Independent Reading for Beginners: Using Children's Books in a Reading Lab

Abstract

In 1970, William E. Norris wrote of many English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) programs, ... especially in intensive courses for adult students, the written language has been deemphasized almost to the point of extinction (Silberstein, Let's Take Another Look at Reading 28). Has this also happened in American Germanas-a-Foreign-Language classrooms? As teachers in recent years have embraced communicative approaches to language teaching, speaking has received primary emphasis in many first-year programs. Indeed, in many communicative classrooms and textbooks, the study of written texts in the first year is limited. In current introductory college textbooks common types of texts include poems (e.g., Kontakte), short semi-authentic dialogs or paragraphs (e.g., Neue Horizonte, Deutsch heute), short paragraphs relating cultural information (e.g., Wie geht's?, Sprechen wir Deutsch ), cartoon stories (e.g., Vorsprung), and realia such as advertisements and restaurant menus (e.g., Deutsch, na klar!). Each of these textbooks includes other types of texts as well, and each articulates the goals for using written texts within its respective teaching philosophy. However, for many reasons, including the market-driven pressure to provide an abundance of speaking, video, and audio activities in a first-year program, many introductory textbooks include relatively few authentic written texts beyond realia.1 seems the current state of German language teaching might not be so different from the situation of ESL in the seventies described above; perhaps in our quest to emphasize communicative competence, we have thrown the baby out with the bath water. As Sandra Silberstein has pointed out, It would be a disservice to rob students of the opportu ity to learn through reading.... Along with information about texts and language, students need only a reasonable context and some knowledge of the topic to begin to learn from reading.2 Unfortunately, while intermediate to advanced lea ners might be expected to comprehend readily available authentic texts such as magazines, newspapers, or novels, beginning readers can find reading these types of authentic texts frustrating. Assuming that the development of reading skills is still a desirable goal in the first-year classroom, even if not the main goal, the challenge before us is to offer beginning students access to authentic written texts w ich are interesting, meaningful, and comprehensible to them, and to aid them in discovering strategies for, and benefits of, reading in the target language.3