[jbyrne]

Do you think that reading English will make you a better speaker?

Yes or No

[jbyrne]

The answer is yes!

Reading is probably the best way to learn new words and how the new words connect to other words. Learning these new words helps you to speak more clearly about more subjects.

It is true!

[zashi]

hi... i agree that reading really help speaking...but my question is, how would it be applicable to my students (Thai students)? They don't even know how to read english words correctly...

[jbyrne]

Reading can be applied in many ways.

1. Its the mental process. Seeing how words collocate (fit together). Seeing the structure of a sentence. This helps them to build their own sentences and utterances.

2. Reading introduces them to a wider body of language and contexts than they can get in an English classroom. This is true of ourselves as well. Personally my vocabulary took off at about 16 years of age, when I started reading the New Scientist, The Economist and other academic magazines. My speech changed as I became more well read.

2. Pronounciation. If you teach your students the phonemic script. You can demonstrate how a dictionary look up of the phonemic spelling of a word, will allow them independently to pronounce any word with over 90% accuracy. This is testable and verifiable in an English class.

Teach the script and then choose 10 words you are sure they do not know. Really really difficult words are good. They will surprise themselves. I have done this with Thai students. No problem, it worked.

There are 44 phonemes in (British) English. Please note there are 3 standard charts of the phonemic script. 1 British and 2 American. So it can be a little confusing. However, most EFL student book dictionaries are British and use the British script. The computer dictionaries seem to use one of the American ones. It does not really matter, the scripts are similar, just be aware of it.

Hope this helps

[zashi]

Wow very good explanations...
I will teach these with my students...
I'm sure this will be a big help...

Thank you so much

[mesmark]

There's actually a lot of research into incidental vocabulary acquisition through reading. Interestingly, it's not as affective as simple bilingual association in immediate or long term rention.

Context of use and lexical understanding can only go so far without L1 confimation of the meaning. I've read that the benefits apply only to high intermediate or advanced students.

Here's an article based partly on that (computer based vocabulary acquisition through context) if anyone is interested.

de Groot, P. (2000). Computer assisted second language vocabulary acquisition (article): http://llt.msu.edu/vol4num1/groot/default.html

[jbyrne]

Hi

That was an interesting post.

I can see how for acquiring vocabulary and for testing that acquisition, a list of words and their translation into users first language would be more effective then merely readings and hoping.

But I do think that when it comes to using language, learning vocab is not enough. We need to read, write, speak and listen. Each skill helps the others, but it is reading that opens the door to new words and new social contexts.

[mesmark]

I agree that reading is important.

It has been shown that with good pre-teaching, questions and post-teaching techniques to go along with the texts, students can learn more and retain the new vocabulary and lexical items better. (makes sense really, teaching helps.)

[jbyrne]

Yes reading with a teachers guidance is constuctive. But I think reading alone is very helpful too.

Reading outside of a controlled environment, allows a student to become aware of their limitations and to learn some of the survival skills of communication. For example, anticipation and educated guessing skills.

Jay