PRESENTACIÓN GENIAL

Lesson 1

Reading Comprehension

Reading is an interactive process that goes on between the reader and the text, resulting in comprehension. The text presents letters, words, sentences, and paragraphs that encode meaning. The reader uses knowledge, skills, and strategies to determine what that meaning is.

A text is understood to be a piece of written or spoken material . A text is any stretch of language that can be understood in context. It may be as simple as 1-2 words (such as a stop sign) or as complex as a novel.

A general definition of learning strategy is “specific actions taken by the learner to make learning easier, faster, more enjoyable, more self directed, more effective and more transferable to new situations” (Oxford, 1990:8)

The purpose of this course is to provide effective training for RC strategy use of expository texts with the aid of BL. Strategies: discourse, predicting, skimming, scanning, inferencing, and lexical inferencing, reference.

Summarizing, asking & answering questions , activating prior knowledge, monitoring comprehension, using text structure awareness, using visual graphics, graphic organizers, and inferencing. Higher education : technical terms, key conceptualizations, mental models and other forms of background knowledge. .

Effective Reading

The meaning of a text is accomplished when it is actively employed in a context of use. This process of activation of a text by relating it to the context of use is called discourse. Thus, text can be realized by any piece of language as long as it is found to record a meaningful discourse when it is related to a suitable context of use. 1-Text type, or genre (for example: an election poster, a recipe, a newspaper article) 2 .Topic, purpose, and function 3. Temporary and physical setting of the text 4. Social, cultural, and historical setting 5. The identities, knowledge, emotions, abilities, beliefs, and assumptions of the writer (speaker) and reader (hearer) 6. The relationship: writer (speaker) & reader (hearer) 7. The association with other similar or related text types (intertextuality)

A text is a unit of language in use.

Text and discourse

Coherence is the trait that makes any text easily understandable to a reader or hearer. Coherence can be created by means of cohesive devices or factors. A. Reference B. Substitution C. Ellipsis D. Conjunction E. Lexical cohesion

Referring expressions are words whose meaning can only be discovered by referring to other words or elements of the context which are clear to both sender and receiver. Reference items include pronouns (he/she/it/him/they/etc.), demonstratives (this/that/these/those), the article the and items like such as. Reference can be confirmed by looking back in the text (anaphoric reference) or forward in the text (cataphoric reference). Example: There are a lot of points in favor of renewable energy. The fact that it uses resources that are considered to be infinite is only the most obvious one.

Reference

Substitution is the replacement of a linguistic item for another. It is used in place of the repetition of a particular item. The items commonly used for substitution in English are: one(s), do, so/not and same. Example: There are a lot of points in favor of renewable energy. The fact that it uses resources that are considered to be infinite is only the most obvious one.

Substitution

Ellipsis is the omission of elements on the assumption that an earlier sentence or the context will make the meaning clear. Items that can be elided are nouns, verbs and clauses. Example: Is renewable energy cleaner than fossil fuels? Yes, it is. Yes, it is cleaner.

Ellipsis

Conjunctions, also called transitional devices, are provided by those words and phrases which explicitly draw attention to the type of relationship which exists between one sentence or clause to another. These words may add more information to what has already been said (and, furthermore, add to that) or elaborate or exemplify it (for instance, thus, in other words). They may contrast new information with old information, or put another sight to the argument (or, on the other hand, however, conversely). They may relate new information to what has already been given in terms of causes (so, consequently, because, for this reason) or in time (formally, then, in the end, next) or they may indicate a new departure for summary (by the way, to sum up, to conclude). Example: Besides, renewable energy guarantees continual source of energy.

Conjunction

1. Find a synonymous expression for the noun “researchers” in line 3. 2. What examples of bioenergy are given in lines 4-5? 3. What synonym replaces the noun “results” in line 9? 4. What noun phrase is omitted after the word “many” in line 12? 5. What does the relative pronoun “that” in line 16 refer to? 6. What does the subject pronoun “we” in line 16 stand for? 7. Find a transitional device with similar meaning to “in spite of” in line 17.

Thanks