- •Language comprehension
- •Input reading 1
- •Exploratory task 1.1
- •Exploratory task 1.2
- •Input reading 2
- •Warming up discussion 2.1
- •Match the following word-recognition theories and theoretical propositions
- •Exploratory task 2.1
- •Exploratory task 2,2 Match the given metaphorical and idiomatic phrases with their meaning intepretation
- •Input reading 3 Theories of sentence comprehension
- •Exploratory task 3.1
- •Exploratory task 3.2
- •Input reading 4
- •Exploratory task 4.2
- •Exploratory task 4.3 What prior knowledge do you need to comprehend the text? (Mask the “tip” while doing the task)
- •Exploratory task 4.4
- •Exploratory task 4.5
- •Exploratory task 4.6
- •Exploratory task 4.7
- •Exploratory task 4.10
- •Exploratory task 4.11
- •Input reading 5
- •Exploratory task 5.1
- •Exploratory task 5.2
- •Exploratory task 5.3
- •Exploratory task 5.4
- •Exploratory task 5.5
- •Exploratory task 5.6
- •Exploratory task 5.7 Read this short joke and compile the “grammar” of this story in the space provided
- •Exploratory task 5.8
- •Exploratory task 5.9
- •Reference and further reading
- •Eysenck, m. And m. Keane. 1995. Cognitive Psychology. Psychology Press Harley., t. The Psychology of Language. Psychology Press. 1995
Exploratory task 3.1
"The Song of Hiawatha" by Longfellow presents an example of a skillful poetic text. Its important feature is “redundancy”, i.e. reiterating the idea in a new verbal form. Read the excerpt from the poem and tick off the theories that can be applied for the comprehension of this text. Give your comments in the space provided.
Poem |
Factors |
Comment |
"Dark behind it rose the forest, Rose the black and gloomy pine-trees, Rose the firs with cones upon them; Bright before it beat the water, Beat the clear and sunny water, Beat the shining Big-Sea-Water…"
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Rate the difficulty of the poem for comprehension Highly comprehensible 5 4 3 2 1 0 –1 –2 –3 –4 -5 Incomprehensible
What makes this poem difficult/easy for comprehension?
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Exploratory task 3.2
Read the following sentences and interpret their meaning. Which sentences are easier to interpret and which are more difficult? Why? What makes the sentences ambiguous?
Sentences |
Interpretation |
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Input reading 4
Text comprehension
Exploratory task 4.1
Read the following account of the text comprehension process and write in the space provided the strategies for text comprehension, that were used by the reader
Comprehension account |
Strategies |
While reading I was trying to put the thoughts into a complete idea. I would go from one page to another and back in hope of gaining the point. When that did not work, I found myself flipping back pages to see if I had missed something. As I read, a word that would first appear as innocent, would eventually come to acknowledge a totally different thing. I would constantly try to re-read the passage to try and catch the true underlying meaning. At first what I read appeared to have had only one level of meaning. Now I realized that something could be interpreted with different meanings. I might find the te3xt to be about one thing, and someone else another. Who is right? Who can say? (Abridged from Kutz, E. and H.Roskelly. 1991. An Unquiet Pedagogy. Heinemann. P.193) |
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Comprehension depends much on the knowledge existing in the human minds. Knowledge structures have been called "schemata" (singular "schema"), "frames" and "scripts". A schema is a structured system of prior knowledge. The philosopher Kant (1787) originally proposed the idea of "schemata" that allows us to take the surrounding world in terms of time, three-dimensional space and geometric shapes. Much later, in the 30-s Bartlett gave English subjects a North American Indian folk tale to memorize and to recall later. The subjects later recalled the story and this reconstruction was consistent with the Western world-view. At present a schema is understood as prior knowledge that channels human cognition (Harley. T. 1995. The Psychology of Language. Psychology Press. P. 193)