What Would I Like To Read?

http://www.globalissues.org/HumanRights/Abuses/China.asp

Tibet crackdown, 2008

Tibet, which China considers part of its territory, has also seen problems.
Demonstrations marking the anniversary of the failed 1959 Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule resulted in the killing of numerous demonstrators. Chinese authorities claimed a low number of deaths, while Tibetans and international media, a higher number.
The Chinese government crackdown has included closing off the country to the outside world and shutting out or controlling most media, including Internet media and sites used to show video footage of what happened. The military and police presence has also swelled.
There have been protests in the past in Tibet, such as in 1987 and 1989, but these were only in the capital, Lhasa, and involved mostly monks, intellectuals, and students. In contrast, the 2008 riots have spread to other parts of Tibet and included peasants and workers.

Journal 3

Do you think L1 reading skills transferred to L2 readin skills? How about your case?



I agree with the fact that the first language (L1) skills transfer to second language (L2) learning.

There are several researches for that matter. It is already discovered that L1 word decoding, spelling, reading comprehension, phonological awareness, receptive vocabulary, and listening comprehension skill administered in early ages were used as predictors of L2 reading (word decoding, comprehension) and spelling skills in later. I think that the greater the similarity in the writing systems of the two languages, the greater the degree of transfer.

In my case, it was a bit easier for me to learn Japanese than English. I guess it's because Korean and Japanese have the same word order. Moreover, Japanese language is essentially based on chinese characters and also,most Korean words are made of Chinese characters.
Accordingly, I probably could use my L1 reading skills that I've used to read Korean(L1) texts while I read Japanese(L2) text. As an similar example, the students who use alphabetic- decoding system in their language such as Spanish can learn English easier, because both languages share the alphabetic principle.

Therefore, This suggests that students learn to read and spell their L1, then reading skills(word decoding, spelling comprehension, etc) transfer from L1 to L2.

journal2

Reading must be the interaction of many variables in the reading process. What kinds of reading interaction have you experienced? Think about your reading process and try to apply your thought into any interaction model introduced in this chapter.



I've never considered reading as a type of process up until my "Teaching Second Language Reading" class. Especially, reading English text was always challenging task for me. It was not an interaction between various breading factors but a translation. After the class, however, I realized that thinking and guessing that I was doing during the reading were sorts of my reading interaction process.

For example, when I read an unfamiliar text, I simply rely on bottom-up skills such as vocabulary or knowledge of structures. On the other hand, when I encountered a reading text that I'm familiar with, I start activating my existing-schemata to understand the text effectively.

I think my reading process can be applied to the Stanovich's compensatory model. Compensatory processing means that when readers have a difficulty applying one of the reading process strategies he or she try to use the other one.

Thus, Regarding my experience, readers like myself over-rely on their decoding skill. However, it is obvious that good readers need less processing capacity for word recognition, using more capacity for comprehension.

Journal 1

What I usually read in English..

There are alot of names of things and places that are written in English around me.

At home, I usually read English on the internet cause I spend a certain amount of time, doing web surfing every day. Mostly, They are email addresses or internet advertisements.
When I go to the the stores or malls, I also read the snacks, Beverages, labels of clothes and all kinds of stuffs that are named in English. I think I've got used to them for too long, so sometimes It doesn't feel like they are "English words" to me.

What I'm going to read in English..

I'm sure I'm going to read many text books written in English for the classes. I might receive some English emails from American websites that I've joined.

In the future, I hope I could be able to read Various kinds of English books, regardless of the genre. If I work really hard, It will be possible for me to read such magazines as TIME or NEWSWEEK.