Making Meaning and Not Just Sounds in Reading

Abstract

The purpose of this study in order to obtain efficacious material to try and answer my research question I have chosen to use the protocol analysis and verbal reports on thinking as a research method. This research generates verbal reports of thought sequences as a source of data about thinking. The relevance of this investigation in my own professional practice is of great importance as the school I work in has a vast majority of students whom are non-native English speakers and therefore the issue in reading without comprehension has arisen many times over the years. According to the findings, although the research was small scale the results have overall been very satisfying. The student reached understanding through various models. First by understanding through performance as he was able to think and act flexibly with what he knew (Perkins p.42) and therefore recognize the word night on the flash card. Moreover, by following the constructive model of understanding, the student was able” to construct and perfect his own performance through problem solving. recognizing….’what sounds right’ he has a target against which he can measure and evaluate his own performance” (Wood, p136). Wood’s description of the student’s meaning construction has similarities with Piaget’s theory of assimilation and accommodation where by assimilation the student uses the external environment, in this case the teacher and flash cards, to increase his previous knowledge (Piaget, 2013). As a result, the importance of the teacher’s role in being a facilitator for the student through this process towards understanding, because as stated by Wells, ” children are born with a drive to make sense of the world. They are active seekers of meaning” (1986,Wells cited in Arizona Department of Education, 1990, p.7) and we as teacher have the responsibility to insure students have all the necessary  tools to be able to understand and make sense of this world.

Keywords

• student; teacher; language

References

1. Arizona Department of Education, Bilingual Unit, (1990), Strategies for Teaching Limited English Proficient Students
2. Banković, I., Sociocultural theory and Second Language Acquisition.
3. Barnes, D. (1992) The Role of Talk in Learning. In: Norman, K. (Ed.) Thinking Voices. London: Hodder and Stoughton.
4. Brown, G.A. and Wragg, E.C., 2003. Questioning in the Secondary School. Routledge.
5. Ericsson, K. A. (2002) Protocol Analysis and Verbal Reports on Thinking [online]. Available at: http://www.psy.fsu.edu/faculty/ericsson/ericsson.proto.thnk.html [accessed April 2017].
6. Gardner, R.C. and Lambert, W.E., 1972. Attitudes and Motivation in Second-Language Learning.
7. Koschmann, T. (1999) Towards a Dialogic Theory of Learning: Bakhtin's Contribution to Understanding Learning in Settings of Collaboration. In: CSCL Proceedings of the 1999 Conference on Computer Support for Collaborative Learning. Article No. 38. International Society of the Learning Sciences. Available at: http://www.gerrystahl.net/proceedings/cscl1999/A38/A38.HTM [accessed March 2017].
8. Maslow, A. (1943) A Theory of Human Motivation. Psychological Review 50(4): 370-396. Available at:hhtp://ovidsp.tx.ovid.com/sp3.12.0b/ovidweb.cgi?&S=BJPNFPMKAFDDFJLMNCMKJBIBCGDOAA00&PDFLink=B% 7cS.sh.22.23.26.29%7c2&WebLinkReturn=TOC%3dS.sh.22.23.26.29%7c2%7c%26FORMAT%3dtoc%26FIELDS%3dTOC [accessed 7 May 2017].

9. Paris, S.G. and Hamilton, E.E., 2009. The development of children’s reading comprehension. Handbook of research on reading comprehension, 1, pp.32-53.
10. Perkins, D. (1997) What Is Understanding? In: Wiske, M. S. (Ed.) Teaching for Understanding: Linking Research with Practice. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
11. Piaget, J., 2013. The construction of reality in the child (Vol. 82). Routledge.
12. Scott, D. and Usher, R. (2010) Researching Education : Data, Methods and Theory in Educational Enquiry [online]. 2nd ed. London: Continuum International Publishing. Available at: http://site.ebrary.com/lib/uon/detail. action?docID=10438515 [accessed April 2017].
13. Swann, J. (1994) Observing and Recording Talk in Educational Settings. In: Graddol, D., Maybin, J. and Stierer, B. (eds.) Researching Language and Literacy in Social Context. Clevedon: Open University Press.
14. Watts-Taffe, S. and Truscott, D.M., 2000. Focus on research: Using what we know about language and literacy development for ESL students in the mainstream classroom. Language Arts, 77(3), pp.258-265.
15. Wiske, M.S. (1997). Teaching for Understanding: Linking Research with Practice. San Francisco, Jossey-Bass Publisher
16. Wood, D. (1988) How Children Think and Learn. Oxford: Blackwell. www.IBO.org [Accessed April 2017]
17. Zolt´n Dörnyei (1998). Motivation in second and foreign language learning. Language Teaching, 31, pp 117135- doi:10.1017/S026144480001315X