Chapter11 of applied linguistics and material
development
Presenting by: Mohsen Saberi, Nastaran Rashidi


Reading involves the most incredibly
complex, interrelated set of brain processes
human ever have to engage in.
Reading is: relating what we read to what we
have already read earlier in the text, and to
our previous world knowledge, visualizing
and engaging in inner dialogue with
ourselves

From the L2 perspective, reading has been
viewed in different ways at different times.in
the audio-lingual and structural-situational
paradigms, it was largely seen as a vehicle for
teaching aspects of grammar, vocabulary and
pronunciation-text as pre-text and after that
reading came to be regarded as a psycholinguistic guessing game



Reading ability relates also to what kind of
text we read, and the manner and purposes
for which we read them. Broadly speaking, we
can divide texts into expository(non-literary)
and imaginative(literary)
Expository texts tend to deal with factual
objects, ideas and opinions which are in real
world, these texts are predictable and
unambiguous
Imaginative: require us to make an effort to
represent the imaginative world we enter as
we read the text. This requires imagination


Intensive reading: takes place when the
teacher takes the learners through a text by
explaining vocabulary, grammar and
constructions.
Extensive reading: its reading for pleasure,
there is no task here


In the L1, what is crucial is that children are
introduced early to books by adults. Those
children become readers whose parents read
aloud to them at bedtime, and who make
sure that there are plenty of books in the
home environment.
In L2 , the place of loving parent should
ideally be taken by teachers who make sure
that the condition for reading are in place

There is a good deal of evidence to show that
the benefits for L2 learners are much the
same as those for L1 learners. In the L1 these
include affective, cognitive and linguistic
benefits.


1. affective benefits: includes self-esteem
and confidence, leading to motivation to go o
reading more , as well as the pleasure of
getting lost in a book
2.cognitive benefits: includes knowing more
about the world. When we read widely, we
necessarily come across more information
which we integrated with what we know
already. Those who read more, tend to know
more and to remember it for longer.


Opinion Is divided in this issue. There are
those who believe that reader need to be
familiar with 95 percent of the words and if
there are lots of unknown words it will be
tedious for learners.so they believe that texts
should be a level lower that the person
knowledge(i-1)
Others believe that text should have
something know for the learners


Walter and Swan (2009) argue that it is not
reading strategies that students need: they
already know how to read. What they need is
more work on the language itself to bring
them to a stage where they have near
automaticity
But others believe that learners who know the
strategies will be at higher level of language
proficiency, when students no longer
processing the text at word and sentence
level



Many books are accompanied by lots of
questions. It is because they will help the
teacher to make sure whether students
understood the text or no
But every 5 minutes spent on activities is 5
minutes lost for reading time
There is no evidence to suggest that activities
make any difference to the quality of the
reading experience

Instead teachers can device some kind of
activates like giving short book talks and
asking open ended questions



A major argument against testing is that tests
inevitably require students to read
intensively, as if they were reading for facts
rather than for overall understanding and
enjoyment
Tests only test what can and the essence of
reading cannot be reached by test
The best we can do is to check, whether they
enjoyed the reading or no



English in mind (Puchta &stranks,2010)is not
untypical of elementary(CEF A2/B1)level courses
where differing approaches are adopted for language
focused and skill focused lessons.
In student’s book2 unit 11 (pp. 82_7) the language
aims of which are given as “Defining relative clauses
,used to , vocabulary : medicine .we find a reading
text on ‘medicine in the past ‘ .It contains a number
of examples of the target structures ,followed by
true/false/no information comprehension questions
and then a personalization activity where students
imagine what it was like to be ill 2000 years a go .two
pages of grammar and vocabulary exercises follow.
At the end of the unit there is a ‘culture in the mind ‘
double page

Spread where a reading text in the same topic
area is exploited intensively with
comprehension questions and vocabulary
work ,but not for grammar teaching purposes
.and followed by another reading text which
acts as a model for a writing exercise.


Global (clanfield et al., 2011)upper intermediate has
12 page units which contain a number of reading
texts used for different purposes.
Unit 6 “power & money” (pp.66-7)has three grammar
foci: the passive voice ,causative have/get and quite .
The first substantial text is a specially written one ,
“the masters of the universe ?” which is exploited to
teach adverb phrases such as “obviously “ , but the
phrases themselves are not ‘seeded’ into the text.
After true/false comprehension questions and
vocabulary work there are questions asking for a
personal response to the text ,for example, ‘do
bankers hold too much power in today’s society ?’ . In
contrast , the next text ‘ten facts about lotteries’
does have examples of the target structure

Quite seeded in and students are explicitly
directed to find them before doing grammar
exercises . The third main reading text
‘Economics for everyone ‘ is an extract from a
book and the exploitation focuses on the
content , on how the author develops his
argument and how he expresses himself . In
other words the focus is on rhetoric not
surface language . The final reading text
serves as a model for a writing skills section
dealing with report writing .

In part one we noted that a top-down
approach to reading had led to an emphasis
on the reading strategies deployed by
proficient readers and that more recently ,
lower-level skills … have been to some extent
reinstated in interactive approaches .


Reading Explorer (douglas et al., 2012) aims to
develop both reading and vocabulary through the
use of texts from national geographic magazine .
Unit 8 of book 5 (CEF C1-C2 ) (pp.137-54) opens
with pre-reading discussion , skimming and
prediction tasks before a three-page , 150 line
(approximately 1,500 word ) text on ant and bee
behavior and its relevance to humans . It is
followed by a page of multiple-choice questions
which focus on the rhetorical structure of the
text and a page with two major exercises , one
on classification involving assigning statements
to spaces in a venn diagram and one stimulating

Critical thinking .this structure of exploitation
and text is typical of the other text in this
unit and other texts in the book .



The coursebooks for teenagers and for adults
surveyed above were concerned with intensive
reading . In the context of extensive reading in part
one it was noted that ‘there is little or no evidence to
suggest that activities and questions make any
difference to the quality of the reading experience or
to the learning that derives from it.
According to all of the benefits that the extensive
reading has great publishers like Cambridge
discovery readers, penguin , …. Recently published
books that contain activities for their text readings .
The teacher can , of course , recommend that
students only read the text and ignore the
accompanying activities.


As for course books , our samples above for both
teenagers and adults showed a very conservative
treatment of reading , largely as a vehicle for
language work . One reason for this is the space
constraints within which a course book writer
works , weaving the threads of a multi-syllabus ,
promoting study skills and learner independence
, as well as developing the four skills .
A suggestion would be to accept that reading in
language-focused lessons (whether the aims are
expressed in functional or grammatical terms)
will be largely a vehicle , and deal with reading
per se elsewhere.



Elsewhere , but not separately . An integrated
skills approach offers the opportunity for real
reading skills development and genuine response
to content .
By integrated skills is meant a lesson where the
four skills support Each other : speaking leads
into reading . Which fosters discussion ,
supported by listening leading to a written
product .
Such an approach does not mean the elimination
of language work (this is about language
learning) but it is focused on understanding the
text and the words which structure it .


Comprehension questions also have a place ,
but they must take the learner away from
detail , and concentrate on meaning and a
response to it .
Dependent on level , the text can be unsimplified , adapted or specially written , but
the key thing is that it be written to be read
for itself , not used to exemplify a language
point .