INSTRUCTION: Read the text and answer the item.

READING AS PROCESS

A reader-centered approach is evidenced in reading instruction which focuses, first, on what the reader brings to reading in schematic world knowledge and language knowledge and, second, on their ability and willingness to draw on productive strategies in the course of reading. More traditional reading pedagogy emphasized comprehension in the form of the presentation of text followed by post-reading questions on the text. Process approaches attend, first, to the need to prime the reader with new knowledge or prompt the reader to recover existing knowledge (in advance of reading the text) and, second, to make maximum use of cognitive and linguistic resources during text processing. This involves providing 'pre-reading' tasks (such as brainstorming, semantic mapping, true-false or agree-disagree tasks), as well as 'while-reading' tasks (such as margin prompts, encouraging the linking or cross-referencing of one part of a text to another, or encouraging first skim readings followed by closer, more focused ones). Many contemporary coursebooks (e.g. Rossner 1988; Murphy and Cooper 1995) offer a range of such tasks.

A key principle in the design of these tasks is the encouragement of flexible and reflective reading. Flexibility might be promoted by devising tasks encouraging readers to read a range of texts in different ways (e.g. a close detailed reading for some genres and a scanned and later more focused reading for others). Reflective reading, where the reader is engaged with the text, might be encouraged by the interspersion of questions or prompts during the text to encourage interrogation of text. More recent studies of reader strategies (e.g. Janzen and Stoller 1998) invite readers to reflect more specifically on their own reading strategies and to judge the effectiveness of those of other readers.

(WALLACE, C. Reading. In: Carter, R. and Nunan, D. (Eds.) Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. 2001, Cambridge, CUP.)

Considering what the author says about reading as a process, mark T for the true statements and F for the false ones.

( ) In a reader-centered approach, the tasks encourage the students to reflect, thus they become actively involved in the process.

( ) If the students reflect on what they are doing, they probably will feel encouraged.

( ) Process approaches are not suitable for beginners because students must have existing knowledge of the foreign language.

( ) Reader-centered approaches rely heavily on what the student brings to the classroom, both in terms of language (native and foreign) and all other experiences.

Mark the correct sequence.