Entry #4 – reading foreign texts
If one is looking for a way to make an intelligent person
sweat, raise her heart rate, and cause massive amounts of insecurities to flood
her brain, ask her to read a foreign language book. And by read I mean making the text
comprehensible enough to, at the very least, give a brief surface level
summary.
I chose a Japanese fashion magazine because there were lots
of pictures and I was very familiar with the layout. My first noticing was attempting to figure
out which side was the front of the magazine. I noticed larger titles on one side and
something that looked like a table of contents.
This led me to the conclusion that it opened opposite of an English
language magazine. So, my first approach
was to activate any background knowledge and experience I had with this time of
reading material.
Because Japanese is not written with familiar Roman letters
but rather beautifully crafted lines and circles, there was nothing I could
call upon to help me read any of these descriptive words. There were a few Roman letters that I could
understand as meaning sizes such as small, medium, large. I made a few small connections by noticing
that the clothes looked somewhat familiar to American clothing. Other than enjoying the pictures, I was
unable to decipher much more than that.
The next book I chose was written in Spanish and I chose
that as a more accessible text for two reasons.
One, Spanish uses the same letters that English does, and I have a very,
very, very, limited knowledge base of Spanish and thought I might be able to
decode a few of the words to help me figure out the meaning. And, there were a few pictures to support the
text.
The book’s title was, “Fiestas de Cumpleanos Infantiles” and
I deducted that it was a book about different theme parties for children. The pictures and the familiar letters took my
stress level way down. One of my next
strategies was to use the pictures and skim through the book looking for common
themes. There were some bold headings I
could understand such as actividades, which must mean activities. So, I looked for English words embedded
within the Spanish words.
As we were discussing in class about our experiences, I
noticed how easy it was to revert back to very basic, simplistic words such as
things and stuff because my Spanish vocabulary is so limited. I felt some level of success with this text
although I certainly could not have planned a successful, fun party by using
this text alone.
The strategies I used for both texts were activating
background knowledge, relying on picture clues, looking for familiar words
within larger words and making connections with personal experiences. This experience taught me how important it is
for a teacher to front load an Ell learner with vocabulary and to scaffold
reading using a variety of strategies.
