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Date Posted: 09:57:10 11/02/04 Tue
Author: Deborah
Subject: Re: Task 4
In reply to: Ângela Vitorino 's message, "Re: Task 4" on 19:01:31 10/25/04 Mon

TEACHING READING SKILLS

Last December, a student that was trying to pass the entrance examination for the Medicine course of UFMG became very nervous. He had studied a lot, but he did not give much attention to English, as a discipline, because he thought he knew English (IN THINK IT IS REPETITIVE). Then, as usually happen in the Vestibular from UFMG, in that subject, he was asked to answer a question like this :
“The pronoun we (line 10) refers to the (NOT NECESSARY) a) American government ; b) Conservation Program ; c) manatee and her friends ; d) population in Florida .”
The student was confused and did not recognize the agent of the action.
What happened? He needed only one point (MARK?) more to be classified in that difficult competition and did not get it because of a “pronoun” (ITALIC). Therefore, he lost a point that was indispensable for his success in the test. While reading, if you don’t recognize some function words, like pronouns and their referents, you can be in a bad trouble and misunderstand the meaning of some parts of a text. Because of this, teachers should teach the function words, which comprise the pronouns and referents (YOU HAD SAID IT BEFORE, IT IS NOT NECESSARY TO REPEAT IT), show their importance, encouraging the students to recognize and use them, through a specific reading skill called cohesive devices.
First of all, teachers should teach the pronouns, going beyond their grammatical nature, inside a “meaningful context”. A lot of students of second language are confused with them, because the pronouns present trouble levels of meaning, i.e. the “local” (within sentences) and “text-local” (connections between parts of a text). Then, it is important that are showed inside a text, in which they can be underlined, like this example from MICKULECK:
“Mary Simms lives in New York City. She has an apartment near Central Park.
Mary jogs in the park . She thinks that jogging is good for her.
After the pronouns are presented, teachers should remark that, although they are small words, they have an important role in reading, because “they serve to identify individuals and objects that are named at some other parts in the text .” (NUNAN, David). They are indispensable to an accurate understanding of the text.
Next, the students can have a task to recognize each pronoun and its referent, saying which noun it is instead of. It is a very important step to understand a text and link the parts of it. A very good idea could be to ask the students to apply their knowledge to a longer text, writing a list of the pronouns and their referents and comparing the list with another student. In a paragraph of the text “Habit”(Microsoft Encarta 97 Encyclopedia), for instance, some different pronouns are noticed :
“An action that is lavishly rewarded as soon it is performed is well on its way to becoming a habit. Once a habit is firmly entrenched, it can be sustained by cues different from those that originally created it, and it need not be rewarded so regularly or well. Indeed, habit may become its own reward.”
In this sample, students could find:
a) it (subjective pronoun) – referent : action
b) its (possessive adjective) – referent: action
c) it (subjective pronoun) – referent: habit
d) those –(demonstrative pronoun) – referent: cues
e) it ( objective pronoun ) – referent: habit
f) it (subjective pronoun) – referent: habit
g) its (possessive adjective ) – referent : habit
In the last stage, students will be able to use the pronouns in an adequate way. A sample exercise could be to present them a text in which the pronouns are the missing words, in order they can complete the text with the suitable pronoun. See below a paragraph of a text about Madonna (Microsoft Encarta 97 Encyclopedia):
“____ created a provocative image of ___________. _____ dresses _______ in an unconventional way. _____ first album Madonna (l983) was a great success. The MTV channel had an important role in _____ career. ______ showed her music videos.
Summarizing, one of the important skills of reading is the cohesive devices, in which the functions words, like the (IN MY OPINION IT IS NOT NECESSARY TO PUT ‘THE’) pronouns and their referents, represent an indispensable role for understanding a text and linking the parts of it. Students should be encouraged by teachers to know, recognize (TO RECOGNIZE) e use (TO USE) them adequately.

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