Includes bibliographical references (p. 241-259) and index.

"It is the thesis of this book that students must have [extensive practice] from the outset of their instruction in a second language. They must hear and read about verbally created worlds. To become articulate speakers of a foreign language they must practice mental and verbal reconstructions of the logical coherences of a reality other than that of their immediate physical environment.

If we fail to teach the connection between language and ability to manipulate language to analyze or speculate, a discrepancy exists between what we ask students to learn and what we want them ultimately to do. We presume that control of structure constitutes literacy because we presume that control of structure results in comprehension and observations about that comprehension. In this sens we language teachers have had a dual system of expectations for our students. In our curricula, materials, teaching, and testing, we reward formal competence with another language's structure. Ultimately, however, we want our students to demonstrate a literacy which transcends the constraints of skill learning and response. We want them to use the grammar rules and vocabulary lists of a foreign language to be functionally literate in that language. [...]

This book argues the proposition that this second, covert definition of literacy - the ability to comprehend and express the meaning of alternative realities - must become the profession's overt goal. Institutions (in curricula, testing, and teaching practices) need to rethink the literacy model they are now using because at worst it excludes and at best it denigrates the ultimate objective of literacy: the use of language to convey new ideas. The issue is not what knowledge to acquire, but rather what knowledge students can create with language. This issue is the subject of widespread concern in our profession. Scholars have observed that the current methodological pluralism in language pedagogy and in literary criticism is an oblique expression of confusion about the role of meaning in language study.

[...] This book will emphasize and exemplify components of a literacy standard which nurture L2 students' reasoning ability and which integrate that literacy standard with a standard of language learning." (Introduction, pp. 2-3)

CONTENTS

Preface

Introduction

1 The New Paradigm in Language Learning

2 The Legacy of History for Practice: Why New Paradigms Are Hard to Implement

3 The Practical Differences Between Language Learning and Reading

4 Strategies, Text Topics, and Language Levels: Reading to Learn

5 A Procedural Model for Integrative Reading

6 Meaning, Metacognition, and Propositions / Robert Charles Swaffar

7 Cueing Pragmatic Use With a Sample Text / Richard Kern

8 Concerns of Colleagues Regarding a Procedural Approach

9 Testing Reading for Meaning / Dieter Waelterman

10 Using Classroom Contexts: Instructional Strategies

11 Text Readability and Content Orientation

12 Literature, Literacy Criticism, and Cultural Literacy

Conclusion

Bibliography

Index