Rugby players and fairy stories

1. Rugby players andfairy stories Rob Waring Notre Dame Seishin University JALT PANSIG May 21, 2011 Matsumoto www.robwaring.org Sponsored by

2. Fluency vs. Fluent A fluent speaker (reader, writer, listener) can process the language automatically, smoothly, and without much effort. Fluency (in ELT) often refers to the development of the skill to become fluent in it (i.e. fluency practice). This often done by: - speed reading / writing activities - speed word / sentence recognition activities - using graded readers / graded listening materials - pronunciation repetition - etc. Someone can be fluent but not accurate Our challenge is to help them become fluent and accurate

3. Fluent Reading = Extensive Reading

7. This is NOT EXTENSIVE READING This is LANGUAGE STUDY READING

8. This is NOT EXTENSIVE READING This is LANGUAGE STUDY READING

9. What’s the optimum vocabulary coverage for building fluency? Reading Pain (too hard, poor comprehension, high effort, de-motivating) Intensive reading (Instructional level, can learn new words and grammar) Extensive reading (fast, fluent, adequate comprehension, enjoyable) Speed reading practice (very fast, fluent, high comprehension, natural reading, enjoyable) 90% 98% 100% % of known vocabulary Slow High Reading speed Low High Comprehension

10. A Balanced Curriculum

11. What do learners need to know to be ‘good’ at English? Learners need 4000 word families (7-9000 to read native novels easily) and their inflections and common derivations / multiple meaning senses About 3-40000 common phrasal verbs and idioms Common phrases, fixed and semi-fixed Collocations and colligations Register, pragmatics, discourse level awareness Pronunciation Some basic grammar Skills and strategies Etc. Etc. etc.

12. How long will it take to learn this? An average word family needs 30-50 meetings for it to be learnt receptively from reading (more for productive use) An average word’s meaning takes 10-15 meetings to learn from intentional study Intentional vocab learning is 16 times faster than incidental To learn the collocations and ‘deeper’ aspects of language learning takes MUCH longer than learning the words alone. There’s little research into the rate learning of collocation, colligation or lexical phrases from reading We know nothing at all about how long it takes to master a particular grammatical form e.g. a tense, the articles, comparatives

13. Which collocations? Transparent ‘weak’ collocations – easy to learn – don’t teach Beautiful flower, look out of a window, read a book, play a game Specialized collocations – teach only if needed Insolvency act, habeas corpus, spaghetti bolognese Infrequent collocations – don’t bother teaching Rancid butter, a glimmer of hope, circle of friends, by and large Those that need attention • Highly frequent collocations (not too many of these) make/do + noun • False friends weak tea, *thin tea; meet friends / *play with friends

14. Most collocations aren’t worth teaching individually Collocations will always occur less frequently than the words that make them up In the British National Corpus (100m words) Strong occurs 213 times / 1m words Wind occurs 73 times / 1m words Strong wind occurs 3.06 times / 1m words The ‘difficult’ word compromise occurs 31 times Most collocations aren’t worth teaching individually

15. How frequently do lexical phrases occur (BNC)?

16. How well are our courses presenting the language students need? Research suggests a typical language courses: • do not systematically recycle the grammatical forms outside the presentation unit / lesson • have an almost random vocabulary selection (mostly based on topic) without much regard to frequency or usefulness • rarely, if ever, recycle taught words either later in the unit, the book, or the series • provide little additional practice in review units or workbooks • ha an overwhelming focus on new material in each lesson

17. The number of words a learner will probably learn from course work plus graded readers Data from Sequences, Foundations, Page Turners and Footprints by Heinle Cengage 225,000 60,800 570,000 174,000 (=1,029,000)

18. Uptake rates When learning only from a course book over (3 years): Only 962 words will be learnt well (29.4%) A further 1,052 will be partially known (32.1% ) 1,261 words are likely to be forgotten (38.5%) Adding one graded reader per week: 1,556 words (40.0%) will be learnt well, plus 1,109 words (27.8%) will be partially known and only 33.2% unknown. Adding two graded readers per week: They will know 2,119 words well, plus partially know another 1,571 words

19. Notes: 40 function words (in, of, the, by etc.) accounted for 41.2% of the total words in the series Typically one’s productive vocabulary is 20-25% of the receptive This does not include the learning of collocations, colligations, idioms, phrases, multiple meanings, lexical chunks, sentence heads… etc.

20. How many words do Japanese students meet in JH/ SH? A total of approximately 55,000 running words will be met (not counting juku and self-study). A generous estimate is 100,000 words and about 3,500 types over 6 years. Listening input would be approximately 10% of this.

21. A linear structure to our syllabuses • Each unit has something new • Little focus on the recycling of vocab, grammar and so on • The theory is “We’ve done that, they have learnt it, so we can move on.” i.e. teaching causes learning Unit 1 Be verb Simple adjectives Unit 2 Simple present Daily routines Unit 3 Present continuous Sporting activities Unit 4 can Abilities Unit 5 …. …..

22. What does this all imply? A linear course structure • is focused on introducing new words and grammatical features, not deepening knowledge of them • often leaves a lot to the forgetting curve • isn’t strong at building in repetitions of words and grammar features for long-term acquisition to take place • is not focused on deepening and consolidating older knowledge because the focus is always on new things

23. So what needs to happen? We have to ensure our curriculums and courses: • build in some recycling and repetition of words and grammar structures • give students chances to see how the grammar and vocabulary are used together in real language • give students chances to deepen and consolidate the language they learn in their course books (or they forget it) • allow students to develop their own ‘sense’ of how the language works • give students chances to use language rather than just study it

24. Course work and Graded Readers work together Consolidating and deepening language knowledge GRADED READING (Extensive Reading) Unit 1 Be verb Unit 2 Simple present Unit 3 Present continuous Unit 4 can Unit 5 …. Introducing language

25. How are we going to teach what?

26. What do we know about ER? Beglar, Hunt and Kite (forthcoming): Learning from graded readers is better than reading ‘anything you like’ Nishizawa et al. (2010) found that the favourite ER materials for rugby players were fairy stories:- let learners decide/ They need to read 300,000 words before the benefits of ER kick in. Claridge (2005)- patterns of use of structure, discourse markers, redundancy, collocations, and frequency rates are similar in original and graded versions of the same story. Alshamrani (2003); and Allan, (2009) found GRs aided many aspects of language learning. Wodinsky and Nation (1988) found that it’s not necessary to pre-learn the vocabulary at the new level if students read at the right level.

27. Do graded readers aid fluency? Hafiz and Tudor (1990) found students reading GRs gained significantly in fluency and accuracy; GRs provide models assimilation of knowledge from linguistic input, Iwahori (2008): ER improved fluency in a Japanese High School Taguchi, et al. (2004): repeated readings lead to larger gains in vocabulary than reading once: Successful reading is almost impossible without good word decoding skills Nation (2008) Speed reading practice gains transfer to normal reading

28. Some objections from teachers and schools Nice idea but I have no time in my course. -> If you don’t have graded reading where will the students get the massive exposure they need? -> How else will they get the ‘sense of language’ they need? -> Where are they going to get the fluency practice? We don’t have the money for this. -> Ask your schools to reallocate funds so this reading is done; ask for donations; get some free samples etc. We have to go through our set curriculum. -> Speak with your course designers to build in graded reading. Re-allocate resources and re-set class hours We have to prepare the students for tests. -> Research shows students perform better on tests if they have a general sense of language, than an incohesive‘bitty’ one.

29. Making them fluent Give opportunities for fluency…. F ast and efficient reading and listening practice L ink their practice to real tasks U nderstanding is primary E ncourage speed development work N urture confidence and motivation T ry extensive reading and listening

30. Finally… You can review this presentation by downloading it from: www.robwaring.org/presentations/ More information about Graded Reading (Extensive Reading) at… www.extensivereading.net The First Extensive Reading World Congress, Kyoto Sangyo University, Kyoto. Sept 3-6, 2011 http://erfoundation.org/erwc1/

31. How much reading should they do? About a book a week or more. Beginners - A book at week at their ability level They can meet unknown words easily, so you don’t need to read much. Intermediates - A book at week at your ability level They don’t meet unknown words all the time, but your books are thicker, so you are reading more. Advanced – 2 books at week at your ability level They rarely meet unknown words, so you have to read more to meet language you don’t know.

32. Language (Accuracy) Focus

33. Fluency (Communication) Focus