

On CUE

Playing with the Rabbits: A guideto helping students interact with
Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men
Introduction

the most about. The most comprehensive internet
sites are the National Steinbeck Center and theCenter for Steinbeck Studies at San Jose State
University (Augenbraum, H. & Shillinglaw, S.,
2003). For those who would like to read the FBI
ﬁle on Steinbeck, go to the Freedom of Information site (see reference list for URL). At the very
least, students should be aware of the following
facts about Steinbeck’s life:• Born in 1902 in Salinas California.
• Went to Stanford University, where hestudied literature and writing, but didn’t
graduate.
• Worked as a journalist and a laborer for
ﬁve years in New York City.
• Was a contemporary of such other wellknown American authors as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis, John Dos Passos
and Ernest Hemingway.
• Worked with the famous war photojournalist Robert Capa.
• Themes of his books included social justice and existential issues.
• His work was noted for outward simplicity of plots but also the complexity of theissues they raise.
• Labeled a communist by the US government.
• His books are some of the most often-readbooks in America.
• Won a Nobel Prize in 1962
• Died in 1968
(Shillinglaw, 1999)

One of the primary reasons for teaching literature in an ESL/EFL context is that literature
can be an authentic source of both language andculture. While students are undoubtedly challenged by the diction they confront as well as thecomplexity of the plot, these obstacles can easily
be overcome with proper preparation and instruction. In the end, students feel a sense of pride
when they have read a “real” book for the ﬁrst
time in their second language. The authors foundthat this notion was reinforced when students
indicated on their end of semester evaluationthat the activities associated with the teaching of
Steinbeck’s (1937) Of Mice and Men was one of
the more enjoyable aspects of their reading andwriting course. This success can be attributed tothe activities that were prepared by the teachers.
The purpose of these activities were to 1) provide
background knowledge 2) to provide linguisticknowledge, 3) to engage the students with thestory 4) to provide several ways for the students
to demonstrate their understanding of the story.
It should be noted that the procedure and activities outlined in this article were carried out at
an Intensive English Language Program (IELP)
where student motivation was high and classes
met four times a week. The students’ second language proﬁciency at the time was between 450500 on the TOEFL. Therefore, adaptation willneed to be made in order to teach this material ina more likely Japanese university setting.
.

Schema Activation and Pre-Reading Activities

One could start with an introduction of theauthor’s life and the part of California he wrote
27

From the Chalkface: Poole & McCasland

Brent Poole, Georgia State University
Philip McCasland, Tokai University

Special Issue: About Literacy Across Cultures

On CUE

experience of the time and it also includes
many useful links. For example, there are links
to musical recordings of the era that could beincorporated into classroom practice. There arealso links to authentic written texts (newspapers)that may prove useful for building up backgroundknowledge.

From the Chalkface: Poole & McCasland

Of Mice and Men and Steinbeck’s
Salinas Valley

Before the preview of the vocabulary inchapter one, students need to have a rough ideaof the setting of the novel. Distribute or display
a map of the state of California. After forming
into groups of three or four, have them ﬁnd thefollowing locations: Auburn, Monterey, Salinas,
Soledad, Sacramento, San Francisco, the Gabilan
Mountains and the Salinas River.
The next task is to provide some contextualization of the setting of the work that will be read.
This can be accomplished in one of two ways.
The teacher can deliver a mini-lecture about theera or alternatively various research assignments
can be given to the students. They should study
the era of the Great Depression and then present
their reports to the class.
A brief synopsis of the basic historical andeconomic elements is necessary, but avoid atendency to provide a superﬂuous amount ofdetails. Explain that during the post-World War
I period, the US was in a state of recession andas a reaction farmers increased production bycultivating more land. As a result, and coupledwith the fact that soil conservation practices were
not used, many of the farms dried up and thisbecame the era known as the “Dust Bowl days”.
At the same time, the stock market crash in 1929
left many independent farmers out of luck when
the bank came looking for payments on theirdebts. Consequently, the situation deteriorated
to the point where there was a thirty percent
unemployment rate.
The solution for many of the unemployed wasto migrate to California because at the time theland was fertile and there was promise of work.
Those who endured the journey found that the
number of migrants greatly exceeded the numberof jobs available.
The excess supply of workers drove down thewages they could get, and kept them in economic
distress and poverty while they remained in economic distress and poverty. During this period
if a person were able to carve out a subsistence
existence, they would ﬁnd their lives to be transient in nature because migrants had to follow
the harvests around the state.
Fanslow (1998), at the U.S. Library of Congress, has created a website about the migrant

Reading Procedure
Basic Procedure

Before previewing the vocabulary for chapter
one (Appendix 1), it is advisable to give students
a brief synopsis. It is important that students understand the relationship between George Milton
and Lennie Small. It is advisable to explicitly
tell students that George had promised Lennie’s
Aunt Clara that he would take care of Lennie
after she died. However, this relationship is notentirely one-sided because George is dependent
upon Lennie for his unconditional friendship.
Another issue that should be addressed is thefact that Lennie is mentally challenged. It should
be noted that Lennie is not severely challenged
because he usually persuades George to tell him
over and over about their dream and how they are
different from other migrant workers. Anotherindication of Lennie’s cleverness is that he tells
George that he could just as well go off and live
in a cave on his own. After the relationship of thetwo main characters has been established, one
should preview the vocabulary. Next, students
read chapter one for their homework and answer
comprehension questions (Appendix 2).
The next class period, students compare theiranswers to the comprehension questions with
one another. After that, students watch the ﬁrst
segment of the ﬁlm in class. Then distribute thecritical thinking questions (Appendix 3) to complete for their homework. The next class period
students will work in small groups and compare
their answers to those questions. This eventuallyleads into a class-wide discussion. Students arethen provided with the vocabulary for the next
chapter and the cycle starts again. Supplementary
activities, which can be fused into the procedure,
are as follows:28

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is the evidence? How is the foreshadowing of thedeath of the dog, representative of the killing of
Lennie? What about euthanasia: do the terminallyill, for instance, have the right to die?

Supplementary Activities
Reﬂections Journal

Students are required to keep a reﬂections
journal where they 1) give the chapter a one or
two word title, 2) write about a particular character that they like or dislike and give reasons
to support their opinions 3) predict what will
happen next after each chapter, including chapter
six, 4) comment on one of the many themes of
the novel and apply it to modern times 5) keep alist of their favorite quotes. An additional activity
is to have students sketch a scene that they felt
was profound. Both activities require students
to critically reﬂect on the novel, and encouragethem to empathize with the characters.

Drama

Formal Essays

Various rhetorical patters could be exploredin conjunction with the various themes (dreams,
loneliness and violence) of the novella. However,for this activity to be implemented, it is best thatit be done after the story is ﬁnished.
Dreams are one of the more dominant themes.
In chapter one we are introduced to the dreamthat George and Lennie share: to buy their own
property and live off the fat of the land. Later onin the story, Candy conspires with the two main
characters and also shares that dream. Curley’s
wife also had a dream: to be in the pictures. They
failed for different reasons. What mistakes did
they make? How were they similar and different?
What dreams do students have, and how do they
compare to the ones presented in the book?
Loneliness is a prominent theme and many
characters are inﬂuenced by it. For example, one
could use the comparison and contrast rhetoricalpattern to examine the loneliness felt by George
and Candy. Both characters shared the dream ofliving off the fat of the land but the occurrencesthat happen at the end of the novel seem to shatterthat dream which leaves both of the men alone.
This brings us to another option where thenarrative rhetorical pattern could be fused into aformal essay. Individually or in groups pick up
where the story left off and explore the many waysthat George and Candy ﬁght their loneliness.
Violence is the third theme. Here one could
incorporate an argumentation or rhetorical pattern. For example, could the death of Lennie be
construed a mercy killing? Why or why not? What

Poster Sessions

Again, this activity should be used when theclass has ﬁnished reading the story and it is bestwhen there are no more than four students pergroup. Groups are randomly assigned characters from the book (exclude Carlson, The Bossand Whit because their roles are rather minor).
They are given a large white poster, magazines,
colored paper, colored marker and pencils, scissors, glue and access to the internet. They are to
make a poster that represents the character they
were assigned. Let their imagination guide them.
The sky is the limit here in that it can be justcolors, colors and pictures, etc. When everyone
has ﬁnished, students present their poster to the29

From the Chalkface: Poole & McCasland

Students choose a scene from each chapter andthen act it out in class. It is helpful if you, theteacher, demonstrate a few scenes on your own
because, however awful your performance, students will appreciate the fact that you expressed
emotions and feelings in such a personal way.
When students ﬁnish reading the ﬁnal chapter,they get together in groups and plan to act out
their favorite scene. To make it more realistic,
rent out the theater for the time that you usually
have class because students tend to put extra
effort into the project when they are actuallyon stage.
An interesting spin would be to put a little
John Gresham-type legal thriller into the mix
and have the students act out a courtroom scene
where George is put on trial for the murder ofLennie. This will probably take a good dealof time because students are not familiar with
the intricacies of the American legal system.
If the class is too big, you may have to break
it up into two courtroom dramas, which in theend may have different results. The important
thing here is that everyone is involved and noone should really know until the end if George
is convicted or set free. This activity also gives
them a different setting in which to debate
some important issues related to the themes.

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class. This activity allows for creativity in agroup setting where everyone has the opportunity
to make suggestions and contributions.

Appendix 1 (A partial listing of
vocabulary words from chapter 1)

Acres (n.) any of various units of area; speciﬁcally : a unit in the U.S. and England equal to43,560 square feet (4047 square meters)

From the Chalkface: Poole & McCasland

Conclusion

Initially, one may question if students in an
EFL context are able to understand what life waslike for two migrant workers in rural California
during the depression. The answer to that question can be found by following this procedure.
While it is true that the story is set in a very particular time and place, nonetheless the themes ofpeople trying to cope with the hard circumstancesof life, with loneliness and violence, and striving
for their dreams are universal. The use of video inclass ﬁlls in schematic gaps in historical knowledge and promotes a deeper understanding. Also,
when students are given the opportunity to reﬂect
on the comprehension and discussion questions
in a group setting it enables them to co-constructa deeper understanding of the complexities foundin the novella. The additional activities, such as
the use of drama, allow students to emotively
relate to the characters, and to reﬂect, throughEnglish, on their own lives.

Bastard (n.) an offensive or disagreeable person-- used as a generalized term of abuse. George
called the bus driver a bastard.
Companion (n.) one that keeps company withanother, a friend This word is used when Steinbeck is describing how Lennie and George lookas they walk toward the pool of water.
Current (n.) the part of a ﬂuid body (as air orwater) moving continuously in a certain direction, the swiftest part of a stream
Debris (n.) the remains of something broken
down or destroyed, an accumulation of fragmentsof rock. Steinbeck describes where the two men
camp and that “debris of the winter’s ﬂooding”
would be drops of water falling from the leavesof the tree.”

References

Elaborate (adj.) planned or carried out withgreat care Lennie wants George to elaborate on
their dream to own a piece of land.

Augenbraum, H. & Shillinglaw, S. The John
Steinbeck Centennial Celebration. (n.d.).
Retrieved October 12, 2003 from http://www2.
sjsu.edu/steinbeck/Events/www.steinbeck100.
org/index.html
Fanslow, R. ( 1998) A migrant experience
American Folklife Center, Library ofCongress. [on-line] http://memory.loc.gov/
ammem/afctshtml/tsme.html
Freedom of Information Act: John Steinbeck.
(n.d.). Retrieved October 12, 2003 from http://
foia.fbi.gov/steinbeck.htm
Steinbeck, J. (1937). Of Mice and Men. NY:
Covici-Friede
Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Retrieved May 31
2004 from http://www.m-w.com/
Shillinglaw, S. (1999). Introduction. In Steinbeck,J., Of Mice and Men. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Foothill (n.) a hill at the foot of higher hills
Irrigation - to supply a piece of land with waterby artiﬁcial means. An irrigation ditch is where
they store the water prior to using it. Lenny andGeorge had to hide in an irrigation ditch up in
Weeds because Lenny got into trouble.
Mimicking (v.) to imitate closely, to ridicule byimitation
Morosely(v.) in a gloomy or sad way George
starred morosely into the ﬁre.
(Merriam-Webster Dictionary)30

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Appendix 3 (Discussion Questions
for Chapter1)

1. Why does George warn Lennie not todrink so much water?
2. Why is George angry at the bus driver?
3. Lennie has a poor memory and often has
to repeat things to remember them. Whatis the ﬁrst thing that Lennie forgets?
4. What does Lennie hide in his pocket from
George? Why is George angry that he hasit?
5. How far is the ranch from where the twoare camping?
6. What did George see on the way to thecamping site and what does this reveal
about the type of work that they will do?
7. What does Lennie like to have withbeans?
8. When George tells Lennie about their
dream at what point does Lennie get excited?
9. Towards the end of the ﬁrst chapter Lennie feels proud? Why does he feel thisemotion?
10. . . What is Lennie to do if he gets into
trouble at the ranch?

1. Steinbeck often describes Lennie withanimal like characteristics throughout thebook (e.g. ch 1”Lennie dabbled his big
paw in the water”). What affect does thishave on the reader? Would you agree that
this serves to dehumanize Lennie?
2. In this chapter we learn that George iscritical about his friend Lennie (e.g. “Youcrazy son-of-a-bitch. You keep me in hot
water all the time”). What does this fact
say about the relationship between George
and Lennie?
3. We learn about the dream that George andLennie have in this chapter. What does
this indicated about their past economic
situation? If you were forced to live out
their dream, how would you react?
4. George tells Lennie that if he gets into
trouble that he should come and hide
down by the river. What predictions canyou make based upon what you know
about both men?

Research
Bulletin•Have you written for your inhouse research bulletin?
•Do you know of in-house research
papers that might interest On
CUE readers?
Please submit brief summaries ofcurrent in-house publications andabstracts of research reports tothe incoming editor: Mike Hood<mikehood@hotmail.com>
31

From the Chalkface: Poole & McCasland

Appendix 2 (Comprehension Questions from chapter 1)

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Cowie, A.P. (ed.) (1998). Phraseology:
Theory, Analysis, Applications. Oxford:
Oxford University Press (258 pp.).
Review: Barﬁeld

ISBN 0-19-829964-8.

Reviewed by Andy Barﬁeld, Chuo University
Phraseological fusions, phraseological unities, free collocations, phrasal lexemes, idioms,
phrasemes, anomalous collocations, formulae,
collocational blends, restricted collocations,phraseoloids, and, yes, cranberry collocations:
The profusion of terminology in theorizing,
analyzing and applying phraseology is nicely
summed up by Altenberg’s opening sentencein Chapter 5: “Phraseology is a fuzzy part oflanguage” (p.101). Grappling with the fuzziness
are nine papers in this anthology, which itself isdivided into four parts. The two papers in theﬁrst part examine Russian studies (The Russian
Tradition; The Cultural Element, pp.23-75),
while the next section’s pair of studies look at
Phraseology in Written and Spoken Corpora(pp.79-122); the third part offers three papers on
Phraseology in Special-Purposes Languages andForeign Learner Language (pp.125-186), before
the volume closes with two papers on Phraseology and the Dictionary (pp.189-228).
Cowie illuminates these nine papers with adetailed historical thematic overview in the introduction. Of interest is how in the late 1940s
Vinogradov theoretically distinguished between‘phraseological fusions’ (semantically opaquecombinations, i.e., idioms or pure idioms), ‘phraseological unities’ (combinations metaphoricallyextending core senses, i.e., ﬁgurative idioms) and‘phraseological combinations’ (combinations with
one ﬁgurative element and one literal element,i.e., phrasemes, phraseloids, collocations andrestricted collocations). This typology stands incontrast to the lexical classiﬁcation of Palmer
who, just over a decade earlier, had worked with
ﬁve categories (single words, or monologs, derivatives, formulas, construction patterns and collocations) in his efforts to decide “what collocations
may or may not be legitimately incorporated intoa simpliﬁed text” (Palmer, 1933, p.13). Palmer(and later, Hornby) thus conceptualised the lexical challenge from the learner’s rather than thetheorist’s perspective by focusing on “successionsof words that must or should be learnt, or are
best learnt as integral wholes rather than pieced
together from their component parts” (Palmer,
1933, p.10; Cowie, abridged quotation, p.211).
Both approaches eventually had to address “thedegree to which a collocation can be varied andstill remain ‘restricted’” (Cowie, p.6). It is thisfundamental question that Phraseology: Theory,
Analysis, Applications repeatedly addresses.
The Russian phraseological school is represented by Igor Mel’èuk in Chapter 2 (Collocationsand Lexical Functions, pp.24-53) and Veronika
Teliya, Natalya Bragina, Elena Oparina and Irina
Sandomirskaya in Chapter 3 (Phraseology as aLanguage of Culture in the Representation of aCollective Mentality, pp.55-75). Bracing the reader for a theoretical onslaught, Mel’èuk observes:“Collocations constitute the absolute majority ofphrasemes and represent the main challenge ofany theory of phraseology” (p.31). Using Meaning-Text Theory focused on the spoken productionof text, Mel’èuk puts forward a set of conditions
by which phrases can be sub-categorized, and,ultimately, collocations described in terms of Lexical Function. At a deep structure level, a lexicalfunction f represents a general abstract semantic
notion that (i) “associates with a speciﬁc lexical
unit [=LU], L, which is the ‘argument’, or ‘keyword’, of f” (p.32) and (ii) can be lexically realized
in different surface forms. In these surface forms,
according to Mel’èuk, two-word collocations suchas crack a joke or launch an attack have one freely
chosen constituent lexeme that retains its literal
sense (in both examples, joke and attack), whereas
the other component is restrictedly constructedbecause it is contingent on the ﬁrst element. In the32

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On CUEin certain lexico-grammatical patterns. In thefollowing chapter (On the Phraseology of Spoken
English: The Evidence of Recurrent Word-Combinations, pp.101-122), Bengt Altenberg examines
which three-word combinations occur more than
10 times in the London-Lund Corpus of Spoken
English. Although he ﬁnds that lexical collocations are infrequent in the data, Altenberg concludes from his analysis of different multi-word
units (such as thematic frames like well I mean,
pp.112-113, and vagueness tags such as or something like that and things like that, pp.116-118):“…the great majority of the examples occupy a
position along the cline between fully lexicalized
units and free constructions” (p.121).
Whilst the two papers by Moon and Altenberg
draw conservative conclusions from their empirical analysis, Chapter 6, The Stylistic Potential ofPhraseological Units in the Light of Genre Analysis(pp.125-143), by Rosemarie Gläser is less rigorous and not of particular interest for this reviewer.
Chapter 7 by Sylvaine Granger (PrefabricatedPatterns in Advanced EFL Writing: Collocations
and Formulae, pp.145-160) examines collocations
and formulae in a contrastive interlanguage analysis of French students’ written English, but more
substantial work is offered by Peter Howarth’s
ﬁnely grained analysis of the phraseology of postgraduate students’ academic writing (Chapter 8,
The Phraseology of Learners’ Academic Writing,pp.161-186). Howarth takes Cowie’s earlier ﬁndings that roughly 40% of the verb+direct object
combinations in front page news stories and featurearticles could be categorized as restricted collocations or idioms (Cowie, 1991a, 1992). Do similar
percentages hold for both native and non-native
speaker corpora of academic writing? Like Moon’s,
his quantitative results show that approximately
38% of the verb+direct object combinations in
NS academic prose feature restricted collocations(33%) or idioms (5%), whereas the ﬁgure drops toa total of 25% for NNS academic prose. Howarth’s
qualitative investigation is based on a ﬁve-level
sub-classiﬁcation of collocations that considers
the semantic specialization of the verb in termsof whether it features a ﬁgurative, delexical or
technical sense (pp.169-170). The ﬁrst point isthat technical senses, unlike delexicalised senses,
produce the least deviant forms. One implicationis that more fully lexicalized forms are easier toacquire and use appropriately. The second point isthat verbs used in a non-core ﬁgurative sense tend
to produce collocational overlaps (e.g., attain a re33

Review: Barﬁeld

ﬁrst example, the freely chosen ‘argument’ joke
motivates the restricted and contingent selectionof crack (pp.29-31). Mel’èuk, in other words,
takes a deep structure approach towards pursuing
a semantic analysis of the lexical realizations andrestrictedness of ‘surface’ collocations.
In Chapter 3, Teliya et al. look at how lexical
collocations, among other multi-word units, carrycultural knowledge, concepts, connotations andmetaphors for members of a speech community
with shared values. With a different emphasis fromMel’èuk, they note: “In restricted collocations…theactivation of cultural connotation is connectedwith the type of cultural information contained in
the keyword (the base of the collocation) and thenature of the semantic specialization in the meaning of the collocator” (p.59). One example is theRussian collocation vuikovuiva kharakter (forge
someone’s character), which implies association“with a blacksmith hammering at a metal object togive it ﬁrmness and hardness” (p.65)—in contrast,
the English mould one’s character emphasizes“the idea of giving shape to an originally shapeless mass” (p.65)! Teliya et al. further note how
restricted collocations become culturally marked
through being repeatedly used and ultimately
conventionalized in particular genres and bodies
of discourse. Here, they identify four major ‘classical’ sites of production of “culturally relevantphraseologisms” (p.73): religion and philosophy,
literature, poetic folklore, and political discourse.
Interestingly, the four researchers omit scientiﬁcacademic discourse and the mass media, although
Howarth later draws on studies of newspaper language as a benchmark for his analysis of restricted
collocations in academic writing (p.171).
With these two opening papers by Mel’èuk andTeliya, Bragina, Oparina & Sandomirskaya, thereader gains a fascinating view of the breadth anddepth of Russian classical phraseology. The next
ﬁve chapters, by scholars perhaps more familiar
to a Western Anglophone audience, present corpus-based research into phraseology. In Chapter
4 (Frequencies and Forms of Phrasal Lexemes inEnglish, pp.79-100), Rosamund Moon underlines
the centrality of lexical verb-noun collocations
in ﬁxed and semi-ﬁxed multi-word units. She
ﬁnds that predicates (“a verb and its arguments orcomplementation”, p.88) account for 40% of thegrammatical types of phrasal lexemes. She also
observes that the same percentage of phrasal lexemes “did not have frozen and canonical forms”(p.92), while many multi-word units are frozen

Special Issue: About Literacy Across Cultures

Review: Barﬁeld

On CUEward) and blends (e.g., draw a correlation). Indeed,such combinations occur in both the NS and NNS
data, though much more so in the latter. Howarth
concludes: “…it would seem that many learners
fail to understand the existence of the central areaof the phraseological spectrum between free combinations and idioms. It is in handling restricted
collocations that errors of both a lexical and grammatical nature constantly occur.” (p.186)
Heeding this reminder about the learner’s (letalone the researcher’s!) phraseological burden,
the ﬁnal two chapters of the book consider inwhat ways dictionaries can be best organized
to help learners become more collocationally
proﬁcient. In Chapter 9 (Discovering Signiﬁcant
Lexical Functions in Dictionary Entries, pp.189207), Thierry Fontenelle reviews the problems
in deﬁning collocations and organizing a machine-readable bilingual collocational dictionary.
Just as Howarth does, Fontenelle also draws on
Cowie’s 1991 deﬁnition of restricted collocations
as “word-combinations in which one element(usually the verb) has a technical sense, or along-established ﬁgurative sense which has sincelost most of its analogical force” (Cowie, 1991a,p.102); he further highlights the prevalence ofdelexicalised verbs, or “support verb constructions” (p.192) with semantically empty verbs that
supply “information on number, tense, and aspect”(p.192). However, in contrast to Mel’èuk’s a priori
list of lexical functions, Fontenelle’s approach
uses a database of collocations to identify the lexical-semantic relationship between keywords andtheir collocates. The example bilingual dictionary
entry for anger-colère points to the impressively
detailed and useful resources that such work canoffer advanced learners (pp.205-207). In the ﬁnal
chapter (Phraseological Dictionaries: Some EastWest Comparisons, pp. 209-228), Cowie re-works
his introductory historical overview of phraseological research in the twentieth century. He pays
due respect to the pioneering work of Palmer andHornby, yet notes their limitations in overlooking “the cline of idiomaticity” (p.213) casting its
shadow over the solely syntactic categorizationof multi-word units. That said, Cowie pays evengreater homage to the work of Vinogradov andAmosova for their tripartite categorization ofphraseological fusions, phraseological unities
and phraseological combinations. In his closing
review of the organizational principles of several
collocational dictionaries (Kunin; Cowie, Mackin& McCaig; Koz³owska & Dzier¿anowska; Ben-son, Benson & Ilson; see Cowie, 1999b, for a full
discussion), Cowie as much praises the detailed
analytical thinking of these different lexicographers as categorically condemns the futility ofseeing frequency of co-occurrence as “the only
signiﬁcant measure of ‘conventionality’ in language” (p.226): a nicely heretical closure in anotherwise almost religiously rigorous anthology.
In conclusion, it is rare to ﬁnd one volume withso many theoretical insights into collocations: Thatalone makes this anthology a valuable reference. Its
other strengths include a strong sense of historicaldevelopment in phraseology, as well as a welcome(and perhaps untypical?) East-West combination ofinternational perspectives and research ﬁndings. One
problem, though, remains in pinning down moreconsistently the differences between collocational
types ranging from free lexical combinations to frozen idioms and clichés. Another involves tracing thecollocational development of L2 users. This volume
covers various synchronic views of collocational use,
whether by native speakers or non-native speakers.
Offering some general benchmarks for future research
into learners’ phrasal development over time, Phraseology: Theory, Analysis, Applications can be seen
as a necessary prelude to such developmental work.
My ﬁnal observation is that the volume generally
fails to explore the fundamental internal processesof ‘collocationization’(you read it here ﬁrst!): Why
do verbs tend to delexicalise more than nouns inverb+noun collocations, for example? Such are someof the intriguing puzzles that research into collocations
creates—and has yet to answer conclusively.

References

Arnaud, P. and Béjoint, H. (eds) (1992) ,Vocabulary and Applied Linguistics, London:
Macmillan
Cowie, A.P. (1991a). Multiword units in newspaper
language. In S. Granger (ed.), Perspectives on
the English Lexicon: A tribute to Jacques vanRoey, Louvain-la-Neuve: Cahiers de L’Institut
de Linguistique de Louvain, pp.101-116.
Cowie, A.P. (1991b). English Dictionaries for
Foreign Learners. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Cowie, A.P. (1992). Multiword lexical units andcommunicative language teaching. In Arnaud,
P. & Béjoint, H. (eds.), Vocabulary and Applied
Linguistics, London: Macmillan, pp. 1-12.
Palmer, H.E. (1933). Second Interim Report on
English Collocations. Tokyo: Kaitakusha.
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Websites for testing and increasing
reading speed

Michael J. Crawford
Hokkaido University of Education

The issue of reading speed is often overlookedin the ﬁeld of second language teaching andresearch. This is unfortunate, as research in L1
reading has shown that faster readers generallycomprehend more of what they read than slower
readers. Whether or not this holds true for L2
reading is still not completely clear, but thereis evidence to suggest that it does. In a studyof Japanese university students, Kitao (1995,
p. 8) found a “high correlation between reading
ability and reading speed,” and concluded thatteachers should help their learners increase theirreading speed.
An important issue that comes into play here
is whether a person’s reading speed changes
depending on the mode of presentation. In otherwords, is reading speed on paper the same asreading speed on a computer screen? For an excellent overview of this issue within the context
of computer-based testing, see Sawaki (2001).
She cites research on L2 readers showing that
there is no significant difference depending
on mode, but points out that more research isneeded.
There are still relatively few reading textbooks on the market that include activities forincreasing learners’ reading speed. Jamestown
Publishers’ Timed Readings series (Spargo,
1989), distributed in Japan by McGraw-Hill, isa notable exception, as the primary aim of thebooks is to increase reading speed. Using thebooks in this series in my own classes, I havebeen somewhat surprised to see how interested
my learners are in increasing their reading speed.
I have also been surprised to hear my students
comment that they were not aware of the importance of reading speed. As Anderson (1999)
notes, developing awareness of the issue is one

Sites designed for ESL/EFL students
1. Easy Readings (Kitao and Kitao, 2003)

URL: http://ilc2.doshisha.ac.jp/users/kkitao/library/student/reading/This page, designed by the proliﬁc Kitaos, hasa list of 29 short readings (from 100 to 295 words)
on a variety of high-interest topics. Readings 1
through 3 are actually the same story, but clicking
on 1 or 2 leads to a paced reading exercise, while
clicking on 3 leads to a timed reading exercise.
The paced reading exercise allows students totry out several different reading speeds and get a
35

Review: Crawfordof the beneﬁts of working on reading speed inclass.
Besides doing exercises related to reading
speed in my classes, I have also been encouraging my learners to work on increasing theirreading speed on their own. However, simply
timing themselves while reading the stories inthe textbook appears to lack that very important,
yet elusive element - the “fun factor.” This iswhere computers come in. I have been searching the web for sites that allow learners to test
and/or increase their reading speed, and havebeen encouraging my learners to try them out1.
Because the response from the students has beenfavorable, I would like to introduce what I havemanaged to ﬁnd so far in this brief article. I. havedivided the list into two different sections. The
ﬁrst section describes three sites that have been
designed especially for ESL/EFL learners. The
second section describes two sites that are designed primarily for native speakers. The second
is a promotional site for a speed-reading software
package, and because of this is somewhat commercially oriented. Despite this, learners might
enjoy it for its authenticity.

Introduction

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feel for what it is like to read at that speed. Readings 4 through 29 are all timed reading exercises
like reading 3. For these exercises, the students
click on the “Start” button when they are readyto read. A timer at the top of the page displays
the elapsed time. When they are ﬁnished reading,
students click on the “Stop” button, and then cancalculate their reading speed by clicking on the“No. of Words Read per Minute” button. Finally,each reading has multiple choice comprehension
questions that the students can do to check theirunderstanding of the passage. The combinationof interesting readings and ease of use make thisan excellent page for students to test, as well as
increase, their reading speed.

3. English Language Centre Study Zone
(1997)

URL: http://web2.uvcs.uvic.ca/elc/studyzone/
index.htm
Part of the University of Victoria’s (Canada)
English Language Centre site, this page hasreading exercises divided by level. The top
three levels, 410, 490, and 570, include reading
comprehension exercises that set a time limit
for reading a passage and answering questions
about it. At the 410 level, there are ﬁve reading
passages. Students are given 12 minutes to readthe passage and answer the questions that follow.
At the 490 level, there are ﬁve readings, four ofwhich have a timed exercise. The time limits areeither 3 or 5 minutes. The 570 level includes askimming exercise and a scanning exercise on apassage about the logging industry entitled “Pulp
Friction.” Each exercise gives students 2 minutes
to read the passage and answer ﬁve questions.
The readings for each level are interesting, andthe questions are well written, making this a goodsite for students to improve their reading speed
and test their comprehension.

2. On-line lessons – reading skills (n.d.)

URL: http://eslus.com/LESSONS/READING/
READ.HTM
This page, part of a site for a private language
school in the United States, has a small but interesting collection of activities for practicing
reading speed, as well as other reading skills.
There are ﬁve exercises for practicing reading
speed. I will describe three of them here. The
ﬁrst is a simple word recognition exercise. A
sentence is displayed on the screen for two
seconds. One of the words in the sentence ishighlighted. After two seconds have elapsed,the screen changes and a multiple choice question is displayed. Students must select the wordthat was highlighted in the sentence. The second
exercise is essentially the same as the ﬁrst, butinstead of single words phrases are highlighted
in the sentences. In the third exercise, a question
is ﬂashed on the screen for 3 seconds. Then thescreen changes and students must choose an appropriate response to the question. Each of these
exercises has 50 questions. Although unlike thepage described above, these exercises do not allow learners to check their reading speeds, theexercises are fast-paced and fun and provide
ample opportunity to practice reading quickly.
The only bad thing about the exercises is thatthe students see an ad for the school on every
page with a multiple choice question. This is a
bit annoying, but is fairly easy to ignore.

Sites designed for native speakers
1. Amby’s Reading Resources - The Velveteen Rabbit (Duncan-Carr, 1998)

URL: http://amby.com/reading/Velveteen_Rabbit/
This site has a complete story from a children’s book divided into four parts. The story,
entitled “The Velveteen Rabbit,” was written by
Margery Williams Bianco (1983), author of over
30 children’s books. When students are ready to
begin reading, they click on the “Start Timer”
button. When they are ﬁnished, they click on
the “Stop Timer” button and their reading speed
is calculated and immediately displayed at thebottom of the page. This can be done for eachof the four parts of the story. The length for eachpart varies, with parts 1 and 3 being about 1,500
words, part 2 being about 700 words, and part 4
being only about 140 words. There are no comprehension questions to accompany the story, but
the quality of the story itself and the ease withwhich students can check their reading speed
make this an interesting and useful site.

36Special Issue: About Literacy Across Cultures

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References

2. Speed Reading Test Online (2000)

Conclusion

The ﬁve websites I have introduced in this article provide learners with opportunities to test
and increase their reading speed in an interactive
way. While I would not recommend them as
substitutes for in-class paced and timed reading
exercises, I do think that teachers should feel
comfortable recommending them to students
who express an interest in improving theirreading speed on their own. I would also like toencourage teachers to search for additional sitesthat can be used for practicing reading speed.
Finally, to computer-savvy teachers out there, I
would like to say that more web-based exercisesfor testing and increasing reading speed would
certainly be welcome. If more exercises suchas the ones described here could be created andput online, both teachers and students of reading
would beneﬁt greatly.

37

Review: Crawford

Anderson, N. (1999). Improving reading speed:
Activities for the classroom. English Teaching
Forum, 37 (2), 2-5.
Duncan-Carr, A. (1998). Amby’s Reading
Resources – The Velveteen Rabbit. Retrieved
March 1, 2004, from http://amby.com/reading/
Velveteen_Rabbit/
English Language Center Study Zone (1997).
Retrieved March 1, 2004, from http://web2.
uvcs.uvic.ca/elc/studyzone/index.htm
Kitao, K. (1995). Japanese college students’English reading ability. ERIC Document
Reproduction Service: ED381766.
Kitao, K. and Kitao, S.K. (2003). Easy Readings.
Retrieved March 1, 2004, from http://ilc2.
doshisha.ac.jp/users/kkitao/library/student/
reading/
On-line lessons – reading skills. (n.d.). Retrieved
March 1, 2004, from http://eslus.com/
LESSONS/READING/READ.HTM
Sawaki, Y. (2001). Comparability of conventionaland computerized tests of reading in a second
language. Language Learning & Technology, 5(2), 38-59.
Spargo, E. (1989). Timed Readings. Lincolnwood,
Illinois: Jamestown Publishers.
Speed Reading Test Online. (2000). Retrieved
March 1, 2004, from http://www.readingsoft.
com/index.html
Williams Bianco, M. (1983). The Velveteen Rabbit.
New York: Henry Holt and Company, Inc.

URL: http://www.readingsoft.com/index.html
This online test of reading speed is part of apromotional site for a speed reading software
package. The text used for the test is essentiallya sales pitch for the software package, but it
does include some interesting information about
reading speed. Some of this information is useful for fostering awareness of the importance ofreading speed. Like other sites described above,with this page the students click on the “Start”
button when they are ready to start reading, andthe “Stop” button when they are ﬁnished. After
clicking on “Stop,” reading speed is calculated
and displayed immediately. Then, students canproceed to a comprehension test about the reading that has 11 questions. Although the site is notdesigned with EFL students in mind, the text andthe questions are not especially difﬁcult. As longas teachers mention the commercial nature ofthis site in advance, they should feel comfortable
recommending it to their learners.