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Reading Aloud Technique | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5946 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes  Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 25 of 70 18 November 2011 at 6:02pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Often this is the case, but every story has to introduce new elements, or it's not really going to develop. There will always be stuff that cannot be anticipated in advance, and this is certainly not news -- as biki2 says, it's accepted as a truism in broadcasting.
I never said it was a bad thing -- my point is that many people mistake it for a trivial exercise. If you want to use it as an exercise, it is good to be clear in your own mind on why you're doing it. I do have a problem with it being used in the classroom, as I find many teachers believe it is nothing more than a test of reading ability, or as a way of combining comprehension practice with speaking practice. I hope it's clear from what I and others have written here that this isn't helpful. But again, that doesn't mean reading aloud is bad if it's done with a realistic aim. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| fiziwig Senior Member United States Joined 4800 days ago 297 posts - 618 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 26 of 70 18 November 2011 at 6:39pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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My personal experience with getting the intonation right is that it is not difficult because, when I get the intonation wrong on the first try, which I often do I go back and read the sentence again, correcting what I got wrong the first time.
It's very simple. I'm not reading it live over the air, or recording it for mass distribution. I'm reading aloud to myself in the privacy of my own home and nobody else will ever hear me reading it, so it's perfectly OK for me to make mistakes. In fact it's perfectly OK to make LOTS of mistakes, and to read the same sentence several times before getting it right. Some sentences which I found to be tongue twisters I probably read aloud a dozen or more times in a row before being satisfied that I could pronounce it properly. If I were called upon to read the first Harry Potter book in public now, I could probably do it pretty well. Not because I can anticipate the necessary intonations, but because I've rehearsed it and I'm now pretty familiar with the text. And if I made a mistake, I'd just go back and correct it on the fly. Normal day-to-day use of language is always subject to errors. Fluency is not when you've eliminated all errors from your speech, but when you've gotten them down to about the same rate of errors made by a native speaker. And, yes, I DID go back and correct about 6 or 8 typos in this very post, in my native language, before clicking "Post Rely". Given my rate of goof-ups in my native English I'm not going to sweat some occasional fleeting intonation errors in Spanish. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6485 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 27 of 70 19 November 2011 at 7:43am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I second this. I hate being forced to read out loud in front of a lot of other students when I'm a beginner. But what I hate even more is listening to other beginners read out loud. By myself is ok. Alone with the teacher is ok. But leave the classroom out of it please! 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| slucido Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Spain https://goo.gl/126Yv Joined 6610 days ago 1296 posts - 1781 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan* Studies: English | Message 28 of 70 19 November 2011 at 12:07pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
You are too shy and miss oportunities to improve. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5365 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 29 of 70 19 November 2011 at 12:38pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Are we talking about reading aloud in general or reading just novels aloud? I don't think anybody can really object to the idea of reading aloud in the target language. I don't think that it's even worth speaking of "the reading aloud technique". And it probably isn't a good idea to have a class of 25 people read aloud simultaneously or one by one.
Although I'm strongly in favour of reading aloud in general, I question the emphasis on novels. Not that it is ineffective or harmful. I agree with all the positive things that have been said about the acquisition of grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation. And reading aloud can be a very enjoyable experience in itself. My minor criticism is that the language of many novels may be far removed from the spoken language. I think that there are other kinds of reading material that one should consider as well. For example, newspaper articles are a wonderful source of contemporary vocabulary and current usage. A lot of articles contain direct quotes of spoken language. There is no lack of interesting non-fiction that could be read aloud. What about history books? For example, I've just finished reading a book on Spanish grammar in Spanish. I found it very useful to read entire passages aloud just to become familiar with a way of talking about language in Spanish. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5946 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 30 of 70 19 November 2011 at 3:09pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Ok, well what about a negative thing then? Fluent reading doesn't actually involve reading every single word. Most languages encode a certain level of redundancy, and a sentence can be understood without understanding every individual word. It has been claimed that most fluent (native) readers don't actively process the prepositions, for example. Instead the eye simply spots a preposition (word-shape recognition based almost entirely on size) and fills it in based on the reader's own internal model of the language. I can't cite the reference for this, unfortunately, but did I have one student who was a perfect example -- he read with natural pacing and flow, but he always changed the prepositions, and the prepositions he used were the ones he wouold have used if he was making the sentences himself. I had another student who consistently read "attitude" as "actitood" (she was Spanish). The natural way of reading doesn't actually help a lot with grammar or vocabulary. (Note: as before, I'm not saying that reading aloud is bad, just that there are several variables you should take into account, and that you should only do it for the right reasons.)
Edited by Cainntear on 19 November 2011 at 3:09pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5316 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 31 of 70 19 November 2011 at 4:09pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
What kind of opportunities to improve are you thinking about? What is there to learn from reading a text you never saw before in front of an audience? Give me a few seconds with the text, let me read ahead and get the feel of the sentence and then, maybe, I'll be able to read the sentence correctly to the class, but it doesn't happen like that -- instead, you are asked to read ineptly a sentence you have never seen before in front of students who have nothing to gain from hearing your pathetic, inadequate attempt. But if I'm mistaken, do tell me what opportunity I'm missing because as far as I can tell, it's reading to the class that's a missed opportunity. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5365 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 32 of 70 19 November 2011 at 4:10pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I see nothing negative about reading aloud. I don't understand why "The natural way of reading doesn't help with a lot with grammar and vocabulary". As I and many others have said, reading aloud is an excellent idea. If some people find reading aloud more stressful than enjoyable, than they should do something else. I don't see anything to debate about.
Really, my interest is more in the choice of reading material. Edit: I can't for the life of me think of anything negative to say about reading aloud except that it might disturb the neighbours on the bus. I don't see any difference between reading an example sentence in a textbook and reading ten sentences on a page. Edited by s_allard on 19 November 2011 at 6:32pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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