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What’s so wrong with reading aloud?

  Tags: Reading
 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies Post Reply
14 messages over 2 pages: 1 2  Next >>
sfuqua
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 Message 1 of 14
01 July 2015 at 3:05am | IP Logged 
There have been a couple of threads I could find with a search on the utility of reading aloud. I found it to be helpful when I was learning Samoan and Tagalog.
I was kind of surprised by the many people with negative views of this as a way to practice. Recently I've experimented with it for Spanish, and I like its effects so far. Spanish spelling is regular enough that a learner should be able to approximate the pronunciation of an unfamiliar word just by looking at it.

When you read aloud from a good book, you need to concentrate on the individual words more than you do when reading silently, so that you can pronounce them. You get the experience of having the language "flow through you" for a big chunk of time. I find that right after an hour of reading aloud, Spanish is just "tipping off my tongue" for a while. Having Spanish echoing in your head and tipping off your tongue probably is a sign of learning. If I can read aloud with dramatic pacing,gestures, and intonation, I can get pretty far into the story, where for a while it will all seem more real than normal life.

I guess some people have had bad experiences in school, but I think I'm going to make reading aloud a big piece of the next phase of my Spanish study.

Is this a bad idea?

Edited by sfuqua on 01 July 2015 at 3:08am

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Kavakos
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 Message 2 of 14
01 July 2015 at 7:48am | IP Logged 
Reading aloud doesn't work for me personally, but if it works for you, go for it! :-)

When I read silently in English, the process going on in my head is "see the word -
hear the word - know the word". When I read in another language, the middle step is
thrown out. The process is "see the word - know the word". So in my TLs, reading is
faster - assuming I don't need to grab a dictionary of course. I think it's common for
people to "hear" the words in their heads while they read (especially in their native
language) probably because we learn to read by reading aloud in school.

So that's one reason why I don't read aloud in my TLs. I don't want to get in the
habit of "see the word - hear the word - know the word" and read slower.

Also, I know that when I read aloud in English, I personally don't pay attention to
what I'm reading. I'm exerting way more energy on articulating everything well and
using exciting/appropriate intonation. So that's another reason I don't read aloud. If
I want to practice articulation or intonation, I prefer to shadow audio. It's more
precise and efficient.
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1e4e6
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 Message 3 of 14
01 July 2015 at 8:30am | IP Logged 
I read aloud but more of a means of using it as a time to practise pronunciation whilst
simultaneously linking orthography and seeing the word with its proper pronunciation. I
cannot see how this is not but a good idea, unless of course, one is in public and in a
busy library or subway train where speaking to oneself is probably not advised.
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tangleweeds
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 Message 4 of 14
01 July 2015 at 10:04am | IP Logged 
I suspect mine is the kind of situation that would lead to negative views. I'm a beginner
in Irish, which has sounds that English doesn't, and the pronunciation of many letters
varies by context (not to mention dialect). So learning to read aloud without supervision
could easily result in frustratingly many ingrained mispronunciations.

This is why I'm considering a tutor already, though I'm not up to conversation practice
yet. Practicing reading aloud with supervision and corrections seems like a great way to
work on both my pronunciation and reading skills, before I'm able to make conversation on
my own.

But in French, which I learned when young, I effortlessly hear a voice speaking the words
in French as I move my eyes across the text (with a much better accent than mine!). Now I'm
thinking about it, reading aloud in French might be interesting and beneficial.

I don't think there's anything wrong with hearing a voice in your head as you read, unless
you're attempting to speed-read. I think it's even necessary to hear such a voice to fully
appreciate well-crafted poetry, drama, or prose, at least without some speaker to
read or performing the text aloud.



Edited by tangleweeds on 01 July 2015 at 10:06am

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garyb
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 Message 5 of 14
01 July 2015 at 10:44am | IP Logged 
My main concern with methods like reading aloud and shadowing is ingraining bad habits, but at the end of the day that is hard to avoid whatever you do. Even when I've tried to focus on good pronunciation right from the start I've still picked up a ton of bad habits and had to correct them later, and I'm quite certain that a perfectionist silent-period approach would just delay them rather than avoid them. Unless you have a great ear for pronunciation, you're probably going to pick up mistakes and bad habits that need corrected later on, regardless of your methods and strategies.

So I'd say the benefits of reading aloud (practising speaking and pronunciation at your own pace, getting your mouth more used to the language so it slips off the tongue more easily as the OP describes) probably outweigh that potential disadvantage. I've certainly found it to be a useful component of pronunciation improvement work, alongside other work aimed at improving the prosody and individual sounds.
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ScottScheule
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 Message 6 of 14
01 July 2015 at 5:57pm | IP Logged 
I think it's useful, and I do it at times, but I usually get frustrated because it slows me down too much and go back to silent reading.
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cpnlsn88
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 Message 7 of 14
01 July 2015 at 10:57pm | IP Logged 
I happen to think it's a really good thing to do from time to time. I think it gives you
a feel for phrasing as well as pronunciation and can help fluency. Most of my reading
isn't done this way but I think one gain from doing it from time to time. To that extent
recommend the practice, but not all the time.
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chaotic_thought
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 Message 8 of 14
01 July 2015 at 11:13pm | IP Logged 
I like shadowing but I don't believe it is a pronunciation exercise. Rather, it is a LISTENING and CONCENTRATION exercise:

1. When you are shadowing a text, the parts that trip you up are exactly the parts that you couldn't "hear" correctly. This could also mean that the word is unfamiliar, so you weren't expecting it. If the word IS familiar (for example in your own language), notice that you can listen to a very bad signal (e.g. a noisy television signal where some words are not audible at all) and STILL manage to hear them.

2. If you practice shadowing, each time you try it again you can actually measure your progress (e.g. this time I was only tripped up by 3 words per sentence; last time I was tripped up by 4 or 5 words per sentence).

3. When you shadow you are concentrating fully on the text and words. If you listen or read then it's far too easy just to skip over some words here and there and just imagine that you read them. When you shadow you just can't do that (unless you're just a master at improvisation - but if THATs the case then you're already far ahead of this exercise!)

For sources that don't have audio recordings or if you don't want to use them just read aloud. You get the same benefits as shadowing.


Edited by chaotic_thought on 01 July 2015 at 11:31pm



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