Reading as the Influential Key to Language Acquisition

Learning a foreign language is quite challenging and reading has crucial importance in learning the vocabularies of the language and also learning vocabulary can affect reading texts. Knowing vocabulary is an important factor in language acquisition. Although grammar is very important too but to understand the meaning of the text, the students need to know the meaning of the words first. So reading offers the learner a wide range of words, different grammar and makes them more successful in speaking a language compared to those who don’t read much.

This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Mercan H. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT.

Reading has another impact on learning a language and it is about syntax.

While reading, the learner gets familiar with different structures of the language grammar. If the subject of texts chosen for reading is variable then he encounters different complexity of sentences and has to struggle to understand them to comprehend the meaning of the whole text.

One of the other impacts of reading on the acquisition of a language is that the learner recognizes more phonemes during the reading, so his eyes become able to capture the shape of the words more easily than before. It can affect both producing the word sound by the learner and learning the spelling of the word too.

Also Read: Designing a Plan for a Preschool ESL Class

As reading has a very important role in learning a language, it is very important to choose the materials which are both attractive for the reader and potentially challenging for him to learn more.

When it comes to choosing the reading texts, The topic should be one that the learner enjoys what he is reading otherwise he will not stick with it long enough to learn anything.

The learner needs to be able to understand most of what he reads, so the text should have a proportion between familiar and unfamiliar words. This enables the student to understand some of the text and guess the unfamiliar ones through guessing. But in this case, there is the risk that the student understands the whole concept without necessarily learning more vocabulary because he or she can guess the meaning and doesn’t go for it to find the exact meaning in dictionaries. In my opinion, it can be solved by continuing to read more and more different materials, so that the learner will absorb the vocabulary he encounters several times and he will keep them in mind unconsciously. Different types of texts help the learner to comprehend more words and little by little he comes to a level that the number of unfamiliar words will decrease for him in a text. Also, the topics should contain a richer and more refined form of language so they help the student to understand the culture, history, art, business, religion, literature, sports, and other aspects of the nation that speak the language.

Also Read: Learning English in Early Childhood

Reading can be of two types: oral and silent.

In oral form, the teacher or the student can read the text aloud. When the student is performing the oral reading it gives him confidence in the usage of the words and his ability to speak the language. When the teacher performs the oral reading it helps the student to understand the pronunciation.

In silent reading, the student can develop more vocabulary knowledge. To summarize what has been said, reading creates an opportunity for language learners to utilize and develop the skills necessary to become proficient with a new language. They expose themselves to that language and all its intricacies.

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