May 11. Schema and Background Knowledge in L2 Comprehension

[ The topic of the Journal ]
Does a schema activate your reading process? Talk about your case episode how schema helps your reading or no schema retards your reading.

When I prepared TOFEL test last year, I realized the importance of schema. At that time, I had many difficuties reading TOFEL reading materials for some reasons. Among them, What made me mostly frustrated was various topics or fields of reading materials. Especially, I felt hard to understand the essay about science and art. I still remember the essay about botany which made me frustrated. Even I did not know the term 'botany', and I had no any ideas about that. Additionally, the essay containd many technical terms and professional knowledge. It was beyond my capacity. To solve this problem, my teacher give me a summary which contanins many botany terms and important knowledge in the field. Surprisingly, I felt easier to read botany essay after reading the summary. It helped me develop my shema about botany and activated my backgoruond knowledge. Throughout this episode, I realized how schma helps read and understand reading in deed.

March 30. Reading for Plain Sense

[ The Topic of the Journal ]
Summarize what you have learned about discourse markers. Tell us how much do you care discourse markers (consciously, unconsciously)when you read English texts?



I have learned about discourse markers in the chapter. Discourse markers are cohesive devices. They help readers to work out the meaning of difficult text. These markers have three main functions. First, they signal the sequence in which reported events occurred. Second, they signal the writer's manner of organizing the discourse. This type of markers function re-expressing, specifying, reffering and so on. Third, discourse markers signal the writer's view of the facts. They contain the fuctions of additive, adversative, causal and disjuncts. I usually give my attention a lot to discourse markers when I read Enlish texts. As I said before, I look over English test fast in the beginnig of reading. While I scan the text, I try to check all discoure marker in the text to understand stream of the text. Checking discourse markers helps me recognize main and supporting ideas and the change of writer's stance about topic. Therefore, I frequnetly use and care discourse markers.

March 23. Word Attack Skills

[ The Topic of the Journal ]
Think about how well you have trained word attack skills to effectively use three strategies (p.66-73) in English class throughout your secondary school years. What strategies were more highlighted? Or what strategies were ignored? Tell us how you want to teach word attack skills to your students in the future.



When I was a high school student, I had little vocabulary knoweldge. So I had a difiiculty reading some English materials which contain low frequency words a lot. At that time, I tried to seek unkown words using a dictionary. However, looking every unknown words, even if they are not important in reading content, is very time-consuming. Recongising the problem of using a dictionary, I tried to infer the meaning of words from morphology and context. Firstly, I studied the ways in which sompound words are made and the meaning of various affixations. It really helped me to predict meaning of unknown words. And then, I tired to infer words from context. I looked for clues to predict unkwon words in prior and next sentence of the part I was reading. It made me not only learn many words but also read carefully thinking about the connections between sentences. However, I did not use structural clues to learn words because I could not fully understand grammar to construct sentence. I will teach words attack skills to my students with activities. I will provide students with reading materials helping develop words attack skills.

March 16. Learning to Recognise and Spell Words

[ The Topic of the Journal ]
Suppose your younger brother, nine year old, does not read in English yet, so your mother decided to send him to Hakwon. But 3 months later he ended up feeling that English is simply nightmare. He hates doing phonics workbook and memorizing words. He doesn't want to go to Hakwon anymore. Your mother is anxoius and worried about your brother, so asks you how to help him enjoy reading in English? What would you say?



I think learning phonics is important in learning English. Phonics help learners to recognize words and read. So many Hakwons and their techers teach phonics to young children. However, most activities to teach phonics are boring because they are simply repeting the target sounds without meaning and context. To make them fun and useful, teachers need to use story books, chant songs, and activities. For example, teachers can use a dice game in which three students roll a dice one by one to make a new word contains three sounds. If the sounds are 'p', 'u', 'b', the new word is 'pub'. After teacher reads the new word correctly, students repeat it. Because the new word was made by activity and students themselves, studnets are motivated and interested in read the word.

March 9. What is Reading?

[ The Topic of the journal ]
Reading must be the interaction of many variables in the reading process. What kinds of reading interaction have you experienced? Think about your reading process and try to apply your thought into any interaction model introduced in this chapter.

I think I am both a top-down reader and a bottom-up reader. When I strat reading, I firstly look at the title of reading material. Thinking about the title, I predict genre, topic and purpose of reading materials. And I also try to see what content is going to be while I am reading. If the content is familiar with me, I recall my background knowledge or shema about the content. This makes me raed fast. Someteimes I can not fully understand reading material using only a top-down approach. For this reason, I use a bottom-up approah too. If there is a difficult sentence, I try to interpretate sentence carefully and look a dictionary. But this is time-consuming and inefficient. Therefore, I usaully use two approaches at the same time. Firstly, I look at the title and subtitle thinking what is a main topic. And I read fast underlining the sentences which are difficult to understand. After I get main idea and knowledge, I read underlined sentences carefully. I believe this reading process makes me read efficiently and effectively.

March 2. What is Reading?

[ The Topic of the journal ]
Based on Actvity 1.2 what do you usally read in English? List up all the cases in which you read texts in English. ex) cereal boxes, street signs, textbooks etc. And also in your future what texts will you be able to read in English in what situations? ex) business emails, TIME magazines etc.




I usally read textbooks and learning materilas in English becuase my second major is English education. And I sometimes read news articles and direction or instruction for setting some computer programs in English. However, I seldom read English literature such as novel, eassay and poem. Honestly, I am not interested in reading content written in English. But, I think I will have to read research reports or business documents in English. Because English will become a common language more and more in the filed of various job, I will read many documents realted to work in English.