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!