Reciprocity and extensive reading Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4000 words

Reciprocity and extensive reading - Assignment Example The use of authentic, engaging materials should be the basis for class activity (Murcia 2006: 110). Authenticity is a term that loosely implies as close to approximation as possible to the world outside the classroom, in the selection of both language materials and of the activities and methods used for practice in the classroom (McDonough and Shaw 2003:40). Further, problems arise because of classroom methods and materials used in the classroom. Although language teachers have the same goal – to enable learners to use the target language proficiently whether in academic, personal, or professional life, it is not unusual for teachers to report a sense of isolation from colleagues in other countries (McDonough and Shaw: 1). As what Richards (1983: 219 - 239) reminds us, the current state of English has turned a significant percentage of the world’s population into part-time users of English. Thus, experts all over the world have developed strategies and approaches to lan guage teaching that would best address the problems on L2 learning and teaching. One of the outcomes of the Communicative Language Teaching is interactive listening and speaking: negotiating Meaning through Questioning-Answering Routines. This is also known as reciprocal teaching (Murcia 2006:13-27). The concept of Reciprocal Teaching is based on the concept of Reciprocity. In communication, there is what we call taking-turns. A variety of question-types can be used: repetition, paraphrasing, verification, clarification, elaboration, extension, and challenge. Reciprocal Teaching or RT is a strategy that attempts to establish an active and relatively expanded dialog between teacher and students and among students themselves (Izquiendo 2004: 20-25). Paliscar and Brown (1984: 117-175) developed this strategy to reinforce comprehension in L1 and the reading classes. According to Izquiendo (2004: 20-25), when RT is used, the classroom is not a one way street, in which the teacher maintai ns strict control of the environment, but rather, a two-way street that allows active participation by students. The teacher serves as a facilitator or monitor. Reciprocity is manifested in Reciprocal Teaching (RT) because it promotes the teacher-student (T-S), student-teacher (S-T), and student – student (S-S) exchange (Izquiendo 2004:20-25). One example to show this is when the teacher asks a student to recite and when the student has recited, the teacher calls on another student to repeat through paraphrasing what his or her classmates just mentioned. The concept here is to allow students to listen well during class discussion because at any point in time, the teacher may call one to elaborate or challenge the statements given by a classmate. In RT, there is what we call, short-term and long term exchanges. A short-turn is often referred to as language for informational purposes while long-turn is often referred to as language for transactional purposes (Brown and Yule 198 3a). The same authors stress that training students to produce short-turns â€Å"will not automatically field students who can perform satisfactorily in long turns. The point is, teachers should do all they can to encourage students to produce complete sentences and long utterances. This is supported by the survey conducted by Ferris and Tagg (1996: 31 - 55) conducted among university faculty which suggest that, in general, what