Reading with new tools: An evaluation of Personal Digital Assistants as tools for reading course materials

Lightweight, palmtop devices such as personal digital assistants (PDAs) can now be used for reading electronic text, opening up their potential as learning tools. This paper reports a study that evaluated the use of PDAs for reading course materials by students on an Open University master's course. The research is grounded in activity theory, which provides a useful framework for examining how the introduction of a new tool changes an existing activity. Student perceptions of the possibilities and constraints of the PDA, as determined by questionnaires and interviews, reveal the impact the new tool had upon reading. The PDA constrained reading with limitations such as the small screen size, new requirements for navigating through the text and awkward methods for taking notes. These conditions made it difficult for students to skim‐read the text, to move back and forth within the document and to interact with the text as easily as they could with paper. Nevertheless, students welcomed the opportunity to have the course materials on a portable, lightweight device that could be used at any time and in any place. This made it easier to fit the reading activity around the various other activities in which students were involved In addition, the PDA was used in conjunction with existing tools, such as the printed version of the course materials and the desktop computer. Therefore, it was not seen to replace paper but rather to extend and complement it. The findings are discussed using concepts from activity theory to interpret how the new tool modified the reading activity

Authentic Materials in Extensive Reading Class at Stain Ponorogo

It is widely believed that English Foreign Language (EFL) learners need to develop their language proficiency by getting so much input. Moreover, students need to be familiarized with the real English us­age where real forms of communication and cultural knowledge are crucially exposed. Teaching through authentic materials will make the learners feel that they are learning a real language which is used by the real native speakers for real communication. incorporating au­thentic materials helps students acquire an effective communicative competence in the language focus. The research intended to describe the implementation of authentic materials in extensive reading class, the problems arise and the students' responses toward the authen­tic materials in extensive reading class. The design of the research was Descriptive Qualitative method and the research subject was the lecturer of Extensive Reading class and 33 students in B class of the fourth semester of STAIN Ponorogo who took Extensive Read­ing subject. The instruments used were in the form of observation sheet, interview guideline and questionnaire. The implementation of authentic materials in extensive reading class covered some procedures into three main phases namely (1) Pre­ Activity, (2) Main­ Activity and (3) Post­Activity. The activities in main activity are as follows: (a) Pre­ Activity; (b) Whilst ­Activity; and (3) The language focus stage. There were problems arose during the implementation in terms of complicated planning, more time allocation and some disinterested students. Finally, the students showed significantly positive attitude toward the implementation of authentic materials in extensive reading class

Engaging the reluctant reader through active reading strategies

The objective of this workshop is to demonstrate not only how to overcome the fear of reading among young adults but also how to develop affection for it by adjusting studentcentred learning strategies to the individual needs of the learners. Reading then becomes an active dialogue session with the author culminating in writing in any genre rather than a passive boring activity. The workshop begins with an incidental lead-in activity connected to the topic of the reading passage, which aims to generate student-centred discussions. This is then followed by a timed individual reading session, where the students have a ‘dialogue’ with the author of the passage by scribbling and writing in any language or by drawing graphic presentations of their feelings that are generated. A group discussion of the students’ reactions to the reading would result in seeing the text in a new light or angle. This is then followed by a spin-off activity, where the students are to translate their reaction to the whole passage or any portion of it into any genre and present it to the others. Once the students have come to grips with the essence of the reading passage, they are to formulate their own question which needs further probing into as a free writing or academic writing piece. An outline of the writing is done in groups and monitored by the facilitator while leaving the complete writing as a take-home assignment

Reading Habits in Different Communities

Reading is foundational to learning and the information acquisition upon which people make decisions. For centuries, the capacity to read has been a benchmark of literacy and involvement in community life. In the 21st Century, across all types of U.S. communities, reading is a common activity that is pursued in myriad ways. As technology and the digital world expand and offer new types of reading opportunities, residents of urban, suburban, and rural communities at times experience reading and e-reading differently. In the most meaningful ways, these differences are associated with the demographic composition of differentkinds of communities -- the age of the population, their overall level of educational attainment, and the general level of household income.Several surveys by the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project reveal interesting variations among communities in the way their residents read and use reading-related technology and institutions

REVISITING MODEL OF READING COMPREHENSION IN LANGUAGE AQUISSITION

Reading comprehension is about breaking the barriers which make reading a dull and unpleasant experience. Reading comprehension is not merely about a monotonous activity that is ordering student to read a text and answering the provided questions. It is actually a very rich efforts that can be done in multidisciplinary model. Fact finding, vocabulary building, reading speed, and comprehension are the commonest attempts done in reading classes. Teachers and students are faced and focused on the text and dare not to escape from this routine exploration. In fact Reading Comprehension can be designed in a broader techniques which involves cultural studies that encourages teachers and students to have rich, intimate and attractive communication in a very wide range of discussions. Every line of text can be extended into out of the box discussion. It is systematized into syntactical discussion, pragmatism, ideological, geographical, media studies, technological or mechanism, social construction, cultural situation, narratology, semiotics, even using Russian formalism

Neural overlap of L1 and L2 semantic representations across visual and auditory modalities : a decoding approach/

This study investigated whether brain activity in Dutch-French bilinguals during semantic access to concepts from one language could be used to predict neural activation during access to the same concepts from another language, in different language modalities/tasks. This was tested using multi-voxel pattern analysis (MVPA), within and across language comprehension (word listening and word reading) and production (picture naming). It was possible to identify the picture or word named, read or heard in one language (e.g. maan, meaning moon) based on the brain activity in a distributed bilateral brain network while, respectively, naming, reading or listening to the picture or word in the other language (e.g. lune). The brain regions identified differed across tasks. During picture naming, brain activation in the occipital and temporal regions allowed concepts to be predicted across languages. During word listening and word reading, across-language predictions were observed in the rolandic operculum and several motor-related areas (pre- and postcentral, the cerebellum). In addition, across-language predictions during reading were identified in regions typically associated with semantic processing (left inferior frontal, middle temporal cortex, right cerebellum and precuneus) and visual processing (inferior and middle occipital regions and calcarine sulcus). Furthermore, across modalities and languages, the left lingual gyrus showed semantic overlap across production and word reading. These findings support the idea of at least partially language- and modality-independent semantic neural representations

An open reading frame upstream from the nifH gene of Klebsiella pneumoniae

An open reading frame upstream from nifHDK operon of Klebsiella pneumoniae had been described. The orientation of this open reading frame is opposite to that of nifHDK and sequence homology was found between the open reading frame promoter and the promoter of nifHDK operon. A recombinant plasmid carrying the promoter region of the open reading frame fused to the beta-galactosidase gene was constructed. Strains of E.coli were transformed with the plasmid containing this open reading frame promoter-lacZ fusion or co-transformed with it and a plasmid carrying the nifA gene. An appreciable activity of beta-galactosidase was found in strains which received both plasmids, indicating that the promoter of the open reading frame can be activated by the product of nifA gene. Thus, the open reading frame found between nifHDK operon and nifJ behaves just like other nif genes of K.pneumoniae in requiring the product of nifA as the positive effector for expression

Reading and company: embodiment and social space in silent reading practices

Reading, even when silent and individual, is a social phenomenon and has often been studied as such. Complementary to this view, research has begun to explore how reading is embodied beyond simply being ‘wired’ in the brain. This article brings the social and embodied perspectives together in a very literal sense. Reporting a qualitative study of reading practices across student focus groups from six European countries, it identifies an underexplored factor in reading behaviour and experience. This factor is the sheer physical presence, and concurrent activity, of other people in the environment where one engages in individual silent reading. The primary goal of the study was to explore the role and possible associations of a number of variables (text type, purpose, device) in selecting generic (e.g. indoors vs outdoors) as well as specific (e.g. home vs library) reading environments. Across all six samples included in the study, participants spontaneously attested to varied, and partly surprising, forms of sensitivity to company and social space in their daily efforts to align body with mind for reading. The article reports these emergent trends and discusses their potential implications for research and practice

USING PICTURE SERIES TO IMPROVE STUDENTS’ WRITING ABILITY (A Classroom Action Research at the Third Grade Students of MTS NW I Kembang Kerang in the Academic Year of 2010/2011)

English as the first foreign language in Indonesia is taught starting from the elementary school level up to university level. The general objective of teaching English in Indonesia, based on the school based curriculum (KTSP), is to develop students’ communicative competence of the four language skills or aspects of teaching and learning; reading, speaking, listening, and writing. Richard (1992: 189) states that the teaching of language skills (reading speaking, listening, and writing) are related to each other, when a lesson involves activities that relate listening and speaking, reading and writing, it means that listening activity is related to spoken or oral language, and reading is related to written language. The purpose of learning English language in Junior High School is to achieve the functional level. In this, the students can develop their competences in oral or written to resolve daily problems. They are conscious of the importance and essential of English in the global era. They can develop their comprehension about language and culture (Depdiknas, 2006: 278)