Journal 7

Topic of the journal
Click the first hyperlink below "Reading Strategy Checklist." Think back your L2 reading habit and mark the strategies you usually use. Write about your reading strategy patterns. Is your reading strategic? how much? why or why not?


My writing
According to the checklist, my reading strategies are these:
Pre-reading
I skim, looking at and thinking about illustrations, photos, graphs, and charts.
I use the five-finger method to see if the book is just right for me.

While-reading
I identify confusing parts and reread them.
I identify unfamiliar words and use context clues figure out their meanings.

Post-reading
I reread parts I enjoy.

But I’m not sure whether I use those strategies really. I’m not a very strategic reader. While I am reading the text book, I just read and summarize what I think that it is important. I set my reading purpose. Sometimes I consider discourse markers. I focus on the main idea.
I’m both reflective and impulsive reader. I ignore some words that are not important to get the main idea. However, I use dictionary or try to infer core vocabulary to understand the topic.
Of course, I use different strategies when I’m taking an IELTS reading test. I read the question first, then, I skin and scan the text to find the contents related to the questions. Finally, I concentrate on the passage and reread again to get the right answer.
Overall, I use diverse strategies and it depends on the purpose of reading. But, the strategies I adjust are not very high level. I need to use higher strategies.

Journal 6

The Topic of the Journal
Pick one of eight text attack skills and review one activity more carefully which are designed to practice the skill. Introduce it on your own word and add your brief comment.


My Writing
Text attack skills
1. Understanding syntax
2. Recognizing and interpreting cohesive devices
3. Interpreting discourse markers
4. Recognizing functional values
5. Recognizing text organization
6. Recognizing the presuppositions underlying the text
7. Recognizing implications and making inferences
8. Prediction

I choose ‘interpreting discourse markers.’ Discourse markers are very useful words that indicate the flow of the text. It helps students to predict easily what is coming next. These markers are very essential to construct the passage cohesively.
Students can guess the right order of the text it is shuffled. Students can infer the right marker where it is omitted. These kinds of activity can grow students’ inference power that can make students predict longer passage.
However, as there are so many discourse markers, it is a problem how we can teach those markers more effectively to learners. Although discourse markers are very effective device to comprehend the text, we have to think about how we can instruct that.

Additional journal

Currently, I'm preparing the IELTS test in the British Council in Seoul, South Korea. Although I can't fully concentrate on the preparation because of lectures in my university, I'm developing some skills that might be useful in the IELTS test. While I am studying, I discover something.
In spite of the fact that my English is not as good as native speakers, I think my reading and listening is better than speaking and writing. There is a point that I'm going to say. I can recognise more words when I'm reading a passage. However, I don't, or may be, can't use the words I know. That means there is a big differences among the vocabulary between I can 'comprehend' and I can 'produce'.
As a candidate of being an English teacher and an English learner, how can I narrow the gap between comprehensible words and 'producable' words? I would like to know the way I can overcome the difference.