ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΟ ΑΝΟΙΚΤΟ ΠΑΝΕΠΙΣΤΗΜΙΟΣΧΟΛΗ ΑΝΘΡΩΠΙΣΤΙΚΩΝ ΣΠΟΥΔΩΝ

ΜΕΤΑΠΤΥΧΙΑΚΗ ΕΙΔΙΚΕΥΣΗ ΚΑΘΗΓΗΤΩΝΑΓΓΛΙΚΗΣ ΓΛΩΣΣΑΣ

ΔΙΠΛΩΜΑΤΙΚΗ ΕΡΓΑΣΙΑ

‘THE IMPORTANCE OF THE PRE-READING STAGE FOR THE ENHANCEMENT OF READING

SKILLS IN TEE STUDENTS’

ΔΗΜΗΤΡΑ ΤΣΟΛΑΚΙΔΟΥ

Επιβλέπουσα Καθηγήτρια: ΑΝΑΣΤΑΣΙΑ ΓΕΩΡΓΟΥΝΤΖΟΥ

2008

Introduction

Mark A. Clarke (1980) calls reading ‘the most thoroughly studied and least

understood process in education today'. In recent years though, the field of second and

foreign language reading has been revitalised by changes in our understanding of the

nature of the reading process. The focus in the teaching of reading has now shifted

from the end product to the process the reader goes through when getting involved in

a text and, nowadays, EFL teachers work towards that direction by putting emphasis

on the reading process in order to create autonomous and confident readers.

Goodman (1967) describes reading as a ‘psycholinguistic process’ in that it

starts with a linguistic surface presentation encoded by a writer and ends with

meaning which the reader constructs. There is thus an essential interaction between

language and thought in reading, which means that reader – based processes mingle

with text – driven processes to form the path to reading comprehension. This theoretic

approach questions the notion of ‘perfect comprehension’ and recognizes the

possibility of multiple interpretations, treating reading as an open-ended process

which brings in the reader’s subjectivity. The reader comes to the text with a set of

expectations, drawn from his/her background knowledge and engages in inferences to

be subsequently confirmed or disconfirmed during the actual reading.

In practice, a good method of implementing these theoretic guidelines in the

classroom is to look at the reading lesson in terms of three phases: pre-reading, while

reading, and post-reading. The three phases offer the teacher a framework which can

help him/her cut the whole reading procedure into manageable chunks and thus

overcome many problems in the process of reading, as there is gradual and

hierarchical treatment of the text.

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More specifically, the aim of the pre-reading stage is to arouse interest in the

topic by drawing on the learners’ knowledge of the world, share their opinion and

generate relevant vocabulary. This preparation stage is carried out before learners

have seen the actual text as is considered very crucial for the lesson’s outcome. In the

while-reading phase the actual reading takes place for learners to understand the

structure and content of the text and the writer's purpose and intended meaning.

Finally, the post-reading stage is intended to help learners consolidate and reflect

upon what has been read.

Although all the above mentioned phases should be evaluated and treated with

the analogous respect and preparation in the reading lesson, there is a tendency among

teachers’ practice to neglect or even omit the pre - reading stage. For some teachers

this stage is seen as unimportant or of little value to the whole reading lesson and is

neglected, unattended or restricted, to the advantage of the other two stages which

have ‘more to do with the actual text’.

The aim of this dissertation is to prove the crucial role of the first stage of the

reading lesson, the pre – reading stage, and show the great influence it can have in the

reading comprehension process. Through this dissertation, it will become obvious that

by simply providing learners with a text and asking them to read it, it is unlikely that

the desired outcome will be achieved. Students will not engage in the reading process

due to lack of motivation and a feeling of insecurity for the unknown text. On the

contrary, if they are well prepared during the pre – reading stage, by the use of

different activities and various tasks, this will enhance their interest for the actual

reading phase, prepare them for what is to come and, consequently, it will contribute

greatly to a better reading comprehension.

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In order to reach this conclusion certain theoretic guidelines will be followed

and, then, based on practical research, I will try to implement them in practice in order

to prove my point. The structure of the dissertation will be as follows:

In Chapter 1 the general theory about reading will be presented, focusing on

the main reading models (bottom-up, top-down and interactive), dealing with key

issues such as reading skills and strategies, formal and content schemata, text as

vehicle of information (TAVI) as opposed to text as linguistic object (TALO) and

product versus process in reading. Furthermore, there will be reference to the

problems that may arise in a reading lesson due to a more traditional approach, which

may result in the lack of stages and more particularly of the pre-reading stage.

Chapter 2 will also be theoretical but more specific, in the sense that the focus

will be solely on theory about the pre-reading stage, its benefit for the learners and its

importance in reading comprehension. I will present theory about what readers bring

to the text, in relation to their background knowledge and refer to the relevant formal

and content schemata theory. Furthermore, there will be an analysis of practical ways

to implement the pre-reading stage and the tasks or activities that can be done during

this specific stage along with the means, duration and anticipated outcomes.

Chapter 3 will include a quantitative research based on questionnaires given to

students of my class and teachers of English in order for them to state their opinion

about the reading lesson in general, the difficulties that can arise, the lacks, the needs

and preferences. Most importantly, through the questions I will emphasize on the pre-

reading stage, ask students and teachers how much they value its contribution, what

they expect to get from this stage and how they think it can be improved in order to

become more effective. Through gathering opinions, there will be some insight in the

reading lessons, and the need for implementation of new practices will arise. Thus,

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my aim will be to prove the vital role of the pre-reading stage in reading

comprehension and as a proposal suggest practical ways to make it more effective and

successful as a stage. Through a well prepared pre-reading stage students will be

benefited greatly and this will consequently lead to an overall successful reading

lesson, better reading comprehension and finally more efficient readers.

Chapter 4 will discuss the experimental design analytically based on the

theoretical stance. The results of the questionnaires along with the theory about the

pre-reading stage will be taken into account and put into practice in the classroom

through five reading lessons based on the TEE coursebook. The lessons will be

conducted differently than the coursebook’s guidelines, laying emphasis on the pre-

reading stage, which will become longer as a stage in order to better prepare students

for what is to follow. All five lesson plans will be included and appended and all

stages (while and post -, too) will be presented. The tasks of the pre-reading stage will

be presented more analytically according to their underlying essence and purpose.

Chapter 5 will present students’ reaction and response to such alteration of the

reading lesson, will measure up their performance and whether it has improved

according to the teacher’s and students’ impression. This will form the basis upon

which certain conclusions will be drawn in relation to the pre-reading stage and its

importance in reading comprehension. The outcome of the five novel lessons will be

analyzed in order to reach a conclusion on the effect of the pre-reading stage. Last but

not least, the strengths and weaknesses of this study will be mentioned along with

suggestions for further research and teaching implementation.

Chapter 1

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Research on reading in a second/foreign language and efforts to improve

ESL/EFL reading instruction have grown remarkably over the last decades. Α

contributing factor to that has certainly been the recognition that reading is probably

the most important skill for second language learners in academic (and not only)

contexts and is a necessary prerequisite for most types of communication in the

foreign language (Carrell, 1989a; Lynch & Hudson 1991).

Goodman (1967) has described reading as a ‘psycholinguistic guessing game’

in which the ‘reader reconstructs, as best as he can, a message which has been

encoded by a writer as a graphic display’ (1971:135). Goodman views this act of

meaning construction as being an ongoing, cyclical process of sampling from the

input text, predicting, testing and confirming or revising these predictions. Thus, from

a psycholinguistic viewpoint reading is a problem solving behavior that actively

involves the reader in the process of deriving and assigning meaning. While doing so

the reader is drawing on contextual information that contains semantic and discourse

constraints which affect interpretation (Cziko 1978:472-89; F. Smith 1971).

Coady (1979) has elaborated on this basic psycholinguistic model and has

suggested a model in which the EFL reader’s background knowledge interacts with

conceptual abilities (intellectual capacity) and process strategies, more or less

successfully, to produce comprehension. Nuttall (1982:10) adds that ‘reading… is not

just an active process, but an interactive one’. That means that reading is not simply

looking at what has been written, translating graphemes to phonemes and reading

aloud but rather understanding what has been written, interpreting visual information

and extracting meaning from writing in relation to one’s existing knowledge.

Furthermore, Penny Ur (1996) defines reading as ‘reading and understanding’.

A foreign language learner who says ‘I can read the words but I don’t know what they

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mean is no, therefore, reading in this sense. He or she is merely decoding – translating

written symbols into corresponding sounds’ (1996:138). As Williams (1984:2) put it

‘the key word is ‘understand’ – merely reading aloud without understanding does not

count as reading’. In the reading process, the reader interacts dynamically with the

text as he/she tries to understand and elicit the meaning by using two kinds of

knowledge, linguistic knowledge (through bottom-up processing) as well as schematic

knowledge (through top-down processing). All these show that the nature of reading

is complex. It’s not just pronouncing words correctly but reading in a meaningful

way, getting something from the text, understanding its aim, working on it

interactively and developing integrated skills. It is not simply a matter of taking out

(information, opinion, enjoyment) it also involves contributing (attitudes, experience

and prior knowledge). A text may therefore be seen as a focus for an interactive

relationship between the writer’s ‘reality’ and the reader’s ‘reality’.

The most recent model of reading, the interactive one, combines top-down and

bottom-up processes. In the bottom – up view, the reader works from information

provided initially by letter and word recognition, later using higher level cues to build

up an understanding of the writer’s message. This is also known as data – driven

model, because the process is based principally on perceptual information. On the

other hand, there are the top down models, regarded as concept – driven, where the

process is based principally on conceptual information. According to David E. Eskey

(1988), the interactive model does not presuppose the primacy of bottom – up or top –

down processing skills but rather posits a constant interaction between bottom – up

and top-down processing in reading, each source of information contributing to a

comprehensive reconstruction of the meaning of the text. Good reading – that is,

fluent and accurate reading – can result only from a constant interaction between

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these processes. Eskey defines ‘interactive’ referring to the interaction between

information obtained by means of bottom – up decoding and information provided by

means of top-down analysis, both of which depend on certain kinds of prior

knowledge and certain kinds of information processing skills. William Grabe (1991)

mentions that, in general the term ‘interactive approach’ can refer to two different

conceptions. First, it can refer to general interaction which takes place between the

reader and the text. Second, the term can refer to the interaction of many component

skills potentially in simultaneous operation. The interaction of these cognitive skills

leads to fluent reading comprehension. Thus, reading involves both lower-level rapid

automatic identification skills and higher-level comprehension/interpretation skills

(Carrell 1988b; 1989a; Esken, 1986; Esken & Grabe, 1988).

This learner-centered approach gives focus to the process of reading rather

than to the product of reading, and seeks to foster self-reliance and independence of

the reader rather than teacher-dependence, as in the case of previous, older

approaches. Through this modern approach learners can become more strategic

readers and can cultivate life-long reading habits instead of employing solely short-

term reading strategies. This is done because the emphasis throughout this approach is

on the conceptual frame of content and students’ personal response to it, by means of

using the text as vehicle of information (TAVI), rather that as a linguistic object

(TALO). Johns and Davies (1983) make an important distinction between what they

call TALO (text as linguistic object) and TAVI (text as vehicle for information). In

TALO the text is a carrier for the teaching of language, grammar, vocabulary, but

contributes very little to the development of learner’s reading skills. TAVI approach

adopts the notion of “topic-type” (Davies 1982 & 1983), as a basis for analyzing the

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semantic content of texts and this provides a framework for classroom interaction,

group work or pair work before, during and after the reading of the actual text. TAVI

aims at the development of generalizable and transferable strategies of meaning

reconstruction and helps readers become autonomous, competent and efficient while

working towards successful reading comprehension. The mix of skills and knowledge

(bottom – up and top – down) will naturally vary from reader to reader, but the model

can account for and accommodate this.

So, an interactive model of reading assumes that skills at all levels are

interactively available to process and interpret the text. This model incorporates the

implications of reading as an interactive process, that is, the use of background

knowledge, expectations and context and simultaneous recognition of letters and

words. According to Rumelhart (1977) and Hill and Larson (1983), the reader starts

with the perception of graphic cues, but as soon as these are recognized as familiar,

schemata derived from both linguistic knowledge of the world in general are brought

into play.

As previously mentioned, efficient and effective foreign language reading

requires both top-down and bottom-up strategies operating interactively (Rumelhart,

1977, 1980; Sanford and Garrod 1981; Eskey and Grabe 1986; Carrell 1988). In

practice, vocabulary development and word recognition have been recognized as

crucial to successful bottom – up decoding skills. Unlike traditional views of

vocabulary, current theories converge on the notion that a given word does not have a

fixed meaning, but rather has a variety of meanings around a ‘prototypical’ core and

that these meanings interact with context and background knowledge. Thus,

knowledge of vocabulary entails knowledge of the schemata in which a concept

participates. As a result, an important part of teaching background knowledge is

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teaching the vocabulary related to it and conversely, teaching vocabulary also means

teaching new concepts, new knowledge, new schemata. Through this process, the

reader’s old knowledge of the world and long-term memory is triggered and

stimulated to bring forth the appropriate “schema” for the relevant situation. A

schema, as defined by Williams and Moran (1989:217) is ‘an abstract structure

representing concepts stored in memory’ or according to Anderson and Pearson

(1988:39) ‘an active organization of past reactions or past experience’. The activation

of the proper schema prior and during the reading process is a crucial step towards

comprehension.

Hudson (1982) found that schema production, that is, top-down processing, is

very much implicated in foreign language reading and that schemata can override

language proficiency as a factor in comprehension. That means a slight emphasis

should be given on teaching techniques and strategies which can help students make

more effective use of the top – down processing mode, by activating background

knowledge based on the ‘schema theory’. The greater the background knowledge a

reader has of a text’s content area, the better the reader will comprehend the text

(Pearson, Hansen and Gordon 1979; Taylor 1979; Stevens 1980).

The notion of prior knowledge influencing reading comprehension suggests

that meaning does not rest solely in the printed word but that the reader brings certain

knowledge to the reading that influences comprehension. In other words, meaning is

not inherent in the text; readers bring their own meaning to what they read based on

what they expect from the text and their previous knowledge. It is the interaction of

these existing concepts with the new information provided by a reading text that is

said to constitute what we refer to as comprehension and it is that active participation

of the learner’s mind in the form of schema activation which is essential for

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comprehension to be achieved. As Anderson et al (1977:369) put it ‘every act of

comprehension involves one’s knowledge of the world as well’.

Schema theory research (P. Carrell and Eisterhold) has shown the importance

of background knowledge within a psycholinguistic model of reading, placing the

readers in the centre of the process. The readers have to use their culture-specific

background knowledge, and not only their linguistic competence, in order to get the

meaning from a text. This background knowledge will enable the student to

comprehend a text at a reasonable rate and keep him involved in the written material

in spite of its syntactic difficulty (Coady 1979: 12). This knowledge coupled with the

ability to make linguistic predictions, determines the expectations the readers will

develop prior to reading and as they read.

Indeed comprehending words, sentences and entire texts involves more than

just relying on one’s linguistic knowledge. Zhang (1993) compares comprehension

process to hypothesis testing, where the reader arrives at the main idea after revising

the initial hypothesis, provided the reader has adequate background knowledge. This

means that foreign language readers may stumble on cultural references, which first

language readers take for granted, and this can create impediments in their process of

comprehension. Foreign language readers may sometimes fail to understand a text,

even though they have adequate vocabulary knowledge, just because they cannot link

what they are reading to something they already know. As Anderson notes ‘without

some schema into which it can be assimilated, an experience is incomprehensible, and

therefore, little can be learnt from it’ (1977: 429).

At this point it is useful to draw a distinction between ‘formal schemata’

which have to do with background knowledge of the format, rhetorical organizational

structures of different types of texts, and “content schemata”, relating to the

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background knowledge of the content area of a text (Carrell 1983b, Carrell and

Eisterhord 1988:79). According to Williams and Moran (1989:217) a similar concept

to that of a content schema is “script”, as the term has been used (by Schank and

Anderson to 1977) to describe the patterns though which the various routines of

everyday life come to be associated with. Orasanu (1986) explicates the notion of

“schema” which can be thought of as a framework containing slots to be filled by

incoming text information. For example, if a reader is presented with a text about

going on vacation, he or she would likely have a slot in the vacation schema for

packing a suitcase. Text statements about folding clothes or carrying bags could then

fill the slot. If a reader did not have a vacation schema with a “suitcase-packing slot”

the information about clothes and bags might not be readily understood (p. 118).

Carrell (1984b, 1987) and Carrell & Eisherhold (1983) have investigated

thoroughly the usefulness of the notion of schema theory for second language reading

and have found that activating content information plays a major role in students’

comprehension and recall of information from text, especially for less proficient

students, who need support both at a word and content level. As Patricia L. Carrell

(1983b) puts it, ‘we must strive for an optimum balance between the background

knowledge presupposed by the texts our students read and the background knowledge

our students actually possess’. Carrell (1986b) has also argued that a lack of schema

activation is one major source of processing difficulty with second foreign language

readers.

All the above mentioned theory has some implications in the teaching practice.

It becomes obvious that teachers must use a balanced approach to teaching reading by

incorporating both top - down and bottom - up processes and prepare the students for

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what they will encounter in terms of content and language. The immediate goal of

EFL reading teachers should be to minimize reading difficulties and to maximize

comprehension by providing all the necessary, linguistically and culturally relevant

information, in order to avoid having students read material “cold”. The reading

teacher can play a crucial role in the students’ developing (or failing to develop)

foreign language reading skills and can have a major effect on whether students will

perform successfully in the reading lesson. It is the teacher who must create the world

of reading in a class, stimulate interest in reading, project his or her enthusiasm, make

the subject matter appealing and help students realize the real value of reading. It is

also the teacher who must choose, modify or create appropriate materials for students

with varied needs and purposes to ensure their improvement in reading. The teacher

must also introduce and provide practice in useful reading strategies for coping with

texts in a foreign, unfamiliar language. Furthermore, it is the teacher who must

provide students with feedback and serve as an all-purpose reference tool to resolve

uncertainties and help readers work towards the ultimate goal of acquiring proper

reading habits. From all the above, it becomes obvious that, nowadays foreign

language reading teachers face many challenges in the classroom. Teaching students

how to utilize the skills and knowledge that they bring from their first language,

developing vocabulary skills, teaching reading strategies and improving reading

comprehension are some of the elements that teachers must consider in preparing for

an EFL reading class.

According to William Grabe (1991), reading instruction should be taught in

the context of a content-centered, integrated skills manner. This should be done

because content provides learner with motivation and purposeful activities. Further

more, specific skills and strategies should be given high priority depending on the

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educational context, students’ needs and teaching objectives. These elements should

not be disregarded by the teacher during a reading lesson.

One way of facilitating a reader’s interaction with the text and providing

orientation to context and content is through various kinds of text-related tasks. The

idea that there are three main types of reading activity, those which precede

presentation of the text, those which accompany it, and those which follow it, is now a

common feature of discourse about reading (Wallace 1992; Wallace 1988; Williams

1984). For this reason, to establish a purpose and achieve its aims, a reading lesson

should be planned in a pre-, while and post reading framework, in order to build

background knowledge, practice reading skills within the reading texts themselves

and engage in comprehensive instruction.

In a pre-, while and post reading framework embodying the TAVI method,

where the text concentrates on information rather than language, on overall meaning

rather than points of detail, the activities undertaken before the text is handled are of

crucial importance. These activities work towards the text and act as direction-finders,

awakening interest, establishing the purpose for which the text is to be read, the sort

of information that may be found in it and the value that information that may have

for students. In other words, the pre-reading stage supplies something like the

“situational context” and helps students get into the mood for dealing with the text

successfully. For the foreign language reader who is often insecure, pre-reading

strategies are even more important than they are for the native reader and the teacher

must therefore coach the students in their use. Thus, the pre-reading stage, if

conducted in a serious manner, provides a crucial information basis for the next stages

of the reading lesson (that is the while and the post) and creates the conditions for a

successful reading lesson.

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Unfortunately, while most teachers implement the pre- while and post-reading

phase in their lessons, many of them do not acknowledge the vital role of the pre-

reading stage and –in practice- they tend to devote less time than necessary or even

omit it completely, urging students to deal directly with the text without any previous

preparation. In the absence of any preparatory activities, students are left on their own

devices in the most important activity of all: the puzzling out of what the text means.

This inevitably makes them feel unprepared and, thus, insecure. For this reason

emphasis should be put in the pre-reading stage as it is an integral part of the reading

lesson which prepares learners for what is to come, gives them the basis to build upon

and vastly influences the final outcome of the reading lesson. In the Chapter that

follows the value and virtues of the pre-reading stage are presented and analyzed.

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