Discuss the criteria offered by Nutall (1996) for choosing reading
texts. Which of the three criteria is the most important/makes the most
sense to you? Are there other criteria that you would argue are more
or just as important?
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(Additional comments on this post no longer earn points. Please choose a more recent entry).
I think suitability of content (“material that students will find interesting, enjoyable, challenging, and appropriate for their goals in learning English”) is the most important one, and the one that makes the most sense to me. If it’s interesting and enjoyable, then students will have the motivation to even consider reading (and reading more by themselves later! The teacher is only the starting point, we have to be able to get the students to do this on their own). Second, if it’s challenging, that will help push a little bit to become better (not too challenging to the point they don’t understand anything-know your students and be reasonable). Third, it is better to have something that is appropriate for their goals in learning English rather than irrelevant (because they want to accomplish those goals, and we are to help them with that). The other two point (exploitability and readability) are also very important, but I think that the first point is the most necessary before you even consider the other two. Once you find texts that satisfy the first point, then you can further “filter” which text to choose by considering the other two points.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Norma. If the content is not suitable, relevant or interesting to the students, they may quickly lose motivation to learn whatever it is that the teacher is trying to exploit from the text. For instance, imagine an instruction manual for a lawnmower were used as reading material for a class of young learners. While it may be linguistically exploitable and readable, because the content would probably not be relevant or interesting to that group, I believe an attempt to exploit the text would fail, and whats more, may even repel students from reading altogether!
ReplyDeleteAs for readability -if a reading material is wildly above a given proficiency level, students might get a little discouraged, but may still get something out of it because it's relevant and interesting -they may even push themselves to improve their level to be able to understand it. If a text is not exploitable, it may not exercise a given point; but as long as it's readable and relevant I believe there is still benefit as vocab is recycled, and there are reminders of spelling and punctuation conventions that many students struggle with. Above all, enjoying a reading whether or not it's exploitable can foster a love for reading that only leads to more reading!
Nutall gives three criteria for choosing reading texts: suitability, exploitability, and readability. Suitability means the content is interesting and enjoyable for the reading. Exploitability means the content facilitates the achievement of certain goals and that the text can contain be integrated with other skills such as listening, speaking, and writing. Readability means the content with lexical and structural difficulty can challenge the reader without overwhelming them.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Norma and Holly that suitability is the most important one. If students find the reading interesting, enjoyable and somewhat challenging then they are more likely to read it. If the text has too much going on such as integrating skills then it would be more of a text book and not a book/text that students can sit back and enjoy. If the text is too challenging and the student has to stop constantly to think on or refer to a dictionary just to understand the text then they may lose interest and choose not to read.
My conversation partner last semester initially started reading a book for class that was suggested to her by her teacher. Though the level of the book was considered a level 3 she, my conversation partner, found the topic boring. She wasn't too excited to read after that so I had suggested that she pick up a book like "Harry Potter" and it happened to be a level 3 as well. She started reading and loved it. She had so much to discuss with me regarding the book. She was so excited she wanted to start reading the next book before she finished the first. Finding the right book can foster a love for reading. And I think encouraging our students not to give up and giving them a wide variety of choices can help them find what interests them.
Stefani Goode
I actually think that suitability, readability and exploitability are mutually important. As several people have mentioned above, suitability goes a long way to motivating the reader and encouraging them to want to continue their studies in the language. However, I would argue that if the material is suitable for the student, and they enjoy it, but it is at a level that doesn't challenge them at all, it becomes pointless for the purposes of the educator because it is not assisting in pushing the learning process forward. Similarly, if material is at the correct readability level but isn't suitable, the educator will have a hard time finding aspects of it that can be exploited in instruction because the students will have no interest in pursuing lines of thought connected to it. I think that all three factors have to be considered in providing materials for class. I do think that the teacher may make a conscious choice at some point to lose one of these facets in preference for another or given a certain teaching scenario - for instance, if students' motivation is lagging, providing a text that is interesting to them but does not necessarily push them beyond their current level of knowledge might be useful at that time to remind them that they are competent. I think decisions like this one should be founded on a knowledge of the student population on feedback from the students themselves, and on the ever-present consciousness that we as teachers have of the objectives we're trying to reach. If we remove any of these factors, or any of the criteria Nutall provides, our instruction is likely to become lopsided.
ReplyDeleteI think that suitability is the most important of the three criteria listed. People at any age simply do not want to read something they cannot relate to. (See Holly's lawnmower example above.) I also think that exploitability and readability are of equal importance. The selection can't be used to make a point if our students can't read it and vice versa. We need to take into consideration our students' interests and proficiency as they relate to the lesson we need to teach. (ie: Know your students!)
ReplyDeleteI believe all three are very important. It’s difficult to pull them apart. But, I believe that readability is most important for me. Lack of proper readability can yield the same result as unsuitable content that students aren’t interested in. They might not want to talk either way because they don’t have the intrinsic motivation to do so. When a student begins to feel confident in the L2, there’s no worse way to crush his/her language ego by giving them texts too far over their heads. They won’t be able to gage how much they have progressed in that case. So, baby steps in intensifying the difficulty of the reading materials is the way to build someone up, even if it is sometimes over mundane topics. Even I have learned how to read more difficult texts in about history in French, although I didn’t like the topic much.
ReplyDelete