FW: Reading
May 20th, 2014
Yuko Matsumoto

Nuttall, C. (2005). Teaching Reading Skills in a Foreign Language. Oxford, UK: Macmillan
Education.

Chapter 5: Word attack skills
Problem: Students do not have a big enough vocabulary.
(moderate L1 readers = 50,000 words)
Too much dependence on dictionary (slow down reading, interrupt thinking)●Freeing students from the dictionaryextensive reading (most effective way of improving vocabulary)●How many words do students need to have?
5,000 words: to start independent reading
2,000 words: preparation for independent reading with carefully chosen texts●Types of vocabulary
Active (productive) vocabulary: to know well enough to use oneself [DVK, WAT]
Receptive vocabulary: to recognize/respond to, but not being able to use confidently
Throwaway vocabulary: not worth learningNeed to learn how to ignore them
●When to ignore difficult words
Students need:to know the purpose of reading (before reading);
to identify the words that they need to understand the meaning (while reading);
to check their comprehension (after reading)
Teachers need:to convince students that ignoring new words is acceptable and necessary;to have students identify the sources of difficulty and judge whether a word is worth learning or notActivity 5.1 (pp. 65-66) + four activities●What makes words difficult?
1. Idioms
2. Words with several meanings: choosing the appropriate one, the familiar words used in unfamiliarways
3. Sub-technical vocabulary: needed in most fields of studyworth attention(e.g., average, approximate, effect, combination, determine)
4. Superordinates
5. Transfer of meaning (metaphor, similar kinds of transferred meaning)FW: Reading
May 20th, 2014
Yuko Matsumoto

6. Irony: a problem of pragmatics(mismatch between the apparent meaning & the writer’s underlying intention)
7. Other kinds of difficulty:
text-structuring words (for textual cohesion);
pin-down words (abstract in meaning, lexical difficulties)

Word attack skills
I. Structural clues
A. Grammatical function (Activity 5.2, p. 69)
B. Morphology: study of affixes + bases (sample activities, p. 71)
II. Inference from context
A. Getting a rough idea of a word’s meaning from the context (Activity 5.3, p. 72)*for less fluent students, conscious use of inference is invaluable
B. Making use of schemata
Recipes for exercises (pp. 74-75)☆In order to infer meaning from the context, students need to have enough clues☆Lexical density of the text (the proportion of new words the text contains)*Using a dictionary: as a tool (not as a crutch)
Identify which words to look up; should be as few as possible*A note on phonics (the study of the relationship between sounds & spellings) for EFL readers
Q: Does it help foreign language readers to identify unfamiliar words?
A: No.
“People whose first language is written with great phonic regularity many find it difficult to adjust tothe irregularity of English.” [Orthographic depth: shallow or deep orthographies ]FW: Reading
May 20th, 2014
Yuko Matsumoto

References
Wolter, B. (2001). Comparing the L1 and L2 mental lexicon: A depth of individual word knowledge
model. SSLA, 23, 41-69.
●Depth of word knowledge model of the mental lexicon (p.48)
well known wordsfairlymoderately

well known words

well known words

slightly known words

Paradigmatic connection
Syntagmatic connection
Phonological association
●VKS testing instrument (p.54)
I. I don’t remember having heard this word before.
II. I have heard this word before, but I don’t know what it means.
III. I have heard this word before, and I think it means _____________. (synonym or translation)
IV. I know this word. It means _______. (synonym or translation)
V. I can use this word in a sentence: _______________________.
(If you do this section, please do section IV.)
Wolter, B. (2006). Lexical network structures and L2 vocabulary acquisition: The role of L1
lexical/conceptual knowledge. Applied Linguistics, 27, 741-747.
●Paradigmatic relations & Syntagmatic relations
L2 learners tend to make more mistakes related to syntagmatic relations (i.e., collocations)L2 learners’ lexical knowledge in their L1 can be used for learning paradigmatic relations of L2
vocabulary (just putting new labels); To learn syntagmatic relations of L2 vocabulary, it isnecessary for them to reconstruct the entire conceptual network.
(Example)
Paradigmatic relation: small room small =小さな, room =部屋 「小さな部屋」
Syntagmatic relation: 「狭い・広い」＋「部屋」(collocations in Japanese)
「狭い」＝narrow ”narrow room” (incorrect collocation in English)