Approaches to reading in a foreign/second language (21/12)

4. Approaches to reading in a foreign/second language

4.1. Bottom-up process: based upon the assumption that the reader starts from decoding the most specific levels of the language before grasping the most general ones.

• The reader first recognises individual letters, form words, these in turn make up phrases, then clauses, sentences, texts…
• Later on, he/she makes use of his/her linguistic mechanisms to make some sort of sense of the data.
• Numerous activities to develop the learner’s bottom-up strategies and subsequently allow him/her to process the text in this way.

                    - Identify words by letter combination.

                    - Difficult sound clusters.

                    - Re-ordering scrambled words and matching.

                    - Discriminating minimal pair sounds.

                    - Reading and stress.

4.2. Top-down process

• The process starts from the higher levels of processing and proceeds to use the lower levels selectively.
• Background knowledge plays a key role since the reader combines what he/she already knows with the new information from the text to achieve a personal interpretation.
• Activities:

                    - Deducting from context: can you deduce from context the meaning of resort, hike and sunbathers? Are these words essential for the comprehension of the passage? Why?

                    - Relating written text to general world knowledge. Relate his/her world knowledge r background to the written information from the text.

                    - Drawing inferences: the reader not only needs to understand explicitly stated information.

4.3. Interactive process:

• Eclectic approach: the reader depending on his/her purposes, the type of text, etc. activities different strategies which shift from bottom-up to top-down and viceversa. This has come to be known as interactive reading. 

Consonants in English (20/12)

The standard English consonant system is traditionally considered to comprise:

• 17 obstruents (6 plosives, 2 affricate and 9 fricatives).
• 7 sonorants (3 nasals, 2 liquids and 2 semivowel glides).

Triphthongs (20/12)

Triphthongs

• Some people also speak of triphthongs [aiə], [eiə], [auə], [əuə], [oiə].
• Fire, flower, shower, player, they’re, lower, enjoyable [in’ʤoiəbl].

Reading (14/12-20/12)

Introduction:

• Reading is one of the four basic skills needed to gain competence in mastering a language.
• It is a written receptive skill. 
• To achieve full comprehension, it is necessary interaction between the information given and the reader’s expectations. 

Reasons for reading and text selection

• The ability to read effectively is fundamental for survival in our western society. 
• Whenever we read, we have a specific purpose in mind
• Sometimes, we read simply to get the gist of the text or to locate a concrete piece of information.  

Reasons for reading	Text selection
To get information or search for information	Travel brochures Train timetable Bus schedules Public signs Weather forecasts Menus Internet: web sites
To satisfy to curiosity about a topic	Magazine articles Newspaper editorials Advertisements Internet
To follow instructions	To know how to use a game Recipes Maps
To keep in touch	Postcards Letters Notes Messages Invitations Emails
To find out when and where	Announcements Programmes

Tips to text selection:

• Texts should be adapted to the learner’s cognitive development.
• Texts should cover a wide variety of topics in order to reflect the diversity of interests present in the classroom.
• Texts should enhance motivation and promote self-esteem. 
• Texts should reflect situations where the learner can activate his/her schemata and enrich the interpretation.
• Text should introduce some of the most important cultural references of the target language.
• The selected texts should be the result of a needs analysis.
• By means of a needs analysis, the teacher can gather a great deal of valuable information which will result in a more accurate selection of the reading material.

Types of knowledge	Examples
Syntactic knowledge	Position of articles Position of auxiliary verbs Position of adjectives and adverbs
Morphological knowledge	Word formation (affixation, compounding…) Cohesive devices
General world knowledge	Background knowledge
Sociocultural knowledge	Cultural references
Topic knowledge	Previous ideas related to the content
Genre knowledge	Science fantasy novel Tale Poems

Characterisctics of written languae

Differences in comparison to spoken language.

Permanence	The reader can access the information in the written forms as many times as needed. Oal language, on the contrary, vanishes after being uttered.
Processing time	The processing time needed to decode the information is greater and readers can read at their own rate.
Distance	The context in which the text is written is different from that in which it is read. Consequently, readers interpret the written material using their background knowledge and trying to minimise the effect of the passing of time and sociocultural conventions. Besides, the reader cannot confront the author and question him/her about the text.
Orthography	Written language is materialised through graphemes. These are accompanied by punctuation marks, pictures, charts. Thus, it may be more difficult to interpret written language than oral language since this is enriched with suprasegmental features (stress, rhythm, juncture, intonation, pauses, volume, voice quality settings) and non-verbal language (gestures)
Complexity	Written language tends to have longer clauses and more complex sentences than spoken language.
vocabulary	Written language usually presents a more varied and a more formal lexical register. The writer makes use of more precise lexical items since he/she has more processing time and lower-frequency words often appear.
Formality	Written language makes use of conventionalised forms which enable the reader to recognise the type of text. In addition to this, a written text presents some rhetorical devices which the reader should know in advance in order to make sense of it. In Brown’s words (2001:306): “…conventions like paragraph topics,… a logical order for, say, comparing and contrasting something:… openings and closings; a preference for non-redundancy and subordination clauses, etc.”.

 

Centring diphthongs (15/12-20/12)

6. /iə/

• In this diphthong both elements are short, but the accent falls on the first one.
• When this diphthong is followed by an “r”, this consonant is not pronounced except when the following syllable or word begins with a vowel, in this case, a linking “r” can be pronounced.
• This sound is difficult for most students, although it will be used quite frequently in many words: here, hear, fear, dear.

Spelling:

• Ea: dear, hear, ear, near.
• Er, eer: deer, beer, here.
• Other spellings: idea, real, museum.

7. /eə/

• The first sound is an /e/ but you have to make it a little longer, then add /ə/. Most students produce the –er ending with the “r” always pronounced.
• There’s a book on the table.
• It’s there.

Spelling:

• Are: share, scare, mare, care.
• Air: chair, pair, air.
• Beer, near, here, chair, where, airport, square. 

8. /oə/

• The diphthong /oə/ is normally replaced by a /ɔ:/ by RP speakers, that is why I do not think it is important but although we do not care about its production you should understand it.

Spelling:

• Oar, ore, our, oor: boar, for, soar, your, pour more, door.

9. /uə/

• The first element is a /u/ and the second one is a /ə/.
• It is often pronounced /ɔ:/ or /ɔ/. Look at the following examples:
• Poor: [puə], [poə], [pɔ:]
• Sure: [ʃuə], [ʃoə], [ʃɔ:]

Spellings:

• Ou, ure, oor: tour, pure, moor. 

Closing diphthongs (13/12-15/12)

1. /ei/

Spelling

The sound /ei/ is usually written with the letters:

• “A”: baby, face, late, page, place, same, take.
• The final “e” indicates that “a” is pronounced /ei/, without this final “e” the pronunciation would be a vowel. E.g. Sam [sӕm], bath [ba:ɵ]
• “AY”: day, say, stay, today, way.
• “AI”: rain, Spain, train, wait.
• “EA”: great, weight, steak.
• Other spellings: grey, they, break, eight. 

2. /əu/, /ou/ or /əʊ/

• This has two sounds /ə/ and /ʊ/.
• The second element of the diphthong is very short and the first one is longer than /e/.
• The lips at the beginning are in a neutral position and then gradually rounded as the tongue rises to make /u/. 

Spelling:

• The sound /əu/ is usually written with the letters:
• O: go, hello, no, old
• O…e: home, hole, nose, those.
• Oa: boat, coat, road, joan.
• Ow: know, low, narrow, show, slow throw.
• Ou: though, soul, shoulder.
• Some words: boat [bəʊt], joan [ʤəʊn], jones’s [ˈʤəʊnzɪz], hotel [həʊˈtɛl], hello [hɛˈləʊ].

3. /ai/

• This has two sounds /a:/ and then add /i/, this is a short sound.
• Most students have no difficulties with this sound.

Spelling:

• The sound /ai/ is usually written with the letters “I” or “y”.
• I, y: child, find, five, smile, try, right, sky…
• Igh: high, light, night, right bright.
• Ye: eye, goodbye.
• Other spellings: lie, buy.
• Some words: pie [pai], kite [kait], climbing [klaimiη], riding [raidiη], rice [rais], bright [brait], ice-skating [ais skeitiη], ice-cream [ais kri:im], goodnight [gʊdnait], Friday [fraidi].

4. /au/

• The first sound is, in some way, similar to /ӕ/, then add /u/. This second sound is very short. There is an /au/ diphthong in Spanish but it is pronounced higher and it is much more tense than the English equivalent.

Spelling:

The sound /au/ is written with the letters:

• Ou: about, mouth, count, round, out, round.
• Ow: cow, crowd, flower, down, now, town, brown.
• Some words: flowers [flauəz], mouse [maus], mice [mais], thousand [ɵauznd], cows [kauz], trousers [trauzəz].

5. /oi/

• The two sounds in this diphthong are: /o:/ even propounced longer, then /i/, being even shorter. There are few words for the practice of this sound at beginner’s level.

Spelling:

The sound /oi/ is written with the letters:

• Oi: noise, point, voice.
• Oy: boy, toy, employ

Models of lisitening (14/12)

Model 1: Listening and repeating

Learner goals:

• To pattern-match; to listen and imitate; to memorize.

Instructional material:

• Features audio-lingual style exercises and/or dialogue memorization; based on a hearing-and-pattern matching model.

Procedure: asks students to:

• Listen to a word, phrase, or sentence pattern
• Repeat it
• Memorize it (often, but not always, a part of the procedure).

Value:

• Enables students to do pattern drills, to repeat dialogues, and to use memorized prefabricated patterns in conversation; enables them to imitate pronunciation patterns.

Model 2: Listening and answering

Comprehension questions

Learner goals:

• To process discrete-point information.
• To listen and answer comprehension questions.

Instructional material:

• Features a student response pattern based on a listening-and-question- answering model with occasional innovative variations on this theme.

Procedure: asks students to:

• Listen to an oral text from sentence length to lecture length.
• Answer factual questions. Uses familiar types of questions adapted from traditional reading 
• Comprehension exercises.
• It has been called a quiz-show formal of teaching.

Value:

• Enables students to manipulate discrete pieces of information, hopefully with increasing speed and accuracy of recall.

It can increase students’ stock of vocabulary units and grammar constructions. Does not require students to make use of the information for any real communicative purpose beyond answering the questions. It is not interactive two-way communication.

Model 3: Task listening

Learner goals:

• To process spoken discourse for functional purposes.
• To listen and do something with the information, that is, carry out real tasks using the information received.

Instructional material:

• Features activities that require a student response pattern based on a listening-and-using (i.e. “listen-and-do”) model.
• Students listen, then immediately do something with the information received: follow the directions given, complete a task, solve a problem, transmit the gist of the information orally or in writing, listen and take lecture notes, etc.

Procedure: asks students to:

• Listen and process information.
• Use orally transmitted language input immediately to complete a task which is mediated through language in a context in which success is judged in terms of whether the task is performed. 

Value:

• The focus is on instruction that is task-oriented, not question oriented.
• The purpose is to engage learners in using the informational content presented in the spoken discourse, not just in answering questions about it. Two types of tasks are:

               - Language use tasks, designed to give students practice in listening to get meaning from the input with the purpose of making functional use of it immediately. 

               - Language analysis tasks, designed to help learners develop cognitive and metacognitive language learning strategies (i.e. to guide them toward personal intellectual in their own learning). 

Model 4: Interactive listening

Learner goals:

• Aural/oral skills in semiformal interactive communication.
• To develop critical listening.
• Critical thinking.
• Effective speaking abilities.

Instructional material:

• Features the real-time/ real-life give-and-take of academic communication.
• Provides a variety of student presentation and discussion activities, both individual and small group panel reports that include follow-up audience participation in question/answer sessions as an integral part of the work.
• Follows an interactive listening-thinking-speaking model with bidirectional listening/speaking.
• Includes attention to group bonding and classroom discourse rules (e.g. taking the floor, yielding the floor, turn taking, interrupting, comprehension checks, topic shifting, agreeing, questioning, challenging, etc.).

Listening (part 2) (13/12)

Reasons for listening

• We, as non-native speakers of English, need to understand more than we should be able to produce. 
• The samples of spoken language in all course-books do not contain a sufficiently high proportion of the features of natural speech. 
• The learners will need much more than this if they are going to be able to cope with real-life language situations.
• Even though good listeners may be able to get every word that they hear, this is not their concern most of the time.
• Specify your listening objectives when you carry out a listening activity.
• As long as you achieve your objectives, you are a good listener – whether you catch every word or not. 

Listening practice

• If you feel that your command of English is inadequate to meet your academic needs, such as taking notes in lectures, expressing yourself in tutorials…
• If you are anxious that it might be a potential obstacle to your future professional pursuits. 

Then…

• Do something about it NOW before it is too late!

Listening: teachers

Do you think that listening is about getting every word that is spoken?

• To be able to listen well gives you confidence in communication.
• You can only talk sensibly when you can understand what is said to you.

What you can do on your own beyond the classroom?

• TV: choose your favourite programs and make regular appointments with them.
• Radio-like Broadcasts (Podcasts, stream radio…): you are free to do other things while listening – having breakfast, a shower, even jogging!
• Watch news bradcasts (in English, of course) already watched on Spanish TV.

Use the WWW

• English Listening: explore, listen, understand: www.englishlistening.com
• English on line: www.eleaston.com
• Listen to English: www.listen-to-english.com

Good luck

• Good luck with your listening practice. It is not going to be easy, especially because the listening ability is hard to measure.
• But if you keep practicing, you should find that you can gradually listen better. 

The listening activities have been traditionally divided into:

• Pre-listning.
• While-listening.
• Post-listening activities.

Diphthongs (13/12)

English and Spanish vowels: differences

While in Spanish we have 5 vowels sounds, in English there are 12 different vowel sounds.

Some vowels may sound almost alike, so getting accustomed out ears to the English sounds is very important from the very beginning in order to be able to distinguish them.

Vowels:

• Vowels are determined by changes in position of the lips, tongue and palate.
• These changes can be very slight and difficult to detect.
• In English, vowels can also glide into one another to form diphthongs and even triphthongs.

Diphthongs:

• Diphthongs are those sounds that consist of a movement or glide from one vowel to another.
• The first part of a diphthong is always longer and stronger than the second part.

There are two types of dipghthons: closing and centring.

Hot potatoes (part 2) (12/12)

Shared ascpects

• Files designed with HP should be saved in two different formats:
•  HP file (extensions: jmt, jms, jqz, jcl, jcw).
• HTML file (to be used with any web browser).

JMix

• A Jmix activity produces a jumbled word or sentence activity.
•   Letters of a single word may be jumbled, or the words of a sentence.
• JMix uses the standard and drag-and-drop types of output. 

Sleepy Hollow Guide Tour

For the course "Recursos Culturales y Literarios para la Enseñanza de la Lengua Extranjera" (Cultural and Literary Resources for the Teaching of a Foreign Language), we had to prepare an activity related to the short story "The legend of Sleepy Hollow", by Washington Irving, better known because of the Headless Horseman. 

I chose to organise a guide tour around Sleepy Hollow, the town where the story took place. 

I used Google Maps to create a map with the most interesting places there. Click on the image to see the result: 

Then, I used Google Earth to show the town.To record the screen, I used Screencast-O-Matic, a free license programme. Finally, I edited the video using Windows Movie Maker. Click on the image to watch the video:

 
While the video was playing, I explained all the historic places. It can be an interesting activity to develop in class, so children can "walk" through the city or town where the story took place, or even following instructions.

Hot Potatoes (01/12)

Hot Potatoes Suite

Hot potatoes includes six applications.

These applications enable you to create interactive:

• Multiple-choice
• Short-answer
• Jumbled-answer
• Crossword
• Marching/ordering
• Gap-fill exercises

They can be uploaded to the World Wide Web. 

These are the different possibilities that Hot Potatoes offer:

• JQuiz: multiple-choice, true-false, text-entry or short-answer.
• JCloze: gap-fill.
• JCross: crosswords.
• JMatch: matching and ordering.
• JMix: jumbed-sentence.

The Masher

• The masher is a tool for automatically compiling Pot Potatoes exercises into units.
• Imagine that you have five Hot Potatoes exercises that form a single unit of materials. You want to build HTML files from all exercises, with the same colours and appearance settings; you also want to link the exercises together using the navigation buttons, and create an index file for the unit. 

/ʌ/, /ɜ:/ and /ə/ (01/12)

9. /ʌ/

Approximate Castilian production:

•           This phoneme that, together with a /a:/ and /æ/, is a focus of confusion for Spanish speakers who can assimilate it to a “a” sound.
•           This sound seems to be more approximate to the Spanish “A” when it is accompanied by velar consonants: regate, coja, jaque, etc.

Articulation:

• This is a central vowel, and one which is more open than mid-ranged. The lip position is a neutral one.

Most important spellings that represent /ʌ/:

• U: sun, run, fun.
• O: won, come, done.
• Ou: country, southern, young.
• Oo: blood, flood. 

Minimal pairs:

/ʌ/	/æ/
Cup But Run Some Uncle Much	Cap Bat Ran San Ankle Match
/ʌ/	/e/
Money But Won Done	Many Bet When Den

Here I share an interesting video for Spanish speakers, where they explain differences between:
 /a:/, /æ/ and /ʌ/:

10. /ə:/ - /ɜ:/

Approximate Castilian production

• There is no similar sound in Spanish.
• This is a central vowel. The lips are not rounded.
• A didactic procedure would be to produce a Spanish “e” and, little by little, to approximate it to an “o”, not reaching it.
• It used to be followed by a “r”.

Most important spellings that represent /ə:/ - /ɜ:/

• Ir: first.
• Er: serve.
• Ear: earth.
• Ur: nurse.
• Or: word.
• Our: journey.

Minimal pairs:

/ɜ:/	/e/
Bird Learned Turn Burn World	Bed Lend Have Ben Wed

11. /ə/

Approximate Castilian production

• The schwa is an unstressed central vowel and is the most common vowel to appear in English.
• There is no similar sound in Spanish. We tend to assimilate it to an unstressed “e” when it is not final (another - [ə’nɅðə]).
• In final position we assimilate it to an “a”. (letter).

Most important spellings that represent /ə/:

• It has no regular character to represent it.
• Any vowel or group of vowels may, in unstressed position, represent /ə/.
• E.g. famous [feiməs], woman [wʊmən], letter [letə], cupboard [kɅbəd].

Minimal pairs:

• As it never occurs in stressed position, there are no contrastive elements. On the other hand, it is fundamental for the correct formation of rhythm in English. 

Here I share an interesting video for Spanish speakers, where they explain the sound /ə/: 

And here I share another one where they explain the sound /ɜ:/:

Listening (30/11)

Listening: the visual context, gestures, drawings, body language

• Implication of the learner as listener. It means that the child must learn in action.
• The use of gestures, drawings and body language is recommended to create an encouraging atmosphere in the classroom.
• Background disturbing noise must be avoided.
• Sounds or acoustic references may encourage comprehension.
• In time the acoustic material should become more realistic.
• Visual support is always necessary in early listening exercises in order to create a context and assist the listening effort.

Early descriptions

• Early descriptions may arise from the use of some commands as a simple answer to the questions why or what for. 

The use of the mother tongue as a compensating strategy

• Though the use of the FL is the goal, the first language can be used as a helping hand to maintain motivation. 
• The first language can also provide context. In this case it is the equivalent to a picture. 
• Some conclusive parts of the listening interactive task may require the exclusive use of the FL. 

Reasons for listening

• We, as non-native speakers of English, need to understand more than we should be able to produce. 
• The samples of spoken language in all course-books do not contain a sufficiently high proportion of the features of natural speech. 

/ʊ/ and /u:/ (29/11)

7./ʊ/

Approximate Castilian production

• The Spanish sound is produced at the back and it is tenser.
• A similar sound can be heard when it is nect to “r” and “l”: hurto, pulso.

Articulation: 

• The tongue and jaw are raised as the back of the tongue is used to articulate this vowel. Hence it is a back, close (high) vowel. The lips are rounded.

Most important spellings that represent /ʊ/:

• U: full, put.
• Oo: book, look.
• Ou: could, should.
• O: woman.

8. /u:/

• This vowel is towards the back and is a close sound. The lips are only moderately rounded.

Approximate Castilian production

• It is more closed and tenser than the Spanish “u” (apart from being longer).

Most important spellings that represent /u:/:

• Oo: spoon, shoot, troop, boom.
• Ou: soup, route.
• O: do.
• U: June, flu.
• Ew, ue, ui, oe: jew, blue, suit, shoe.

Minimal pairs

/u:/	/ʊ/
Fool Luke Cooed Shoed Pool	Full Look Could Should Pull

Here I post a video where they explain the differences between /ʊ/and /u:/:

/ɒ/ and /ɔ:/ (29/11)

5. /ɒ/

The organs of articulation maintain similar positions to the ones of /a:/.

• The tongue and jaw are lowered as the back of the tongue is used to articulate this vowel.
• The lips are slightly rounded.
• Portal, cortar, cordial, loro. 

Approximate Castilian production

• For the realization of /o/ the articulation organs maintain very similar positions to those of /a:/, with the difference that the lips can be lightly widened for /o/. Another difference is the double duration of /a:/ and their potion.

Most important spellings that represent /ɒ/:

• O: not, box, dog.
• A: want, what, watch.
• Au: because.
• Ou: cough.

Minimal pairs: 

/ɒ/	/ʌ/
Cop Shot Lock Strong Mock Long Gone	Cup Shut Luck Strung Muck Lung Gun

6. /ɔ:/

For many English speakers in the opposition between /ɒ/ and /ɔ:/ quantity is a fundamental feature. In these cases, the Castilian realizations are the same ones that thoses pretended then speaking of /ɒ/.

Approximate Castilian production

• But it is evident that /ɔ:/ it is a much more open vowel that the next Castilian one, and nowadays more English people do not base the opposition on quantity but n other features, as, for example, rounding of the lips, almost null in /ɔ/. To many Spanish-speakers it sound more proximate to /u/ than to /o/.

Most important spellings that represent /ɔ:/

• Or: horse.
• Oor: poor.
• Ore: more.
• Aw: saw.
• Oar: board.
• Ou: bought.
• Our: four.
• A: all.

Minimal pairs:

/ɒ/	/ɔ:/
Caught Sport Short Stalk	Cot Spot Shot Stock

Here I share a video where they explain the differences between /ɔ:/ and /ɒ/: