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Is comprehension measurable? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5432 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes  Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 41 of 211 09 August 2014 at 12:03am | IP Logged | |||||
I have no objection to such a scale. Actually, it makes me think of why not use the six-level CEFR scale? Then we could just say Reading comprehension A1 or C2. Something to think about. I personally like to keep it simple. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6599 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 42 of 211 09 August 2014 at 12:39am | IP Logged | |||||
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But this is anything but simple, as the materials have to be taken into account. So you're A2 if you can read A2 materials with C2 comprehension, eh? Too much confusion. It's much more common to use your comprehension percentage to determine your CEFR level than the opposite.
Honestly, don't fix it if it's not broken. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5768 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 43 of 211 09 August 2014 at 2:46am | IP Logged | |||||
I may have mentioned it before, but for Spanish and French, reading newspapers and popular science magazines is relatively easy for somebody who knows English. A2+, I would guess. Reading contemporary novels is more challenging. For Japanese it's exactly the other way around. While it may be possible that this is the only language combination with such a stark difference, or that I am weird for experiencing it that way, I think that either is not very likely. The CEFR is useful if you want to know exactly what a person should be able to do when hiring them for work/accepting them into university or a language class, but I think it is not that useful when it comes to presenting all parts of any given language in the order any given individual would learn them in. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6599 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 44 of 211 09 August 2014 at 3:11am | IP Logged | |||||
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I've seen similar experiences with Korean here on HTLAL. Also, reading newspapers is relatively difficult in Finnish too, as again there are much fewer international words, like those that end in -tion/-zione/ción. Many equivalents are formed out of native roots.
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5432 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 45 of 211 09 August 2014 at 4:14am | IP Logged | |||||
I read Le monde, El pais, El mundo and other papers every day. To say that this is relatively easy for somebody who knows English and has an A2 level in French or Spanish is for me very intriguing and frankly hard to believe. Reading is one thing. The real question, of course, is what do the readers understand? I'll let other people put percentages on this. In my estimation, our A2 level readers will understand "some" of the newspapers, not more. And I don't see why English is any help at all. But this raises an interesting question: what CEFR level of reading comprehension is necessary to totally understand a given newspaper? For example, is the level of English of the the Guardian is that of, let's say, A2 English and over. I personally think that it is at least a B2 or C1. I frankly don't think that Le monde is written with the A2 French learner in mind. This is one of the top newspapers in the world. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6599 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 46 of 211 09 August 2014 at 12:36pm | IP Logged | |||||
Try reading a newspaper in Finnish or Basque. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5768 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 47 of 211 09 August 2014 at 1:10pm | IP Logged | |||||
Vocabulary. And as Serpent mentioned, internationalisms. With a bit of grit I did manage to read newspapers at the level mentioned. Maybe other people would start a bit later (or earlier, like Iversen). That does not invalidate the point I made about contemporary novels being more difficult for me in these two languages, while in Japanese it is exactly the other way around. ETA: I never said that something was written with '... learner in mind'. Maybe I should have left in the paragraph in which I explained that graded readers baffle me in their choice of vocabulary and expressions, because they often enough explain words that are transparent, while not explaining opaque words that apparently appear in one of the textbooks published by the company that also publishes the graded reader series. Edited by Bao on 09 August 2014 at 1:48pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6599 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 48 of 211 09 August 2014 at 1:39pm | IP Logged | |||||
You're only making the mess worse, imo. Of course it depends on the specific newspaper, the topics, the learner. There are probably Portuguese native speakers who can read newspapers in Spanish but don't consider themselves learners of the language. The expected progression is already a problem with CEFR, as Bao mentioned, and there's no need to make it worse. Many learners can do 1-2 things that are supposed to be above their level, but obviously their overall level is the one where they fulfill 80% of the requirements or more. And yes, for some the thing they can do above their level is reading a newspaper. A2 learners vary, too - an independent learner is more likely to read small chunks of native materials before being "ready", while someone who's taking a class probably won't try to read what isn't required. BTW, how many Canadians can read newspapers in The Other Language but not speak it? In a different thread, you kept saying that comprehension takes care of itself, and speaking is a much bigger challenge. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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