Amy Lee
633 G&W
3/09/2013
Summary – Response “Reading in Foreign Language: Reading Problem or Language problem”
The
article, “Reading in Foreign Language: Reading Problem or Language
problem”, discussed a major problem about reading in a foreign language.
The author mentions the reading problem at the beginning. According to
the article, students can’t do well at reading in a foreign language
even when they know the foreign language is important for their
educational life. Moreover, the author states that there are some
experts who believe that reading skill is the main reason for reading
problems in foreign language. Jolly (1978), for example, claims that
success in reading in foreign language is crucially dependant upon one’s
first language ability rather that upon the student’s level of English.
Nevertheless, the author mentions that some experts have a different
idea of this problem. For instance, Yorio (1971) takes a contrary view;
he claims that the reading problem of foreign language learners is
largely due to imperfect knowledge of the language. After discussing
this supporting research, the author goes on to compare these two
probable reasons, and the author indicates that the main problem is
inadequate knowledge of target language. The article concludes that the
primary reason for reading problem in foreign language is still under
debate, and experts keep trying to figure out the best answer to this
question.
In sum, the article describes two different reasons
about reading problem for foreign language learners. I agree that the
reason may be the reading skill. People who have the worst reading
ability can’t understand the correct meaning of articles, even if the
articles were written in their native language. Also, I agree with
another reason, which claims imperfect knowledge. Some people can
totally understand any article in their own language; however, it
doesn’t mean that they can do well at reading in a foreign language.
Furthermore, the reason for reading problems in foreign language is not
only reading skill also inadequate knowledge in target language.
Consequently, foreign language learners should improve their reading
skill, and they should adequately understand target language.