Reading in a Second Language 3:
Barriers to understanding |
Why is the following passage so difficult to understand, i.e. what is preventing us from predicting?
A grammar contains a syntactic component, a semantic component and a phonological component. The latter two are purely interpretative; they play no part in the recursive generation of sentence structures. The syntactic component consists of a base and a transformational component. The base, in turn, consists of a categorical component and a lexicon. The base generates deep structures. A deep structure enters the semantic component and receives a semantic interpretation by the rules of the phonological component.
Chomsky: Selected Readings pages 66/67.
Our first answer may be that it contains a substantial number of words that are unknown to us (but notice that the common word `component' is also difficult to understand). Words are not the only problems we face when reading a difficult passage, often the sentences are long and involved. The most important problem however is neither of these. In this case we do not have sufficient background knowledge, i.e. we do not have a framework of understanding into which we can fit this passage.
The three factors that enable us to predict are:
1. Our background knowledge.
2. Our knowledge of sentence structure.
3. Our knowledge of vocabulary.
These are the factors, therefore, that we need to consider if we wish to choose books and passages for pupils to read or if we want to prepare pupils for their reading. We may also need to consider the presentation.
1. Background Knowledge
Many pupils in our schools have experiences that are quite different from that which their teachers assume.
For many years the majority of pupils I taught had recently arrived from Pakistan. They had come from the foothills of the Himalayas. However, instead of giving them books about the Himalayas I often gave them books about the English seaside which they had never seen.
They all lived in an inner-city area but many of the books I gave them reflected rural life in Britain which they had never experienced. They lived in terraced houses surrounded by cars and lorries; many of the books I gave them had pretty flowers, farm animals and even cottage-shaped haystacks in them. All of which were completely outside their experience. Actually even I have never seen a cottage shaped-haystack!
The majority of these pupils were Muslim. For them, Ramadan was a very powerful time. Fasting, family prayers and waking in the middle of the night to eat, were all exciting and thought consuming. And excitement grew as the end of Ramadan and the Feast of Eid approached. None of the books I gave them reflected this powerful experience. But some of the books contained stories about witches, British witches, which were meaningless to them.
Therefore, before we present a text to the pupils, it is important that we speak, or rather listen, to them to find out what they already know or can imagine about the topic we are considering. We may then need to provide some appropriate visual input to increase their background knowledge.
2. Sentence Structure
Consider the following description of Martinique:
From out of the blue waters of the oceans rises the island of Martinique, whose sloping hillsides sides are cut by winding valleys, down which little streams run, like silver threads, between the waving sugar-canes and the jade green of the banana trees.
One problem with this passage is the structure of the sentence. Most noticeable is its length (43 words). Any long sentence is likely to contain complexities, of course, and when we are simplifying a passage, it is important to split up long sentences. As long sentences often occur when the writer is attempting to condense a point, we will often have to expand a passage.
Word order in complex sentences is often unusual and unexpected. This can also create problems. Note the inversion at the beginning, `From out of the blue waters of the ocean rises the island of Martinique', more usually we would say, `The Island of Martinique rises out of...'.
Relative clauses can also cause problems as pupils find it difficult to see what they refer to.
To what does `whose' refer in the phrase `whose sloping hillsides'?
To what does `which' refer in the phrase `down which little streams'?
The simile `like silver threads' creates the same difficulty. What is like the silver threads?
Verb forms, especially complex ones like `might have been' and `will be doing' often cause problems for second language learners and for many other pupils, but even apparently simple forms like the passive `are cut' in the passage can be difficult.
When writing a passage we may need therefore to write short simple sentences that use patterns and verb forms that the pupils know. At beginner and intermediate levels it is often helpful to use only one tense of the verb and to use the same type of sentence as much as possible.
3. Vocabulary
Some of the words in the description of Martinique are obviously uncommon and we must assume that our pupils will not know them, the most obvious word is `jade' but `sloping' and `winding' are also fairly rare and many pupils will have difficulties with ocean, island, hillsides, valleys, threads, etc.
Another problem presented by some words in the passage is the fact that, although they are common words, they are used metaphorically. Does the island really `rise'? Does it fall again? Do valleys use scissors to cut hillsides? If streams run can they walk? Do sugar canes wave because they are friendly?
Teachers often try to simplify their speech by using colloquialisms, but for second language learners these are often as difficult as longer words. The word `put' for instance changes its meaning so often that pupils can easily become confused, for example:
put up (accommodate)
put by (save)
put over (convince)
put on (dress)
put away (tidy)
put out (extinguish)
put up with (tolerate).
Before expecting pupils to read a passage, we may need to highlight some of the new words in the passage and to ensure the pupils understand them by illustrating them or using them in other contexts. Activities that ensure that the pupils have to use those words orally before the reading can also be very useful. When we are writing passages and worksheets for pupils ourselves, it is often helpful to ensure that most of the words we use are in the pupils' spoken vocabularies.
However, no matter what we do, the pupils will still meet new words. We can do two things to help them.
First we can encourage their deductive techniques, by giving them blank filling exercises, by teaching them to read on and come back to problems later, by providing dictionaries and instructions in their use, etc.
Secondly, we can teach the pupils to specify their problems. Many pupils take one look at a difficulty and `switch off'; if we encourage them to specify the problem and then ask for help in a way the teacher can accept, we may be able to prevent this switching off.
4. Presentation
Many pupils are overwhelmed by the amount of writing on some pages they are given to read. We can make things much easier for them by doing some of the following things:
A. Underline headings.
B. Number points.
C. Start each sentence on a new line.
D. Make paragraphs very short.
E. Leave plenty of space between paragraphs.
F. Make a clear distinction between the text and the questions the pupils have to answer.
G. Provide helpful illustrations, charts, etc.
What is important.
The closer we look at some of the factors that prevent some pupils from predicting the meanings of the texts we give them the more we realise that many pupils will never have sufficient time to learn everything we would like, because they do not have the language and experience that other pupils acquired much earlier.
We have to choose either to push them forward at such a rate that they do not understand anything properly or we have to omit part of the curriculum. Although the first choice (pushing them faster) is attractive to many teachers, they feel that at least they have tried to do everything; it in fact results in some pupils learning little of importance or relevance to them.
A more constructive (but somewhat controversial) solution may be to consider what the most vital areas of the curriculum are and to concentrate on those. These vital areas are likely to be defined not in terms of a series of facts that have to be learnt but in terms of skills, concepts, perceptions of patterns and major factual contrasts that have to be grasped.
Racing to English
© Gordon Ward 2010. Photocopiable only for use in the purchasing institution. Advice for Staff: Reading in a Second Language