ziyan's homework

Name: Ziyan Song

This passage introduces the debate that whether written language which contains a different kind of vocabulary and different grammatical structures than oral language and second languages which is quite different from the mother tough can be learned or acquired. Also the processes of learning and acquiring are quite different which lead to various approaches of teaching. 

And in the passage, two views of reading written language are provided. One is called recognition view suggesting that written language must be learned. Teachers hold this point of view regard identifying words as the main task during reading. And teaching reading involves helping students develop the necessary skills to make the connection between marks on the page and the words in their oral vocabulary. Readers recognize them as words in their oral language. The other one is called sociopsycholinguistic view which asserts that written language is to some degree innate and can be acquired. Hence, teachers hold this view think that reading is a process of constructing meaning. Readers acquire the ability to read and write in the same way they acquire a first or second language by receiving messages they understand. Readers begin to make connections between the oral reading and the print and gain the ability to read independently. But there is a common point of view that good readers comprehend texts. However, different conceptions of written language teaching result in different approaches of teaching. Teachers with recognition view advocate students to learn vocabularies apart from the text by phonics rules and structural analysis and help them identify words by pre teach  vocabularies and reading aloud. But by this way, students always fail to decode words . By contrast, teachers hold a sociopsycholinguistic view intend to help students construct meanings of words depending on different background and purpose for reading by grahophonic approach and students practice by seeing word in several different tests and reading in silence. Also there is also a limit in this way that the meaning of a sentence can not easily be determined by simple combination.

Also there are two views of writing. This fist learning view always lead to a traditional class. Teachers always assign students to make a good story whose topic is given and expect them complete the task in a fairly short time. And teachers emphasize the importance of handwriting and spelling which cause fear of misspelling leading to a kind of fear to use new vocabularies. However, in a process classroom, teachers encourage students create a good piece of writing that students can choose their won topics, write drafts, get feedback and edit and even share with other classmates in possible. Thus in this series of of process,students come to understand the different organizational structures. Likewise, teacher focus more on content of what students writing than the writing form itself and let students themselves realize mistakes they made in hand wring or spelling during the process of sharing with other classmates. 

Similarly, nowadays, there are two views of second or foreign language development, the traditional learning view and the current acquisition view. The main goal of the first view, learning view, is to produce students who speak and understand the language. Teachers break each language area into parts to make learning more direct and systematical. However, the goal of acquisition view is to rise the capability of using language for divergent preposes and students can speak, read, write and think deeply in different situations. Therefore, teachers may use body language, imagines and predicable pattern in a writing to help students comprehend language better. 

Also so the passage provided hypothesis about learning and acquisition. In short: learning is is a conscious process that involves studying rules and vocabulary while acquisition occurs as students use language for a divergent purposes.

I speak for myself as an international student. Both situation have been happening to me since I began to learn my second language. Actually, most of foreign language classes in China are traditional classes with teachers of a recognition view. I remember that almost every class began with "turn to the vocabulary list and read after me". But I feel that these words I memorized are not because I read them aloud and focus on the pronunciation or spelling, but because I saw them in text several times and got more familiar with them when I decided to use them in my own writing! That is 100% true. For example, once I saw a word "simulation" and had no idea what it meant. But after reading the whole paragraph, I can tell what it might mean. Therefore, from my perspective, I truly believe that the most valuable skill of learning is not gained in teaching plan but in reading cogitative comprehension.