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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
Serpent
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 Message 9 of 14
02 July 2015 at 5:26am | IP Logged 
I'm one of those that tends to warn people against reading aloud, at least when someone gets a new book and decides to read it aloud for 20 min every day. If you only have 20 min a day for reading, spending all this time reading aloud is a waste of time. It can also lead to burnout easily.

Also, barring an extreme situation, you shouldn't be your own main source of aural input.

garyb wrote:
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.

I had a silent period in Italian and Spanish, and while I can't say I have a perfect pronunciation, I don't think I have any specific bad habits. I have a good mental model of the pronunciation, and I generally know where I sound off.

One obvious way where the disadvantages outweigh the benefits is the speed and immersive reading. Well, the latter might be just me (although I remember Cavesa posting something similar).
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Serpent
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 Message 10 of 14
02 July 2015 at 5:50am | IP Logged 
Also, while reading about subvocalization, I came across the idea that when we think we're bored of reading, we're often bored of our own voice. At least for me this totally applies to reading aloud as well. I've found it boring ever since I learned to read silently. Of course there are exceptions (such as the Moomins - my friend even felt like reading them aloud in L1 while pregnant).

My current favourite technique to improve the pronunciation while reading is to pronounce things in a different language to avoid subvocalization.

Edited by Serpent on 02 July 2015 at 7:13am

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Amerykanka
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 Message 11 of 14
02 July 2015 at 6:48am | IP Logged 
I personally find reading aloud very useful in improving fluidity of speech, if not necessarily pronunciation.
Even if the sentences are not of my own invention, the fact remains that when I read a few pages aloud to
myself, I am forcing my mouth to make the sounds of the TL and this can only lead to an increase in
familiarity and ease of speech. Of course, you do need to have a decent grasp of pronunciation or you will
just end up confusing yourself, and I would never advocate using your own speech as a main source of aural
input. But for someone like me - who lacks frequent opportunities to speak my TLs - reading aloud is a good
way to keep the sounds fresh on my tongue, and I believe that I have benefited a lot from it.

Reading aloud does slow me down, though, which is why I read silently for most of my allotted time. One
thing I will often do is read the dialogue aloud, while reading the narration in silence. This way I get some
practice but I can still maintain a high reading speed.
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tastyonions
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 Message 12 of 14
02 July 2015 at 12:30pm | IP Logged 
I think it's a valuable technique and I enjoy it, especially reading things that have a nice rhythm to them, like poetry or especially well-written prose.

I would advise, though, that when you do read aloud, you always read at least at a normal conversational volume. Kind of mumbling or half-saying words while reading aloud is not good practice and may even lead to bad pronunciation habits, in my experience.
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Cavesa
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 Message 13 of 14
02 July 2015 at 3:15pm | IP Logged 
I personally dislike reading aloud as I find it
1. slow. Normal reading makes me immersed both in the language and the story, reading out loud destroys that.
2. not that useful. Unlike repeating after audio (or some people prefer shadowing), reading out loud doesn't provide me with immediate comparison to a native speaker, which I find crucial in the beginnings. Later on, it doesn't matter that much, true.
3. a matter of personal tastes. Just like the distinction intensive vs.extensive readers and srs and non-srs people, it is about one's preferences. If it works for you despite the troubles (or you don't perceive them as troubles), good for you. If it doesn't, leave it.


But:
-I like other kinds of exercise being done out loud. I do most grammar exercises out loud to strenghten the memory. But when I am reading, I am not trying to remember the book as a set of examples, I am trying to get immersed.
-I love repeating after audio, course audio at first, real songs, tv dialogue etc. later. I find it extremely useful as I try to mimic the native.
-I love reading per se, it is one of the best things one can do to progress in a language.
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Speakeasy
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 Message 14 of 14
02 July 2015 at 7:38pm | IP Logged 
Not for Everyone
I see that the discussion is becoming rather wide-ranging. So, I’m going to jump in with a rather irrelevant comment. While I cannot add to the reasons either for or against reading aloud as a technique for learning a language, I can explain why it does not, and cannot, work for me. I fully realize that my situation is somewhat of an exception; that is, I’m horribly dyslexic. When reading, my eyes jump back-and-forth across small clusters of words while my brain attempts to digest the very limited information that they convey. I cannot anticipate what the remainder of a sentence will bring; I simply work through small, isolated, groups and try to connect them together. It can take me several passes to read a rather simple sentence; reading complex sentences having multiple inter-dependent clauses requires a fair investment of time and energy.

Cheaters DO Prosper
For a period of some 30 years, my professional duties required of me that I make presentations, supported by visual aids such as an overhead projector. I quickly developed two “cheating” mechanisms for my presentations: (1) I prepared my acetates with very short groups of words, say, no more than five words per line-item, and (2) in cases where I included more extended text, say, a quote from a newspaper article, I adopted the practice of encouraging the audience to read the text silently, to absorb it, and to reflect upon its significance in the context of my presentation, thereby saving me the embarrassment of reading it aloud.

Some People NEVER Learn
For me, “reading aloud” in any language is simply out of the question. Nonetheless, a few years ago, I attempted this technique in an effort to improve my German. Well, I should have known better!




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