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[ProfessionalDevelopment 2567] Re: Where does the reading problem go?Andrea Wilder andreawilder at comcast.netFri Sep 26 21:52:48 EDT 2008
Good point. Any particular cloze test? Andrea:) On Sep 26, 2008, at 8:34 PM, Steve Kaufmann wrote: > In Canada, and I suspect in the US, employers place great > importance on communication skills, as an attribute for employees. > This refers to both written and oral communication. There are > regular complaints from employers about the communication ability > of recent graduates from our universities. From my own experience > with recent graduates, I can say that these communication skills > are quite weak, surprisingly weak.This is true for native speakers, > and even more so the case with students who spent a long time in > ESL programs. > > The question may not be so much how well these respondents think > they read. It may be more a matter of what they read, and how much > they have been exposed to the kind of reading content that would > enable them to acquire a rich vocabulary, and expose them to > different ideas and literary experiences. These are usually > prerequisites for good communication skills. > > I firmly believe that the easiest measure of one's ability to > communicate in a language is the size of one's vocabulary, and I > mean passive vocabulary. This is quite easily measured in a close > test and has the great advantage of simplicity.Many other attempts > to describe levels of literacy and language proficiency just strike > me as too obtuse and subjective. > > Steve > > > > > -- > Steve Kaufmann > www.lingq.com > 1-604-922-8514 > ---------------------------------------------------- > National Institute for Literacy > Adult Literacy Professional Development mailing list > professionaldevelopment at nifl.gov > > To unsubscribe or change your subscription settings, please go to > http://www.nifl.gov/mailman/listinfo/professionaldevelopment > > Professional Development section of the Adult Literacy Education Wiki > http://wiki.literacytent.org/index.php/ > Adult_Literacy_Professional_Development -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.nifl.gov/pipermail/professionaldevelopment/attachments/20080926/52d321f4/attachment.html
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