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Reading processes

emilychen
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Reading processes

1) Please examine your reading process and find out what approach you usually use in reading English. Do you use the same or different approaches when reading texts in Chinese and in English (or other foreign languages)?

2) Recall your reading experience in English that caused you difficulty in comprehending a particular text. Then discuss which schemata you think plays the most important role.

Groups 1-4 are required to answer these two questions.

Last edited by emilychen, 11/10/2004, 11:07 pm

11/10/2004, 11:06 pm

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Kathywang
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Reading processes 【Group2】

《Q.1》
    According to our learning experiences, top-down model is the approach we usually use in our reading process.When we get a article, especially a long one, we usually receive the input from the text, make predictions based on conceptual abilities, background knowledge, and language processing skills to get the whole picture from the article.
    Besides, we sometimes use interactive model in the reading process and this interactive model always take place in the reading test. When we take reading test, both bottom-up and top-down processes occur simultaneously for us to comprehend the meaning of the content. By answering the questions of reading test, we can get the interaction between the reader and the text.
     However, we think we take the same approach in reading texts in Chinese and in English. Since Chinese is our native language, the only one difference for us to read is the reading speed. emoticon

《Q.2》
     Remember that when we were having reading test for GEPT or other language proficiency test, sometimes we just couldn’t understand what the article is about because we don’t have background knowledge. Perhaps we know some of the vocabulary and know, but we fail to comprehend the whole general idea of that article.
     Although the linguistic schemata and formal schemata are helpful for reading, we think that content schemata is much more important. If we know all the vocabulary, and know what pattern is used in a particular text, but without background knowledge, we still have difficulty comprehending the text. If we have background knowledge of the text or of the subject, we don’t have to be afraid that we are not familiar with all the vocabulary because we can always predict what will be going on by recalling our content schemata.
     Therefore, we think the background knowledge plays the most important role in reading comprehension. emoticon

Last edited by Kathywang, 11/13/2004, 9:40 am

11/13/2004, 9:38 am

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EUGENEHUANG2004NKFUST
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Re: Group 3---Eugene, Christine, Queenie, Stacey and Jean

1) Please examine your reading process and find out what approach you usually use in reading English. Do you use the same or different approaches when reading texts in Chinese and in English (or other foreign languages)?

Among us, as we are reading English articles, interactive model has been often used. Bottom- up model helps to decode the possible meanings of new words and to make reasonable guessing from the grammatical rules. Generally, top-down model helps to predict the context of the article based on backgroun knowledge, language abilities and skills we have acquired. Both these two models are used simultaneouslly. We accept the input from the articles first and use interactive model later to comprehend the content. Cognitive skills related to linguistic knowledge and background knowledge help us to identify and interprete the content we read.

Basically, we are mainly using top-down model in reading Chinese, especially as we are reading ancient literatures. We guess the meanings of the words based on cultural background knowledge or the conceptual knowledge about the subjects. Sometimes, we use bottom-up model related to linguistic knowledge of words constuctural rules to guess their pronunciations and possible meanings.

2) Recall your reading experience in English that caused you difficulty in comprehending a particular text. Then discuss which schemata you think plays the most important role.

In my group members’ reading experience in English, we think the difficulties in comprehending a particular text are some reasons as follows. First, if an article includes some words or phrases which people seldom use, it is hard for us to catch the correct meaning of those words or phrases. Secondly, our own culture is different from other countries, so we may feel frustrated by misunderstanding some idioms included of an article. Thirdly, sometimes we ignore that important part of the context if some authors prefer to write a long article, then we can’t understand what the main topic of the whole context. There are three different kinds of situation; we have some problems to understand a particular text.

About system schemata, we think content schema plays the most important role. After reading an article, we will have some ideas in our minds. If we find a part of the context that we don’t understand, we can guess or predict what kind of idea mentioned in this part from the background information we have got while reading this article. Background information can support us to understand or guess a part which we are not sure of a particular text.

Last edited by EUGENEHUANG2004NKFUST, 11/14/2004, 12:50 am

11/14/2004, 12:44 am

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d8753033
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Group 1

Q1:
In the past, we were used to using linguistic schemata to read text no matter what language is written in the text. The reason why we used the approach was to get to know each vocabulary first. The understanding of each new word would help us not to be interrupted while reading the text. However, Selena indicated that she has turned to use content schemata since her professor told her that she should try to use that reading approach. He suggested that she has accumulated a certain numbers of vocabulary but the quantity and speed of her reading should be larger and faster. Thus, she turned to try content schemata. Our group member have the same concept as she has. So, we keep using this approach often until now except learning the second or third foreign lanugae because of lack of the knowledge of the second or third foreign language vocabulary. Forus ,the linguistic schemata is a proper reading approach for a language beginner. In addition, weparticularly use not only formal schemata but also content schemata on reading comprehension part of any English test. These two approaches help us get a general idea of the organization patterns, rhetorical structures and the main idea of the text.

Q2:
We think that linguistic schemata is very hard for target language learners because we learn English through daily conversation. What we have learned is practical words and sentences, which mean that learners use these words to communicate with each other. Of course, these sentences for communication are not very hard. However, “linguistic schemata” means learners must know some particular vocabulary and grammars rules. This is not easy for learners to get the knowledge in a field (prior knowledge of a particular vocabulary and grammar rules.) If learners want to learn special vocabulary or grammar in a particular field, environment plays an important role. For example, doctors know some proper nouns in pathology. Business English is another example, some words or grammar using is not the same with common grammar in English. Although we know many words in English, when these simple words combine together and form another word, we might not guess the exact meaning of these words.
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11/14/2004, 12:21 pm

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Christine1117
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Re: Reading processes Group 4

1. Please examine your reading process and find out what approach you usually use in reading English. Do you use the same or different approaches when reading texts in Chinese and in English (or other foreign languages)?

Based on our English reading experience, top-down and interactive models are used most often. Like surfing English websites and reading authentic reading materials, we use top-down model for speeding up our reading and getting the main idea. For comprehending those materials like the mentioned above, we only need to grab the holistic meaning; the grammatical rules and single vocabulary elaboration seem not that necessary. Almost each one of our group members has the experiences of taking reading comprehension test; we often use interactive models to do the questions. The kind of tests often asks for the whole meaning and single element; therefore, interactive models can help us with both. At the very beginning of learning English, bottom-up models are used. We recall that our English teacher teaching intro reading led us read every single vocabulary and phrase, and elaborate the grammatical rules.

When we read Chinese, of course it’s much easier because that is our native language, so top-down models are enough for us. Even though we use top-down models to read English, the speed compared to Chinese (native language) is slower.

2. Recall your reading experience in English that caused you difficulty in comprehending a particular text. Then discuss which schemata you think plays the most important role.

Thought our English reading experience, we think that there are several reasons that caused us hard to comprehend a particular text. The first reason is word and phrase. If the article contains a lot of new words and phrases we never see, it is hard for us to comprehend the article. Especially, this word is the key word in this article and been repeated for several times. The second reason is background knowledge. Sometimes when we finished an article, we still have no idea what the author are talking about. It is because we don’t have the same background knowledge as the author has. It makes us hard to picture what he says.
We think that Content schemata plays the most important role on reading comprehension. I don’t know whether you have the experience or not to meet a topic that you are very familiar with on the reading test. At that time, it is really easy for you to comprehend the whole article and figure out the answer. Even though there are some terms and sentence we don’t know, we still can guess them base on the background knowledge we have.
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