Articolo+e+Report

(Sara Costa) “E. Medi” Secondary School / Bologna University - Italy ** ABSTRACT ** The problem of processing texts containing a number of unknown words is relatively common in foreign language learning, especially for students lying on level A1-A2-B1 (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages). The disorientation raised by such texts usually turns into frustration and demotivation, as most students experience a nearly total block in the comprehension process and soon give up reading the text, while only a few of them have recourse to proper comprehension strategies. This article describes an experimental reading activity carried out in a class of Italian students in order to enhance a motivating net-like reading attitude based on a constructivist-connectionist approach to language processing, meant to make students develop greater metacognitive awareness and self-confidence in reading along with a readiness to strategic response towards occurring comprehension blocks. ** INTRODUCTION ** Processing texts containing unknown vocabulary is a relatively common difficulty in foreign language learning, especially for students lying on level A1-A2-B1 (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages). In my teaching practice of German as a foreign language I've found that unknown words in foreign language reading pose for some readers a bigger problem than for others. Some readers are able to overcome this problem having recourse to an active reading attitude, activating a network of (more or less conscious) reading and comprehension strategies, linking different text elements on both micro- and macrolevel and making assumptions consistent with meaning. Others, however, are unable to process texts with unknown words and fail to open up the meaning of these lexical items by means of cognitive strategies. The disorientation raised by such texts turns soon into frustration and demotivation, as these students experience a nearly total block in the comprehension process with the result that the reading is almost immediately given up. As I showed in detail in my analysis of reading comprehension blocks (Costa 2010), processing difficulties of texts containing a considerable amount of unknown vocabulary are mainly due to two factors: lacking net-like reading attitude on the micro-level of the text and weak strategic awareness. The experimental reading activity described in this chapter shows how proper stimuli based on a constructivist-connectionist approach to language processing can enhance a motivating net-like reading attitude making students develop greater metacognitive awareness and self-confidence in reading along with a readiness to strategic response towards occurring comprehension blocks. ** Context ** The reading activity was carried out in a class of 16-year-old Italian students – a third class of a secondary school of the province of Verona – who had been learning German as a foreign language for two years and had globally A2/B1 communication skills. ** Aims ** ** General aims ** The purpose of the experiment was twofold: from a scientific point of view I wanted to understand how my students processed a text containing unfamiliar words; from a pedagogical point of view I wanted to empower their self-confidence and reading awareness by showing them through heuristic cooperative reading that everybody has a range of comprehension strategies which can be activated to succeed in understanding a text despite unknown vocabulary. ** Specific aims ** A more specific aim of the experiment was to observe in detail the various reading attitudes showed by students when asked to face a text containing unknown vocabulary, so as to see to what extent and in which students such texts can hinder or even block the reading process. Such observations were meant to provide a basis for subsequent research on those students who showed a renouncing manner when dealing with this kind of texts, failing to apply any form of active reading and feeling powerless in front of the text, moreover ‘resisting’ to any teaching input. ** Tools ** I used a German text in which I replaced all keywords through pseudowords, i.e. fake words having a German-like morphology. The students had hence the impression of facing many German words they had never seen before. The text was projected by a beamer in the computer room. Methodologically, qualitative research principles were applied. ** Resources ** The activity took place in the computer room and was led by me as German teacher of the class, having a pedagogical and psycholinguistic background. ** BACKGROUND ** A broad and complete study on comprehension strategies in reading has been carried out by Block and Pressley (2002) and Farstrup and Samuels (2002), who provide a wide range of contributions about strategic reading and teaching. Unfortunately, little research has been done so far in the specific field of processing unknown vocabulary. Some works in this direction were published by Liu & Nation (1985), Laufer (1989); Nation & Snowling (1998), Hu & Nation (2000), Hu & Nation (2002), which provided an analysis of some comprehension problems emerging in texts with unfamiliar vocabulary. However, detailled studies on the subtle relationship between micro-level comprehension strategies and comprehension blocks due to unknown vocabulary are still unavailable. An attempt to provide quantitative and qualitative research this the field has just been completed by Costa (2010), where I tried to get insights into the reading process in a foreign language by identifying the psychological and operational profile of those students who experience a nearly total block of comprehension when dealing with unfamiliar words. In the same study I also suggest that a teaching approach to reading designed for students with such comprehension blocks should be centred on the micro-level of a text and net-like text processing, following the recent research directions of cognitive linguistics and the cognitive sciences. Networking as a structural property of the brain is the basic principle assumed e.g. by the connectionist model of information processing (see Rumelhart, Mc Clelland and the PDP Group 1987; Lakoff 1988; Elman et al. 1996; Elman & Plunkett 1997), which suggests that the human mind is not organized in a modular manner (for modularity theories see e.g. Fodor 1983, Pinker 1997), but operates holistically by means of general cognitive strategies which are continuously adapted depending on the task being performed. Connectionist models are particularly suitable to explain the cognitive processing of incomplete information (such as for texts with unknown words) (see Marconi 2001, who explains how connectionist models and neural networks, unlike traditional systems that consider information processing in the brain as symbolic, can adequately explain cognitive and linguistic phenomena such as meaning reconstruction). Several linguistic studies have welcomed this approach researching the strong interdependence existing between comprehension processes at the level of morphology, syntax and the lexicon (see for example Elsen 1999; Kemke 2000; Farkas 2003). The holistic approach relies on neurobiological studies such as Pulvermüller 1995, 2002; Müller & Rickheit 2003; Herrmann & Fiebach 2004. The activity was carried out according to the guidelines of qualitative research (see Silverman 2000; Schrader 1996). ** NET-LIKE READING AS A JOURNEY BEYOND COGNITIVE BLOCKS ** The selected text was taken from the students’ book (Catani, Greiner & Pedrelli 2001), see Figure 1. It consisted of a dialogue the students had not read yet. The protagonists of the dialogue were two characters the students already knew, as they had already been introduced in the first chapters of the book: Paola, an Italian girl spending a year in Tübingen as an au-pair girl with the Kipps (a German family) and Mrs. Kipp. 25 tokens of the text, namely 25 key content words (11 for nouns and 14 verbs, 15% of total words), had been replaced by unintelligible fake words. The invented lexemes were designed so that they looked German (pseudo-words). In this way, the students got the impression that the dialogue contained 25 ‘difficult’ German words they could not understand (see exercise below). A translation in English has been provided in this paper on the right to facilitate reading. In the English version pseudowords are indicated by the symbol: ~.
 * ARTICOLO E REPORT DELL'ARTICOLO ** ** IN LINKS WE TRUST: NET-LIKE READING **

Figure 1: Text used in the reading experiment (from: Catani, Greiner & Pedrelli 2001)

The document showing the text was projected by a beamer and read together. At the first reading the students seemed pretty stunned and discouraged, because they could not even make suppositions about the general meaning of the text. Only a few function words and content words were understandable. The students looked at me with questioning eyes and said that the text contained too many unknown words making it impossible to decode the text meaning. I immediately realized that they had not even tried to start activating their cognitive strategies. I therefore developed the activity as follows. ** Word-based obstacles to text understanding ** First I asked my students to specify the words that impaired comprehension. On the projected document and on the copies that I had distributed to them we underlined the words which were new to them. As expected, all 25 pseudowords were given by the students as incomprehensible. At this point the class was reassured about their disconcertment as I told the students that they were right saying these words were unintelligible, for if they had looked for them in the dictionary, they would not find them. "What? Do they not exist?". "But Mrs. Costa, have you invented them?". The eyes of my students fluctuated between pleasure and the greatest surprise. I thought it appropriate to explain to them the meaning of this activity, so that they could observe the functioning of their cognitive strategies consciously. I told the students the goal of that reading lesson. The 25 unintelligible words were truly non-existing words I had invented to counteract their usual requests for translation of each single word from German into Italian. Obviously, these words could not be translated. I agreed with my students that the text was not easy to understand and suggested that they should use their cognitive skills to decode it. For instance, restricting the range of possible meanings of a word and taking an anticipatory, pro-active attitude are no special techniques of reading, but typical examples of normal cognitive processes occurring in everyday life. Moreover, I made them notice that they could answer the 13 also incomprehensible questions given along with the text by simply using the syntax of the text itself. ** Overcoming obstacles - but how? **  Given that the semantics of the text was obscure, we began using syntax to search for the answers to the 13 questions submitted. The students were able to give these answers without any particular difficulties, as shown below. // (What did Paola ~ by her brother? A ~). //  2. Was schwerbt Paolas Bruder? Dass er sie bestrossen will. // (What does Paola's brother ~? That he wants to ~ her). //  3. Freut sich Frau Kipp darauf? Ja. Sie sagt: “Schön!“ // (Is Mrs Kipp pleased about that? Yes. She says: //// “ //// Nice!”). //  4. Was meischt Paolas Bruder noch nicht? Wann er kommen kann. // (What does Paola’s brother not ~ yet? When he can come). //  5. Was muss er seinen Chef kragen? Ob er in diesem Monat Urlaub verschommen kann. // (What does he have to ~ his boss? Whether this month he can ~ holidays). //  6. Mit wem kommt Paolas Bruder? Mit seiner Fruschin. // (Who is Paola’s brother coming with? With his ~). //  7. Welche Achlicht haben Paolas Bruder und seine Fruschin? Eine Zemeise zu beprachen. // (What ~ do Paola’s brother and his ~ have? To ~ a ~). //  8. Was soll ihm Paola schmeichen? Fanschwette und Informationsbraschwal. // (What should Paola ~ him? ~ and information ~). //  9. Was möchte Paolas Bruder kreuen? Er möchte viel kreuen. // (What would Paola’s brother like to ~? He would like to ~ a lot). //  10. Wohin muss Paola am besten gehen? Ins Bantaswerdamt an der Neckarbrücke. // (Where should Paola go? To the ~ by the Neckar bridge). //  11. Kann Paola im Bantaswerdamt etwas baffeln? Was? Ja. Sie kann sicher etwas über den Schwarzwald und vielleicht auch über Schlawaffenburg baffeln. // (Can Paola ~ something in the ~? What? Yes. She can surely ~ something about the Black Forest and perhaps also about ~). //  12. Was soll Paola machen, wenn sie im Bantaswerdamt nichts baffelt? Sie soll an das Bantaswerdamt in Straßburg schreiben. // (What can Paola do, if she does not ~ anything in the ~? She should write to the ~ in Strasbourg). // // (Where is Paola going tomorrow? To the ~ by the Neckar bridge). //  The meaning was still inaccessible, but text processing had finally begun. Already in this first phase, the first exclamations were to be heard. They were the first signals of intuition and hypothesis formation. For the 13 questions made the students activate a first cognitive strategy on the micro-level, i.e. the perception of the text and its syntactic constituents (strategy: exploit grammatical context). Here are the answers in detail: 1. Was hat Paola von ihrem Bruder verschommen? Einen Bonnen. // (What did Paola ~ by her brother? A ~). //  Thanks to this very first question the students were able to understand that the correct answer should refer to the object in Paola’s sentence. So they gave the right answer ‘einen Bonnen’. Perhaps due to phonetic (sound /b/) or morphological (the ending of the masculine accusative -en) association, the first enthusiast assumptions were made: "Einen Brief!” (//A letter!//). This indicated that the students’ cognitive strategies were starting to make the lexical level accessible thanks to networked association between the different linguistic levels of the text. At the same time the class began to enter the fertile ground of hypothesis formulation, thus pursuing the goal I had set them.   2. Was schwerbt Paolas Bruder? Dass er sie bestrossen will.   // (What does Paola's brother ~? That he wants to ~ her). //   In this case, too, syntax facilitated the answer and soon various assumptions about the possible meaning of the verb ‘bestrossen’ were made. To help the students formulate their hypothesis, I proposed to them to answer the next question.    3. Freut sich Frau Kipp darauf? Ja. Sie sagt: ”Schön!” // (Is Mrs. Kipp pleased about that? Yes. She says: "Nice!") // The pupils immediately understood that Mrs Kipp’s reaction on Paola’s news was positive. So what could be the meaning range of the verb ‘bestrossen’? Assuming that Mrs Kipp was not a cynic, the students noticed that the meaning of ‘bestrossen’ had to be necessarily positive. Meanings such as ‘strangle’, ‘kill’, ‘condemn’, ‘scold’, etc. were therefore excluded. At this point there were many ‘aha-experiences’. "Aha! Maybe she wants to visit her brother". This hypothesis was widely accepted by most students. I tried not to confirm what was gradually emerging from the discussion. I took note of the various hypotheses arisen and I simply replied that "it might be a good idea". 4. Was meischt Paolas Bruder noch nicht? Wann er kommen kann. // (What does Paola’s brother not ~ yet? When he can come). //  With reference to the meaning of the verb ‘meischt’ many students suggested ‘know’, showing good intuition. They probably got to this hypothesis by connecting the main sentence with the subordinate clause (‘er meischt noch nicht, wann er kommen kann’, he doesn’t ~ yet, when he can come), although they had not learnt or practiced indirect questions in their German classes. It was certainly their world knowledge, their general language skills, especially in the mother tongue, which led them onto the right track. 5. Was muss er seinen Chef kragen? Ob er in diesem Monat Urlaub verschommen kann. // (What does he have to ~ his boss? Whether this month he can ~ holidays). //  As for this question, students immediately suggested that ‘kragen’ should mean ‘ask’, by relying on the formal similarity of these two verbs. Some students also noticed that the verb ‘verschommen' (here connected to the word ‘Urlaub’, vacation) had already appeared in the first line of the text (connected to the word ‘Bonnen’, i.e. ‘Brief’, letter). In this way, they showed that they were able to establish intratextual associations, which are very useful to facilitate understanding (micro-level strategies: identifying and processing word occurences; recognizing and processing collocations; performing semantic contextualization). These operational mode was very helpful to the students at this point as in the first line of the text they had already put up a good semantic hypothesis for the verb ‘verschommen’, processing it with reference to ‘einen Bonnen’ (‘einen Brief erhalten’, //to receive a letter//). By testing the hypothesis of ‘verschommen’ as ‘to receive’ (*//to receive a letter, *to receive holidays//) some students noted that in Italian holidays are not ‘received’. However, the class temporarily accepted the hypothesis that ‘verschommen’ meant ‘to receive’. 6. Mit wem kommt Paolas Bruder? Mit seiner Fruschin. // (Who is Paola's brother coming with? With his ~). //  Again, in answering this question many students have no particular difficulties. Some of them raised the hypothesis that ‘Fruschin’ could mean ‘girlfriend’, pointing out for example that the ending -in is normally to be found in German female names. This connection seems to confirm the hypothesis that morphology and lexicon are not processed separately in the brain. On the contrary, it can be assumed that the morphology helps word processing and this happens especially with morphemes with a strong informational content (for example -in containing morphological information ‘feminine singular’). 7. Welche Achlicht haben Paolas Bruder und seine Fruschin? Eine Zemeise zu beprachen. // (What ~ do Paola’s brother and his ~ have? To ~ a ~). //  Few students showed doubts about the similarity between ‘Zemeise’ and ‘Reise’ (//journey//). Someone intuitively associated ‘Achlicht’ with ‘Absicht’ (//intention//, //programme//) and noted that the subsequent infinitive phrase ‘zu beprachen’ (//to ~//) reinforces this hypothesis. Because of the connection ‘Zemeise’-‘Reise’ (//trip//), some students attributed to the verb ‘beprachen’ the meaning ‘machen’ (//to take//), because of the expression ‘eine Reise machen’ (//to take a journey//) sounded good to them. 8. Was soll ihm Paola schmeichen? Fanschwette und Informationsbraschwal. // (What should Paola ~ him? ~ and information ~). //  Many students were baffled before the verb ‘schmeichen’. We decided to think later about the meaning of this lexeme. The general curiosity was in this case temporarily not satisfied. 9. Was möchte Paolas Bruder kreuen? Er möchte viel kreuen. // (What would Paola’s brother like to ~? He would like to ~ a lot). //  The ninth question caused the class great difficulties. The students suggested meanings such as (‘machen’) (//do//), ‘sehen’ (//see//), ‘wissen’ (//know//), ‘besuchen’ (//visit//), which had to be further verified. 10. Wohin muss Paola am besten gehen? Ins Bantaswerdamt an der Neckarbrücke. // (Where should Paola go? To the ~ by the Neckar bridge). //  The students were able to understand this question easily. It was immediately clear to them that this ‘Bantaswerdamt an der Neckarbrücke’ had to be a place where information could be obtained (this fact shows an ability - although perhaps unconscious - to process knowledge as a network. In the students’ memory were certainy remained some traces of answer No. 8). 11. Kann Paola im Bantaswerdamt etwas baffeln? Was? Ja. Sie kann sicher etwas über den Schwarzwald und vielleicht auch über Schlawaffenburg baffeln. // (Can Paola ~ something in the ~? What? Yes. She can surely ~ something about the Black Forest and perhaps also about ~). //  For this question the students followed the hypothesis of the Information Office (see question No. 10) and noticed that in an information office one can get information about the Black Forest and possibly about this unknown place (Schlawaffenburg). All students agreed on the hypothesis that Schlawaffenburg had to be a place also due to the fact that the suffix 'burg' often occurs in names of German cities. 12. Was soll Paola machen, wenn sie im Bantaswerdamt nichts baffelt? Sie soll an das Bantaswerdamt in Straßburg schreiben. // (What can Paola do, if she does not ~ anything in the ~? She should write to the ~ in Strasbourg). //  Not all students understood the dual structure of Mrs Kipp’s advice. However, some of them have still worked out correctly, that this was an alternative (either go to the ‘Bantaswerdamt am Neckar’ or write to the ‘Bantaswerdamt in Strasbourg’). 13. Wohin geht Paola morgen? Ins Bantaswerdamt an der Neckarbrücke. // (Where is Paola going tomorrow? To the ~ by the Neckar bridge). //  In accordance with Question No. 12 only a few students were in a position to answer that Paola is first going to the ‘Bantaswerdamt’ on the Neckar. To the others it was not yet clear what role the ‘Bantaswerdamt in Strasbourg’ plays in the text. ** Strong points, failings and critical issues ** This experiment showed how the teacher can enhance heuristic reading in the class to make students aware of their ‘cognitive tools’ suggesting an active ‘questioning’ approach to the text, without caring too much about the amount of ‘difficult words’ (unknown words). It did not follow a specific reading protocol. It was just conceived as an initial hermeneutic activity based on a constructivist interactive approach which should be suggested to the students for further development. Processing difficulties of weak students could not, for example, be identified and analyzed. ** Solutions and Recommendations ** The reading activity described above wants to be a starting point for new qualitative studies on the possible diversification of approaches in the teaching of reading according to the students’ learning and reading styles. Working in pairs or in small groups could prove to be effective and facilitate the teacher’s monitoring of the reading process. ** FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS ** Plenty of research still needs to be done in the field of micro-level strategic response to the text (word processing strategies), metacognitive awareness and subsequent self-confidence in reading. This article is also aimed to encourage further research in the specific field of micro-level comprehension difficulties. ** CONCLUSION ** This experiment pointed out how students can select different cognitive strategies in order to fulfil a specific task. During repeated reading of the text the students were able to gradually open up the meaning of part of the unknown vocabulary, building up new hypotheses about neighbour unknown words, ultimately reaching a satisfactory comprehension level. This was made possible by intuition, association ability, comparison of the different elements in the text, activation of world knowledge, perception and networked inclusion of morphological and syntactic information, processing of graphic similarity between words belonging to word families. Readers were able to use comprehension strategies relating to both the morphological and syntactic information of the text, exploiting their foreknowledge to their advantage. From a neurological point of view, networked reading leads to constant changes in the synaptic weights in the brain during the processing of words, enabling the students to get to the meaning by progressive approximation. Neural connections that are responsible for word processing may therefore be revived again by reading activities of this kind which conscious perception of the connections between words and phrases in the text, e.g. through the activation of micro-level strategies in the area of known and unknown words and by linking them up with the global strategy of hypothesis-making and -testing. Repeated reading is very important in this process (see e.g. the connectionist notion of repeated confrontation with the input). A consequence is the acquisition of a ‘networked’ reading attitude and an improvement of the students’ reading skills in texts with unknown vocabulary, as practiced strategies are literarily stored (in the neural sense) in long-term memory. With the activity described in this paper I wanted to show my students that even if a text contains plenty of unknown vocabulary they can grasp its meaning through networked activation of their own language knowledge. At the same time, however, this reading practice aroused my interest in the topic and encouraged my further research studies in the field of psycholinguistics and comprehension processes, e.g. what happens in the brain when unknown lexis is processed and how these cognitive processes can be improved in the classroom. I researched the various aspects of this problem in an empirical study where I examined in detail the blocks showed by readers in foreign texts with unknown words (see Costa 2010). The analysis of the collected reading protocols has made it possible to design a reading training that focuses on the micro-level of the text and shows how micro-level comprehension strategies can be helpful to make readers develop their reading skills. 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Norderstedt: BoD GmbH. ** Key Terms and Definitions ** ** active reading: ** reading attitude by which a reader continuously ask the text a range of questions ** comprehension strategies: ** general cognitive operations used to facilitate understanding also in specific fields e.g. reading ** connectionist model: ** cognitive theory within the cognitive sciences using neural networks to simulate the holistic net-like information processing in the brain ** constructivist approach: ** models for learning based on the belief that students construct their own knowledge and understanding inference: ability to understand implicit information ** metacognition: ** here, strategic awareness of readers ** networked reading: ** reading style of readers who are able to pay attention to all interrelations between the ** reading blocks: ** powerlessness of a reader in processing ‘difficult’ texts ** unknown vocabulary: ** words in a text the reader cannot understand ** REPORT OF THE PAPER ‘IN LINKS WE TRUST: NET-LIKE READING’ ** ** 1- **** Description of the experience ** ** Main area of the experience ** Humanities. ** Abstract ** The problem of processing texts containing a number of unknown words is relatively common in foreign language learning, especially for students lying on level A1-A2-B1 (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages). The disorientation raised by such texts usually turns into frustration and demotivation, as most students experience a nearly total block in the comprehension process and soon give up reading the text, while only a few of them have recourse to proper comprehension strategies. This article describes an experimental reading activity carried out in a class of Italian students in order to enhance a motivating net-like reading attitude based on a constructivist-connectionist approach to language processing, meant to make students develop greater metacognitive awareness and self-confidence in reading along with a readiness to strategic response towards occurring comprehension blocks. ** Community ** The reading activity was carried out with a group of students in the North-East of Italy near Verona. ** Educational context ** The activity took place in a class of 16-year-old Italian students – a third class of a secondary school of the province of Verona – who had been learning German as a foreign language for two years and had globally A2/B1 communication skills. ** General aims of the experience ** The purpose of the experiment was twofold: from a scientific point of view I wanted to understand how my students processed a text containing unfamiliar words; from a pedagogical point of view I wanted to empower their self-confidence and reading awareness by showing them that everybody has a range of comprehension strategies which can be activated to succeed in understanding a text despite unknown vocabulary. ** Specific aims of the experience ** A more specific aim of the experiment was to provide a basis for subsequent research on those students who showed a renouncing manner when dealing with this kind of texts, failing to apply any form of active reading and feeling powerless in front of the text, moreover ‘resisting’ to any teaching input. ** Monitoring and assessment tools ** I used a German text in which I replaced all keywords through pseudowords, i.e. fake words having a German-like morphology. The students had hence the impression of facing many German words they had never seen before. The text was projected by a beamer in the computer room. Methodologically, qualitative research principles were applied. ** Development stages ** The document showing the text was projected by a beamer and read together. At first the students seemed pretty discouraged, as they could not even make suppositions about the general meaning of the text. I asked my students to specify the factors that impaired comprehension. As expected, the students indicated my 25 pseudowords as a problem. I reassured the class about their disconcertment and explained to them the exact goal of that reading lesson, so that they could observe the functioning of their cognitive strategies consciously. I then suggested a possible operational mode, giving them concrete strategic advice. Finally, I gave them a starting point, asking them to use syntax to answer the 13 also incomprehensible questions given along with the text. This proceeding opened up the way to strategic reading. ** Human resources involved ** The activity took place in the computer room and was led by me as German teacher of the class, having a pedagogical and psycholinguistic background. ** Strong points, failings and critical issues ** This experiment showed how the teacher can enhance heuristic reading in the class to make students aware of their ‘cognitive tools’ suggesting an active ‘questioning’ approach to the text, without caring too much about the amount of ‘difficult words’ (unknown words). It did not follow a specific reading protocol. It was just conceived as an initial hermeneutic activity based on a constructivist interactive approach which should be suggested to the students for further development. Processing difficulties of weak students could not, for example, be identified and analyzed. ** Bibliographic references ** Block, C. C., Pressley, M. (Hrsg.) (2002): //Comprehension instruction: research-based best practices//. New York. Guilford Press. Costa, S. (2010): //Fremde Texte - fremde Wörter. Prozesse und Strategien bei Verstehensblockaden//. Frankfurt: Lang. Elman, J.L., Bates, E., Johnson, M.H., Karmiloff-Smith, A., Parisi, D., Plunkett, K. (1996): //Rethinking innateness. A connectionist perspective on development//. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Elman, J.L., Plunkett, K. (1997): //Exercises in Rethinking Innateness.// // A Handbook for Connectionist Simulations //. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Elsen, H. (1999): //Ansätze zu einer funktionalistisch-kognitiven Grammatik. Konsequenzen aus Regularitäten des Erstspracherwerbs//. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag. Farstrup, A. E., Samuels, S. J. (Hrsg.) (2002): //What research has to say about reading instruction//. Newark, DE: International Reading Association. Lakoff, G. (1988): A suggestion for a linguistics with connectionist foundations. In: D. Touretzky, G. Hinton, T. Sejnowski (1988): //Connectionist models summer school//. Palo Alto: Morgan Kaufmann. Laufer, B. (1989): What percentage of text-lexis is essential for comprehension? In C. Lauren and M. Nordman (Hrsg.): //Special language: from humans thinking to thinking machines.// Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Liu, N.A., Nation, P. (1985): Factors affecting guessing vocabulary in context. In: //RELC Journal 16 (1),// 33-42. Müller, H. M., Rickheit, G. (2003): //Neurokognition der Sprache//. Tübingen: Narr. Pulvermüller, F. (2002): //The neuroscience of language: on brain circuits of words and serial order//. Cambridge University Press. Silverman, D. (2000): //Doing Qualitative Research: A Practical Handbook//. London: Sage. [ It. Übersetzung (2002): //Come fare ricerca qualitativa//. Roma: Carocci ]. ** 2- **** Description of a special aspect of the experience ** ** Short description ** This experiment points out how students can be helped to select different cognitive strategies (e.g. syntax processing) and to use them in order to fulfil a specific task. During the activity students were able to gradually open up the meaning of an apparently ‘difficult’ text, overcoming the problem of unknown vocabulary, building up and ultimately reaching a satisfactory comprehension level. This was made possible by eliciting the activation of comprehension strategies and promoting a net-like reading attitude based on metacognitive awareness and self-confidence in reading, answering obscure questions on an obscure text. ** Didactic innovation domain ** Socio-constructivist learning (learning by doing, cooperative learning, learning as research, metacognition). ** Specific aims ** A specific aim of the experiment was to observe in detail the various reading attitudes showed by students when asked to face a text containing unknown vocabulary, so as to see to what extent such texts can hinder or even block the reading process. ** Monitoring ad assessment tools and means ** I used a German text in which I replaced all keywords through pseudowords, i.e. fake words having a German-like morphology. The text was projected by a beamer in the computer room. Methodologically, qualitative research principles were applied. ** Development stages ** Text processing began starting to repeatedly read the text though the apparently high percentage of unknown vocabulary. Already in this first phase, the first exclamations were to be heard. They were the first signals of intuition and hypothesis formation. The 13 questions helped the students activate a first cognitive strategy on the micro-level, i.e. the perception of the text and its syntactic constituents (strategy: exploit grammatical context), which served as a starting point for all further strategic processes. ** Educational tools and means ** The activity relies on the recent studies on comprehension strategies in reading (see Block and Pressley 2002; Farstrup and Samuels 2002) and on the approach of cognitive sciences on networked information processing (see Elsen 1999; Kemke 2000; Pulvermüller 2002). ** Strong points, failings and critical issues ** This experiment showed how the teacher can enhance heuristic reading in the class to make students aware of their ‘cognitive tools’ suggesting an active ‘questioning’ approach to the text, without caring too much about the amount of ‘difficult words’ (unknown words). It did not follow a specific reading protocol. It was just conceived as an initial hermeneutic activity based on a constructivist interactive approach which should be suggested to the students for further development. Processing difficulties of weak students could not, for example, be identified and analyzed.
 * 1) Was hat Paola von ihrem Bruder verschommen? Einen Bonnen.
 * 1) Wohin geht Paola morgen? Ins Bantaswerdamt an der Neckarbrücke.