[EnglishLanguage 3374] Re: quantifying student interest in materialSteve Kaufmann steve at thelinguist.comWed Jan 14 11:37:34 EST 2009
Undoubtedly your father was proud and did not like being treated like a child. On Wed, Jan 14, 2009 at 6:35 AM, Elida Perez-Knapp <e_perezknapp at yahoo.com>wrote: > From a strictly personal point of view, I certainly agree that reading > material must be relevant and is a major tool for those learning to read. My > father was one of the those that lost interest in attending Adult Education > classes because of the lack of relevance. As an adult in the 60's, raising a > large family, he attended classes to learn how to read. He knew this was the > key to getting and keeping a job. My mother tried to teach him and he did > learn how to sign his name but he never learned to read. I remember him > coming home from the classes and sharing with mother how the class > would practice out-loud the sounds of the letters, "b -- bird, bird". He > would laugh and say how silly that was. > > One of the jobs he held was in construction and there was his interest. I > believe that if the topic of the adult education class had been anything in > relation to construction he would have had a totally different > experience. My father was an intelligent, hardworking man who accomplished > many things in life yet did not overcome the challenge of learning to read. > I realize that the teaching methods in AE have advanced tremendously since > the 60's yet I often wonder how much more my day would have accomplished if > only he had learned to read. > > Elida Perez Knapp > > > > ************************* > Courage does not always roar. > Sometimes it is the quiet voice > at the end of the day that says, > "I will try again tomorrow." > anonymous > > --- On *Sun, 1/11/09, Steve Kaufmann <steve at thelinguist.com>* wrote: > > From: Steve Kaufmann <steve at thelinguist.com> > Subject: [EnglishLanguage 3314] Re: quantifying student interest in > material > To: "The Adult English Language Learners Discussion List" < > englishlanguage at nifl.gov> > Date: Sunday, January 11, 2009, 11:06 AM > > First of all, brain research has shown that we learn best from content that > is relevant. Read Manfred Spitzer, the Human Brain and the School of Life. > > Second of all, the need for interesting material is greatest for people who > do not read well in a given language. To give these learners content that is > of no interest or relevance is an idea that strikes be as highly > counterproductive. > > Third, someone in an academic or professional setting should already be a > competent reader, and having made a choice of subject to study, or > professional career, should be interested in what he or she is reading. > > Steve Kaufmann > www.lingq.com > > On Sat, Jan 10, 2009 at 12:32 PM, stephen churchville < > schurchville at hotmail.com> wrote: > >> Hi, >> >> The idea that interesting reading material makes for more >> effective literacy instruction always sounded right to me, but now I am >> thinking about cases where that might not be true, and wonder if trying to >> keep it interesting is a disservice to students with academic or workplace >> aspirations, where we are all required to read and understand lots of >> uninteresting material. >> >> Does anyone know of any reports or studies that measure how student >> interest in reading material influences outcomes? >> >> And how that then plays out in standardized tests? >> >> Thanks >> Stephen Churchville >> www.LessonWriter.com <http://www.lessonwriter.com/> >> >> >> >> >> >> ------------------------------ >> Windows Live™: Keep your life in sync. Check it out.<http://windowslive.com/explore?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_t1_allup_explore_012009> >> >> ---------------------------------------------------- >> National Institute for Literacy >> Adult English Language Learners mailing list >> EnglishLanguage at nifl.gov >> To unsubscribe or change your subscription settings, please go to >> http://www.nifl.gov/mailman/listinfo/englishlanguage >> Email delivered to steve at thelinguist.com >> > > ---------------------------------------------------- > National Institute for Literacy > Adult English Language Learners mailing listEnglishLanguage at nifl.gov > To unsubscribe or change your subscription settings, please go tohttp://www.nifl.gov/mailman/listinfo/englishlanguage > > Email delivered to e_perezknapp at yahoo.com > > > > ---------------------------------------------------- > National Institute for Literacy > Adult English Language Learners mailing list > EnglishLanguage at nifl.gov > To unsubscribe or change your subscription settings, please go to > http://www.nifl.gov/mailman/listinfo/englishlanguage > Email delivered to steve at thelinguist.com > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.nifl.gov/pipermail/englishlanguage/attachments/20090114/33aeaeee/attachment.html
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