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Wednesday, April 17, 2024

Experiencing L3 Literacy Myself - My Reading Experiment

(This blog post is a continuation of a series on literacy in the language classroom)

Recently, I purchased some novellas for teachers in my department, and among them, I bought a single copy of many novice-level Spanish novellas written by Margarita Perez Garcia for my teachers to peruse for possible future use. Margarita had presented at the virtual Voces Digital Spring Conference about reading, and she mentioned many of her novellas which were written for novice-level students and aligned with the proficiency levels as outlined by the Extensive Reading Foundation. I was very intrigued by the novice-level Spanish novellas which she mentioned in her presentation, especially due to the low headword count in them.

When the novellas arrived, I decided to read them myself. I know very little Spanish, and if you have ever been in a CI/ADI coaching session which I have led, I am ALWAYS the "barometer student" in a Spanish demo. Since these were novice-level Spanish novellas, would I be able to read and to understand them with my limited knowledge of Spanish? The answer is a resounding YES!

Observations

  1. I began with El Ultimo Arbol and then read Mosca, Mosca, Itipuru, Arroz con Cosas, Mosca en Leche, and Juliana in that order due to the headword count. That was very important, because I was able to build up slowly to longer sentences and more vocabulary.
  2. Immediately I could tell that my brain was trying to make some type of sense and meaning of this L3 (Latin is my L2!) into my L1 (English) - what L1 meaning my brain was able to latch onto, it kept; that which it was not able to, it tossed aside. Luckily, due to the frequent repetition of words/phrases and predictable nature of the sentence structures (a key component in any novice readings!), I found that my brain was able to create meaning after awhile.  
  3. In the beginning, there was some degree of decoding happening (i.e., stopping at individual words to look up the L1 meaning in the glossary), since there were many Spanish words which I did not know. However, as I progressed in the novellas, I found that this occurred less and less due to the repetitive nature of sentence structures and vocabulary. 
  4. When reading sentences in Mosca, Mosca like Mosca no tiene talento. Tiene problemas, my first instinct was to translate it as "The fly has no talent. Has problems." In other words, because the first use of tiene had a specific word serving as a subject, I knew to translate tiene as "has" but not specifically as he/she/it has when used the second time without a stated subject. This is exactly what I see my own students do with Latin verbs when there is an understood repeated subject - they will not add in the subject implied with the verb ending. In other words, this is normal in the language acquisition process!
  5. I loved that even though these novellas were novice-level, culture was definitely embedded in them, nor did I feel like the culture was forced into the plot; it seemed very natural.
  6. The plots in these novellas are definitely compelling and engaging! I felt some type of emotional connection to the characters in each of the novellas and truly wanted to know, "Will they succeed in their endeavors?" 
  7. Formatting of the text played a HUGE role in my being able to read the novellas. As a novice-level reader of Spanish, I definitely appreciated in Margarita's early novellas that instead of writing paragraphs, she wrote each sentence as an individual line. This made it so much easier for me to read and kept my affective filter low. This is something which I need to remember with my novice-level students when I create readings. 
  8. When I began reading Juliana, I noticed that the font was now smaller and that the story was written in paragraphs. I will admit that my affective filter rose quite a bit! Now I know how my students feel!
  9. HOWEVER, Margarita has a very specific style of writing which carries through each of her novellas, so while Juliana is formatted in paragraphs and smaller font, the sentences continue to follow her style and the choice of vocabulary from previous novellas. That made the paragraphs very easy to read, Krashen refers to this as narrow reading and states that narrow reading actually is a great way to deliver comprehensible input: "Since each writer has favorite expressions and a distinctive style, and each topic has its own vocabulary and discourse, narrow reading provides built-in review."
  10. I cannot tell you HOW SUCCESSFUL I felt in reading these novellas! Even though they were novice-level readings, I was actually reading Spanish and not translating/decoding but READING!!
  11. I can honestly say that as soon as I finished one of the novellas, I grabbed the next one to read!

Now, I can no way by any means say that I know Spanish as a result of reading these novellas. Nor based on the reading can I say that I acquired any grammar rules. BUT I CAN READ some novice level Spanish with success, and I want to read more! In fact, I had some of the novellas on my classroom desk, and in the last 10 minutes of my 6th period when I had finished teaching, often I would pick up the current novella and read. My Latin students who were heritage Spanish speakers were shocked that I was reading a Spanish book (since they cannot read Spanish even though they speak it at home) - one of them said, "Every day you've been reading a new Spanish book!" What else could I say but that these Spanish novellas were comprehensible and compelling!  

Maximas gratias, Margarita - I look forward to reading more of your novellas!

3 comments:

  1. I love Margarita's books; they are fabulous for beginner Spanish learners!

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  2. I am honoured that you have used my books for your reading experiment and that you mention them here. Your post touched my heart as a teacher and as an author.
    I would like to respond to you here by offering you the reading specialist's point of view to each of your impressions.

    1. You did well to follow that order. I always approach the writing of a book by writing the target vocabulary that my readers should know in order to be able to read the book and from there I try to introduce the vocabulary progressively chapter by chapter. From Mosca, Mosca onwards, the target vocabulary or the important vocabulary to be able to read the story is mentioned at the beginning of the book and is HAY, ES, ESTÁ and TIENE, with about 35 words that are mostly function words. I also add a list of transparent words so that the reader can make the association between those similar words between English and Spanish. This way the reader knows before reading whether he/she is able to read the book or not. I agree with the Extensive Reading Foundation that the number of words is one of the strongest indicators of the complexity of a text, so as an author, I try to publish my numbers including the number of cognates and place the books on the scale of difficulty. I'm glad you started with El último árbol (The Last Tree). For that book I started from scratch, and all the words are introduced gradually. it's really very easy to read.
    2 and 3. Providing support on the site is one of my main goals. I strive to provide a "one-page" reading experience where the reader doesn't have to go to the glossary at the end of the book. And even though I pilot with students with reading disabilities, all reading experiences are different and sometimes the meaning of words doesn't stick at the beginning when they are glossed on the page. I wish I could offer my students a bookmark glossary so they have the vocabulary at their fingertips.
    4. I'm thrilled you saw this. Spanish is really confusing for beginner students because of the tacit subject, so in my writing for beginners I make it explicit the first it appears and then I gradually remove it.

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  3. 5. There are many approaches to culture in graded readers. One that feeds on the "culture sells more" trope consist in featuring one culture theme per chapter: chapter 1: café, chapter 2: salsa, chapter 3: drug traffic (!!!), chapter 4: who knows!
    But culture in a graded reader can go beyond this: the language itself of the mosca series is very cultural. Each book is based on an idiomatic expression and the plot exploit these as well. Again is Mosca, mosca, there are some cultural bits that left us wondering: the corruption of Buitre, the fact that the moscas magníficas only see their future abroad far from the pobre venezuela...
    6. <3
    7. In 2019 I trained in using the Easy-to-Read standard, which is a standard to make reading accessible to people with reading difficulties. I was surprised that we didn't use it in the world language classroom, in schools, where learning difficulties abound. So I started publishing using the Easy-to-Read principles:
    - no more than 15 words per sentence.
    - one idea per line, one sentence per line and if the sentence must break, then break it at a natural "breathing point" where it makes sense.
    - the books must be validated by readers with reading difficulties.
    8. Juliana was my first book, published in 2018, so no Easy-to-Read by then. But I'm still considering publishing a second edition in Easy-to-Read format, with an introduction and more simplification.
    9. I agree, I catch myself using the same turns of phrase and even the same melody. When I'm polishing i read aloud and hear myself reading again and again until I achieve a melody, a pacing that "flows". All very subjective, but I'm sure one can recognise the hand behind the writing.
    10. So happy for you! I learnt English, my L3, through reading. I read between 70-100 books a year. Insomniac!
    11. I would love to send you my next one! <3

    Thank you for your generosity and the kind words. I'm in awe every time that a busy teacher takes the time to leave a review.

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