READING IN ENGLISH: THE SPANISH CONTEXT

READING IN ENGLISH: THE SPANISH CONTEXT

Students in Spain today are simply not equipped to face the challenges presented to them by increasingly demanding ESL curricula.  However, the problem is far more acute in Bilingual Schools.  Here, they are not merely expected to respond adequately to English classes, they also have to learn content in this language, which is not their own, with an orthographic system vastly different to that of Spanish.

If we want them to truly be competent communicators in the English language, we cannot be satisfied with students merely achieving the minimum requirements.  They must be exposed to authentic text, both oral and written, beyond the limited and artificial confines of their course books.  We must equip them with the skills that will enable them to transfer what they learn in these course books to the real contexts outside them.  We need to be able to, little by little, remove the scaffolding provided by guided reading, writing, listening and speaking activities so that they can operate ever more autonomously in English.

One of the biggest areas of weakness in ESL didactic programming is the almost complete absence of direct and explicit reading instruction.  “The entire lack of method to assist children in EFL reading ... makes the process difficult and worsens the pronunciation due to L1 grapho-phonemic transfer.” (Lázaro Ibarrola, A., 2007)

This lack could be for two reasons.  One is the assumption on the part of many teachers that students will transfer mother-tongue reading skills to English; the other is that even though teachers are aware of the important role effective reading skills in English plays, they lack the knowledge and skill to implement any kind of reading programme in their English classes.

Let us begin with the first reason. The belief that mother-tongue transference of reading skills, especially from a transparent language such as Spanish, is enough for students to read effectively in English throughout their years at primary level and beyond is erroneous at best. 

The skills that are transferred are foundational and should therefore not be considered sufficient for developing effective reading skills in the English Language.  These skills include, “pre-reading skills of directionality, sequencing, ability to distinguish shapes and sounds, and knowledge that written symbols correspond to sounds and can be decoded in order and direction” (Roberts, Cheryl A.,1994).

Many of these concepts do not need to be taught if students have already started learning to read in L1. However, phonological awareness of English sounds and their relationship to the English alphabetic code should form part of basic reading instruction and should be built on as students progress in this language.  This must be done as early as possible so that by the time students have to make sense of English text in their content textbooks, they have already automatized these lower-level reading skills and can focus more on higher-level reading processes in order to read for comprehension and read to learn.

The skills that can be transferred from L1 are a valuable base upon which to build reading instruction in L2 but they cannot be considered enough for students to effectively navigate their way through a text in the English language and develop their levels of both written and oral proficiency.

Time and space must be found in the curriculum to dedicate to the structured teaching and development of reading skills in the ESL classroom.  For this to be effective and to bear results by the time pupils have to learn content or read literary texts in English, reading programmes must be initiated in the first years of the primary phase.  This must be done rapidly, whilst taking into account the specific contexts within which they are to be implemented, to facilitate the development of reading comprehension skills. The latter can only be done however once students have automatized some basic rules about English orthography.

Before any beginning reading activities can be integrated into the classroom, it is vital that an understanding is gained of the cognitive processes that are at work when we read (Clemente Linuesa, M. and Dominguez Gutierrez, A.B. 1999).  This needs to be related to the beginning reading methodologies currently being used both in Anglophone and Spanish-speaking countries. Special attention needs to be paid to the evolution of approaches to teaching reading in English-speaking countries as it has implications for the development of reading in an ESL context.  Theory is meaningless within any pedagogical context unless it can be used to teach more effectively.

Next time, the cognitive processes that are at work when we read.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Clemente Linuesa, M. and Dominguez Gutierrez, A.B. (1999). La Enseñanza de La Lectura: Enfoque Psicolingüístico y Sociocultural. Madrid. Píramide

Lázaro Ibarrola, Amparo (2007). Enseñanza de La Lectura a Través de Phonics en el Aula de Lengua Extranjera en Educación Primaria. Part Linguarum, 8, 153-167. (available on the internet)

Roberts, Cheryl A. (1994). Transferring Literacy Skills from L1 to L2: From Theory to Practice. The Journal of Educational Issues of Language Minority Students, 13, 209-221. Downloaded on 14 April 2016 from http://www.edtechpolicy.org/ArchivedWebsites/transf13.htm