According to Alderson (1984:1)
the demands of a globalised world require students to master a reading
knowledge of a foreign language (FL) for their academic studies as well as for
their professional and personal development. As a result, students are often
assessed with a reading comprehension test that should demonstrate their
reading abilities in the FL. Yet, this author claims that it is common for most
students to fail to read in the FL as they seem to lack either basic
understanding of texts, speed, knowledge of the language or mastery of reading
strategies
One of the reasons for this
failure may be derived from the lack of authentic activities. Teachers who ask
students to answer direct reference questions in reading tasks do not appear to
foster authentic reading comprehension compared to teachers who ask students
inference questions, which go beyond the literal comprehension of information
and demand for reorganization, inference, prediction, evaluation and personal
response.
According to Van Lier (1996: 128, as cited in Mishan,
2005:15) authenticity does not get into the classroom by means of the materials
or lesson plan, it is realised in the act of interpretation, and may be judged
in terms of the degree of participation and personal involvement of the learner
with the text. This idea has critical implication for the pedagogical classroom
since what is important is what we do with a reading text rather than whether
it belongs to a ‘real’ context.
It is the purpose of this
presentation to address teachers’ current practices in relation to reading
tasks in an attempt to help them broaden the scope of activities aimed at the
readers’ understanding of written texts within an authentic pedagogical act.
This talk will offer ideas on how to aim at authentic reading tasks which foster
the acquisition of comprehension strategies. As Clarke puts it ‘teaching
materials should reflect the authentic communicative purpose of the text’
(1989: 75, as cited in Mishan, 2005:71)
References:
Alderson, J.C. (1984). Reading in a foreign language: a reading
problem or a language problem? In J.C. Alderson and A. H. Urquhart (eds.),
Reading in a Foreign Language (pp 1-24). New York: Longman.
Mishan,
F. (2005). Designing Authenticity into
Language Learning Materials. United Kingdom: Intellect Books.
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