Using a hierarchical model to teach academic reading to advanced ESL students: How to make a long story short

Abstract

ESL students' difficulties in learning to read academic expository prose often stem from thier failure to perceive shifts back and forth between textual subordination and coordination. By failing to perceive the shifts, they miss notional clues that could allow them to construct a conceptual scheme of textual information. A hierarchical model for teaching advanced ESL reading is suggested as linguistically appropriate for enabling students to conceptualize the multi-dimensional relationships that constitute the structure of an academic text.