TESL 0130 Unit 1 Reflection

(Source: http://clipart-library.com/clipart/pT7r5nBac.htm)

Unit 1 "Contextualizing Content: What Does Reading Involve?" made me think about what reading is. Reading is the act of creating meaning from the symbols, however, to make sense of those symbols, one must have a grasp of the language, vocabulary and the way the sentences are constructed. Reading is definitely more than just knowing grammar and words, it is a complex concept. 

McCullough, G. "What 80% Comprehension Feels Like" (2016) does an excellent job of explaining what this feels like in reality. I found that 80% is extremely frustrating because you can get so much of the text, but you’re still fairly clueless about it. Generally speaking, you’ll know the topic, but fully understand virtually none of the details discussed. I think the words used in the text does not really exist so can not use the dictionary to find the meaning. However, even if these are the real words, I would be hard to pick up dictionary after every two words.

This exercise made me think about the feeling of the language learners and their difficulty. No wonder some of the learners quit or lose confidence. This is why it is important that the teacher provides the students with appropriate reading material which can challenge the learners without making them lose confidence.

I learned that teacher needs to take a lot of things into consideration while helping students with their reading skill such as their background knowledge, their needs, and their culture plays an important role as well. I look forward to completing this course to get more insights into it.


References

H. Brown, H. L. (2015). Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy. White Plains, NY: Pearson Education, Inc. .

McCullough, G. (2016). What 80% Comprehension Feels Like. Retrieved from https://allthingslinguistic.com/post/155043761501/what-80-comprehension-feels-like