Chapter 1: A Theoretical Approach to Reading Comprehension Skill

The word comprehension means understanding. According to Samson Olusula

(2011), Babalola points out that comprehension is “the power to understand”, and
as a consequence, there can be listening comprehension as well as reading
comprehension. Taking into account that this paper focuses specifically on
Reading Skill in the teaching learning process of English as a second language, we
will be analyzing Reading Comprehension.

1.1- Reading Comprehension skill.

Olusula (2011) explains that Nanewotor and Abiona consider Reading

Comprehension as “the art of reading, understanding, and answering questions on
a given passage”. On the other hand, Westwood (2008) points out that Reading
Comprehension can be defined as “an active thinking process through which a
reader intentionally constructs meaning to form a deeper understanding of
concepts and information presented in a text”.

According to Grellet (1981), Reading Comprehension is a “constant process

of guessing” that can be accomplished in a silent manner (focusing its attention on
meaning and not on pronunciation) and in an independent manner (if someone
interrupts the communication between the reader and the author, via text, the
process of interaction is broken).

Yamira Morell and Indira Otero (2010) support Son’s criterion, which
highlights that Reading Comprehension demands from learners:

“(…) the mastery of what specialists call the mechanics of reading and also the
comprehension of the ideas present, the process of Reading Comprehension is
rather similar in all languages. There may be differences as to the type of
alphabet or ways of reading, but the essence of obtaining information from the
written page is the same in all languages: ideas not words should come out of
the page” (Otero & Morell, 2010).
Taking into account the different ideas and opinions regarding this topic, the author
of this paper assumes these two criteria, and also considers that Reading
Comprehension is a "creative, multifaceted process" dependent upon four linguistic
items: phonology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics, in which the reader decodes
not only the message of the text, but also applies certain techniques in order to
accomplish the reading purposes. The author agrees with Samson’s opinion,
explained by Otero and Morell (2010), that Reading Comprehension does not only
consist on the ability to answer questions correctly, but on the reader’s capacity of
recalling, interpreting or explaining the content of the written text in his/her own
words; hence, it is “a medium of communication and a problem-solving process”.

In a developmental heuristic proposal of the RAND Reading Study Group’s,

there are three elements directly related to Reading Comprehension: the reader
(because it carries out the comprehension task), the text (because it will be
analyzed) and the activity (because comprehension is embedded in it). It also
explains that the sociocultural context is involved in these three elements, which
help the reader “to interpret information and create personal meaning”. Another
significant aspect stated in this proposal is the reading activity, which includes “the
purpose, process and consequences” of it. This proposal highlights the significance
of Reading Comprehension as a “social activity” (Coiro, 2003).

In Psychological Factors in the Development of Reading Strategies in English

I, for English Majors (2010), the author supports Gaonac’h’s opinion about
cognitive psychology, who considers that Reading Comprehension comprises the
interaction among several mechanisms, and each of these mechanisms as well as
their interaction can be trained. According to Gaonac’h, in order to develop these
mechanisms and their interaction in the teaching-learning process of a foreign
language, it is assumed that students do not have difficulties in their mother
tongue.

When we analyze Reading Comprehension, we need to highlight that we can

classify it into intensive reading (related to the analysis of short texts in classroom
study) and extensive reading (related to the leisure reading of longer texts,
primarily for pleasure). The first type of reading requires techniques such as
“questionnaire, pattern practice, word study, dictation and general discussion”;
while the second one requires completely different techniques, as it involves longer
texts, such as an entire short story, and its main objective would be checking
whether the student understood the story or not (Otero & Morell, 2011).

Moreover, we need to mention the two processes that take place during
Reading Comprehension: top-down and bottom-up. The distinction between these
two processes is associated, in metaphorical terms, with the difference between
“looking down on something from above”, and on the other hand, “being in the
middle of something and understanding where we are by concentrating on all the
individual features”. This means that, during the first process, the reader acquires a
general overview of the text; while, during the second process, the reader focuses
its attention on individual words or phrases, in order to understand the whole text
(Otero & Morell, 2011).

It is also of paramount importance to know the different levels of Reading

Comprehension. In Beyond Decoding: The Behavioral and Biological Foundations
of Reading Comprehension (2009), Fergus I. M. Craik and Robert S. Lokhart affirm
that Reading Comprehension involves two processing levels. In essence, this
theory suggests that these two levels are shallow (low level) processing and deep
(high level) processing. The first one is related to structural and phonemic
recognition, and the processing of sentence and word structure; and the second
one involves semantic processing, because we find out the meaning of the word
and we relate it to similar words (Wagner; Schatschneider & Phythian-Sence,
2009).

On the other hand, Sharon Linde (2018) proposes in Essential Reading

Comprehension Skills that when we make reference to “processing levels” in
Reading Comprehension, we need to associate them with the students’ proficiency
level. In this diploma paper, we will assume this criterion. Therefore, we can
identify four levels:
 - Literal comprehension: At this level, students are able to read and
understand a text on a literal level. They do not see further over the word or
the way it is written. As a consequence, they can answer basic, fact-related
questions. It is a “low-level thinking skill” that is based on “the student’s
ability to recall facts and figures”.
- Interpretive Comprehension: At this level, students use the text to find
meaning, and acquire the significant skill of “inferring”. Some skills included
in this level are: identifying the main idea, understanding the author’s
purpose, determining point of view and predicting or summarizing events.
- Critical Comprehension: At this level, students use the text to make
judgments, and assume positions that could cover, for example, from
discerning with the author’s statements to recognizing whether the text
could be reliable or not.
- Creative Comprehension: This level requires the student’s highest level of
skills. The students will use the text not only to infer meaning, make
judgments or assume positions, but also to debate about a certain situation
using the information provided in the text (Sharon Linde, 2019).

Most specialists in the field of Reading Comprehension argue that the

development of this skill must be gradual, following several stages, which are
directly connected to the other skills development levels (Molina, 2010). These
levels are: elementary, intermediate and advanced. In this paper, we agree with
Molina’s opinion (2010) when he affirms the stages 1 and 2 are related to
elementary level, stage 3 to intermediate level, and stages 4 and 5 to upper
intermediate and advanced level. These stages are:

- 1st: Its main objectives are “word recognition” and “interpretation”. In this
stage, the reader establishes a phoneme-grapheme correspondence.
Consequently, its two main directions are: “reading on the programmed
direction sentences used in writing” and “oral reading as a pronunciation
exercise”.
 - 2nd: It still implies familiarization with vocabulary and grammatical structures
learnt orally. At this stage, students start their contact with “different spoken
and written styles” (Molina, 2010).
- 3rd: It is related to the “intensive analysis of a text context, also known as
analytic or intensive reading” (Otero & Morell, 2011). At this stage, the
contents are not learnt orally first, but are related to “known patterns and
vocabulary”; and Reading Comprehension acquires its full significance
because intensive reading is started, and vocabulary and comprehension,
as well as the process of inference, are developed (Molina, 2010).
- 4th: It is associated with the analysis of more complex texts. At this stage,
simplified classics or magazine articles can be used (Molina, 2010).
- 5th: It is linked to the “reading of non-adapted authentic materials in the
foreign language” (Otero & Morell, 2011). At this stage, students are able to
read all kinds of literary materials. Nevertheless, it may be achieved only by
few students, taking into account that they do not develop this stage in their
mother tongue (Molina, 2010).

In Integrating Skills through Reading Comprehension Lessons (Otero & Morell,

2010) it is explained that Reading Comprehension can be affected by several
factors, which can be internal and external. Among these factors, we can find:

- Physical factors: reader’s vision, reader’s hearing, reader’s sex and reader’s
health.
- Mental factors: reader’s intelligence, reader’s language, reader’s mental
maturity.
- Emotional factors: teacher’s effect, reader’s self-concept and subject matter.
- Lack of motivation.

1.1.1- Manners of accomplishing Reading Comprehension based on the reader’s

purpose.

During Reading Comprehension, we do not only find the purpose of the text, but
also the reader’s purpose, which determine the manner readers read and analyze
the text. Regarding this issue, we can find that the main two purposes for reading
are: “for information” and “for pleasure” (in this paper we will be focused on the first
one). Consequently, different manners for accomplishing the reading process,
based on the reader’s purpose, are:

- Grouping: The reader analyzes words in group, and not individually.

- Skimming: The reader reads rapidly in order to look for the main ideas or the
sense of the text.
- Scanning: The reader reads the text looking for a specific information (Otero
& Morell, 2010).

In Skill Integration in the Development of Reading Comprehension in English I, for

English Majors (Otero & Morell, 2011), the authors also include Thornbury’s
explanation, who considers two other manners:

- Detailed reading: The reader reads the text in detail in order to extract all the
information.
- Reading aloud: The reader reads the text aloud.

Nevertheless, in this paper, we will only consider the first four manners: grouping,
skimming, scanning and detailed reading, taking into consideration that this
diploma paper is not focused on improving the students' pronunciation, but the
Reading Comprehension process as such.

1.2- Reading Comprehension Strategies.

In the teaching-learning process of a foreign language, students apply certain

techniques that help them to “comprehend, learn and retain new information”
(O'Malley & Chamot, 1990). These techniques, according to specialists on the
teaching-learning process of a foreign language, are called “learning strategies”.
According to Oxford (1990), these strategies “may be used consciously with effort
or become automatic with practice”. This author also adds that we cannot classify a
learning strategy into good or bad, but useful or not. She mentions that there must
be three conditions for categorizing a learning strategy as useful: the strategy is
directly connected to the foreign language task assigned; the student employs the
strategy in an efficient manner and links it with other relevant strategies for
completing the task; and the strategy is coordinated with the student’s general
learning style preferences to one degree or another.

O’Malley and Chamot (1990) classified learning strategies into six types:

1- Memory strategies: related to the manner students memorize what they

learned.
2- Cognitive strategies: related to the manner in which students limit their
knowledge.
3- Meta-cognitive strategies: related to the manner students organize their
learning process.
4- Compensation strategy: related to the manner students determine the
limitation of their knowledge and compensate this limitation with other forms
of problem solving.
5- Affective strategies: related to the student’s feelings.
6- Social strategies: related to the manners students work with others within a
group, for example, and understand the target culture as well as the
language.

In the case of Reading Comprehension, second language learners primarily

develop it through appropriate and efficient comprehension strategies. There are
several criteria regarding Reading Comprehension strategies, for example Weimer
and Bazerman, according to Molina (2010), identified some of them as followed:

- “Predicting outcomes”: Psychological process that allows readers to

anticipate information, and relate it with previous knowledge.
- “Generalizing”: It allows readers to apply “information they have already
learned in a broader, less specific sense”.
- “Paraphrasing”: It consists on the re-expression of the text with reader’s own
words to check readers’ comprehension of the text.
 - “Summarizing”: It consists on reviewing the text, but only with its main and
most important ideas; therefore, the summary will be shorter than the
original text, but it will evidence whether the readers’ comprehension was
correct or not.
- “Reading critically”: It consists on the reader’s personal judgment about a
passage of the text, based on previous knowledge.
- “Reading speed”: It allows the brain to process the input.

Nevertheless, in this paper we will adopt the criterion explained by Brown (1994).
According to him, there are 10 main Reading Comprehension strategies:

1- “Identifying the purpose in reading”: If readers do not know why they are
reading, or what they are looking for in the text, they could misunderstand
the activity. Hence, it would be a failure.
2- “Use graphemic rules and patterns to aid in bottom-up decoding” (also
known as “the grapheme-phoneme correspondence”): The differences
between written and spoken English language are, perhaps, one of the
highest difficulties while learning English as a second language. In order to
help readers to acquire one-to-one grapheme-phoneme correspondences, it
would be necessary to tackle certain hints and explanations about certain
English orthographic rules, and its peculiarities. This strategy will be applied
with beginner learners.
3- “Use efficient silent reading techniques for relatively rapid comprehension”:
In order to increase readers’ efficiency, they will need to master certain
silent reading rules, for example “they do not need to pronounce each word
for themselves”, they will “try to visually perceive more than one word at a
time”, and they will infer the meaning of a word by its context, unless it is an
“absolutely crucial word to global understanding”. This strategy will be
applied with intermediate to advanced level learners.
4- “Skimming”: This one, as well as scanning, are the most valuables reading
comprehension strategies. Skimming consists on knowing the gist of the text
with a rapid and superficial reading across the whole text. It allows readers
 to predict the purpose of the passage, the main topic or message, and some
supporting ideas.
5- “Scanning”: It consists on a quick search of particular piece or pieces of
information in the text. Its purpose is extracting specific information without
reading the whole text.
6- “Semantic mapping or clustering”: It helps readers to organize ideas
according to hierarchy and order. It consists on grouping ideas into
meaningful clusters. It can be designed either individually or collectively.
7- “Guessing”: Readers can guess, for example, the meaning of a word, a
discourse relationship, or a cultural reference. The key for being successful
is “to make it reasonably accurate”.
8- “Vocabulary analysis”: When readers cannot infer the meaning of a word,
they will need to analyze what they know of it, for example, they will need to
look for prefixes, suffixes, roots, and grammatical and semantic contexts.
9- “Distinguish between literal and implied meanings”: It is related to the
implied meaning because readers cannot always interpret appropriately the
literal or syntactic surface structure. It requires the application of
sophisticated top-down processing abilities. “Implied meaning usually has to
be derived from processing pragmatic information”.
10-“Capitalize on discourse markers to process relationships”: The reader’s
comprehension of the different discourse markers in English is of paramount
importance for increasing reader’s reading efficiency, because these
discourse markers convey relationships among ideas as expressed through
phrases, clauses, and sentences.

1.3.1- Reading Comprehension microskills.

Once in the reading process, readers apply strategies to perform microskills.

According to Victor Birkner (2014), who supports Hollas’ opinion, a reading
microskill is a helpful tool that learners practice in order to improve their
comprehension in the reading process. H. Douglas Brown (1994) affirms that
microskills for Reading Comprehension are “what students of EFL need to do in
order to become efficient readers”, and we will adopt this last definition.

The main differences between Reading Comprehension strategies and

Reading Comprehension microskills are explained by Birkner (2014) in the
following chart1, that we have decided to illustrate.

Microskills Strategies
Instructor decides what learner needs Learner's needs are anticipated by
instructor
Skills are often taught in predetermined Self-direction/need is determined by
sequence learner
Skills are often practiced in isolation Strategies are taught in a meaningful
context
The emphasis is often on practice for Strategies are student-centered rather
practice's sake only than teacher-directed
An automatic response is usually Activities are purposeful, interactive,
expected and independent
Applications to meaningful contexts Continual observation is practiced for
may not occur evaluation of what is needed

According to Brown (1994) the Reading Comprehension microskills are:

- “Discriminate among the distinctive graphemes and orthographic patterns of

English.
- Retain chunks of language of different lengths in short-term memory.
- Process writing at an efficient rate of speed to suit the purpose.
- Recognize a core of words, and interpret word order patterns and their
significance.
- Recognize grammatical word classes (nouns, verbs, etc.), systems (e.g.
tense, agreement, and pluralization), patterns, rules, and elliptical forms.

1
Taken from: [Link]
english/[Link]
 - Recognize that a particular meaning may be expressed in different
grammatical forms.
- Recognize cohesive devices in written discourse and their role in signaling
the relationship between and among clauses.
- Recognize the rhetorical forms of written discourse and their significance for
interpretation.
- Recognize the communicative functions of written texts, according to form
and purpose.
- Infer context that is not explicit by using background knowledge.
- From events, ideas, etc., described, infer links and connections between
events, deduce causes and effects, and detect such relations as main idea,
supporting idea, new information, given information, generalization, and
exemplification.
- Distinguish between literal and implied meanings.
- Detect culturally specific references and interpret them in a context of the
appropriate cultural schemata.
- Develop and use a battery of reading strategies, such as scanning and
skimming, detecting discourse markers, guessing the meaning of words
from context, and activating schemata for the interpretation of texts”.

We have also considered of paramount importance to highlight Grellet’s hints to

develop reading comprehension microskills:

1- “Teach the students to concentrate on the text and not on the sentence. If
reading comprehension is to be achieved, the structure of long units such as
the paragraph or the whole text must be understood.
 2- Start with global understanding and move towards detailed understanding
rather than working the other way around.
3- Use authentic text whenever possible. The authentic text does not make
learning more difficult. The difficulty depends on the activity which is
required on the students rather than on the text itself. In other words, the
teacher should grade exercises rather than texts.
4- Link the different activities through the different activities chosen.
5- Focus on reading skills2 and learning strategies and plan comprehension
exercises for each of them.
6- Do not impose your own interpretation on the learners. Teach them to think
by providing enough evidences for them to follow the right way.
7- Do not impose an exercise on the text. It is better to allow the text to
suggest what exercises are more appropriate to it.
8- Do not use so many exercises that you might spoil the pleasure of reading.
9- Help the students to time themselves and increase their reading speed,
little, by little.
10-Use variety of procedures when controlling the student’s reading activities.
Self-correcting exercises are extremely useful” (Birkner, 2014).

1.4- Efficient Reader.

The optimal goal of Reading Comprehension classes is to form efficient readers.

Regarding this issue, Anaisy Coto and Madelaine Pedroso (2010) support María
Heberle de Oliveira when she affirms that:

“(…) the efficient reader is the person who is able to understand the real meaning
of the text, to grasp irony, make inferences or presuppositions, interpret the implicit
elements of the text (…) The efficient reader must know how to adopt his/ her

2
In this case, when the author uses the word “skills”, we will assume that he is making reference to
microskills, as we consider that in the teaching-learning process of a foreign language, English in
this case, there are four major skills: Listening Comprehension, Oral Expression, Writing Expression
and Reading Comprehension.
reading strategies on the basis of the objective, the task, the type of text and his/
her knowledge of the subject matter… the comprehension task will be easier by
appropriately using top-down and bottom-up processing”.

Some of the characteristics of the efficient reader are summed up by Coto

and Pedroso (2010) when they quote Figueiredo’s criterion. According to them, an
efficient reader is “active” (because the reader needs to be mentally active),
“attentive” (because concentration of attention is required), and “selective”
(because Reading Comprehension is selective depending basically on the reader’s
purpose).

Some specialists suggest that students can be classified as efficient readers

only at the advanced level. Nevertheless, we consider that the students'
classification into this category will depend on the students' achievements of the
main Reading Comprehension objectives of each level (Molina, 2011).

1.5- Definitions of Text.

As it has been previously mentioned, the Reading Comprehension process is

closely linked to the understanding of written texts. Therefore, it is of paramount
importance to define and analyze the concept of text.

In Textual Analysis of the Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde (García &
Ramos, 2010), it is stated that text is a stretch of language (mostly, but not
exclusively written), that has been written by someone (the author) for someone
else (the audience), of whatever length, that forms a unified whole. It is further
explained that “the author’s intention(s) is/are identifiable”

Moreover, Coto and Pedroso (2010) quote Dr. A. Curbeira, who affirms that
text is “(…) a creative work of the process of speech, the result of a communicative
act”. These authors consider that “the process of speech and the communicative
aspect based on the semantic relations among its components” are the most
significant aspects when considering a text.
 Additionally, Nguyen Hoang Ha Thu and Le Thanh Tung (2010) point out that
text is “a set of linguistic signs in a social-communicative function, which renders it
as a unit in function, encompassed within a communicative set of actions. That is
why it is possible to define texts according to linguistic and social criteria”. These
authors quote Cristiane Nord, who sustains that “the situational communicative act
creates the appropriate framework for the text to attain its function”.

Taking into consideration that each of these definitions offers different

relevant features regarding what a text is, the author of this paper will adopt all of
them.

According to Nguyen Hoang Ha Thu and Le Thanh Tung (2010), texts

possess different characteristics:

- Texts must have an organic structure, this means that they entail different,
but related parts, and the elimination of one of these parts affects the whole
structure of the text. The main parts of a text are the utterance (basic unit
that constitutes the text, especially in oral texts) and the paragraph (basic
unit in written texts, which is made up of utterances).
- Texts are the minimal units of communication. Utterances are the main
constituents of texts, but they will only constitute a text if they are
contextualized.
- The relatedness degree of the constituent parts of texts must be
characterized by their internal and external interdependence.

Moreover, regarding the fundamental features of a text, Coto and Pedroso (2010)
provide two different criteria. They first support Alvarez Cubas’ opinion, who affirms
that these fundamental features are: complexity, coherence, thematic unit,
relatively finished unit and recognizable communicative function; and then,
Beaugrande and Dressler’s criterion, which considers that texts must fulfill seven
criteria of textuality (otherwise, it is not a text): cohesion, coherence, intentionality,
acceptability, informativity, situationality, and intertextuality (for the type of texts, as
well as for the relation with other texts). In this paper, we will assume Beaugrande
and Dressler’s criterion.

- Cohesion: It is related to the different forms in which the components of a

text are connected within a sequence.
- Coherence: It is concerned with the different forms in which concepts and
relations that underlie the text are linked, highlighted and/or used, to achieve
communication.
- Intentionality: It is associated with the writer’s attitudes and intentions
because the writer makes use of cohesion and coherence to attain a
specified goal.
- Acceptability: It is linked to the reader’s attitude towards the information or
the relevant aspects given in the text.
- Informativity: It is associated with the extent of the already known or
expected contents of the text, compared to those that are unknown or
unexpected.
- Situationality: It is linked to the factors that make a text relevant to a
situation of occurrence.
- Intertextuality: It is related to the different factors that make a text or its use
dependent upon the knowledge of one or more previously encountered text.

1.6- Text Types.

In Linguistic Features and Genre Profiles of Scientific English (Gläser, 1995) it is

stated that text types are “idealized forms of distinctive text structuring which serve
as a matrix of rules and experience”. This author differentiates five types of texts:
description, narration, exposition, argumentation and instruction. Nevertheless,
when classifying texts, we will follow different taxonomical criteria:

1st: According to the language variety used:

- Oral texts: The structure of the syntactic arrangement of the speech acts
that make up utterances is generally lax, sometimes incomplete.
 Subordination and passivation is less frequent. There is iteration of syntactic
structure, pet words and phrases.
- Written texts: Their syntax is more elaborated. The use of sentence
connectors is more regularly used. Syntactic structure is more varied. There
is no use of pet words and phrases.

2nd: According to the communicative aim: Although some texts may show certain
degree of “hybridity” in their structure, according to this criterion, texts can be
classified into:

- Informative texts: They are intended to provide some information about a

certain fact, event, celebration, etc. (journalistic texts, scientific texts, and
humanistic texts).
- Prescriptive texts: They are mainly used for conveying an order, establishing
or decreeing something (judicial texts, administrative texts, or legislative
texts).
- Persuasive texts: They induce, through reasoning or argumentation, to
accept, share, determine or believe something in order to be accepted
(publicity texts, political propaganda, literary essays, etc.).
- Aesthetic texts: They create a fictional world for aesthetic pleasure and
entertainment (literary texts: lyrical, narrative, dramatic).

3rd: According to the modality of the language used: Texts can be the result of
either one of the following modalities or the combination of some of them. They are
classified as follows:

- Descriptive: They represent the concrete and individual objects or fixed

spaces. They also designate the qualities of these objects or spaces without
having a pre-established order.
- Expository: They represent, without logical or temporal connections, the
generic and the abstract (thoughts, concepts or ideas).
 - Narrative: They represent the changes, developments and advances that
take place in time and space, in a chronological order; this chronological
order is sometimes changed for aesthetic purposes.
- Argumentative: They argue through reasoning (inductive or deductive) with
the purpose of convincing and accepting the speaker/writer’s perspective.

4th: According to the subject matter: Texts can deal with a very wide variety of
subject matters. Therefore, texts, according to this criterion, are divided into:

- Journalistic texts.
- Publicity texts.
- Scientific and technical texts.
- Humanistic texts.
- Judicial texts.
- Literary texts (Hoang Ha & Thanh Tung, 2010).

1.7- Reading Materials.

In An A-Z of ESL, Scott Thornbury (2006) states that:

“materials in the language classroom include anything that is used to support

the learning process; this includes course books, workbooks, visual aids,
charts, board games, Cuisenaire rods, audio and video materials, as well as the
software that is run by computers, data projectors and interactive whiteboards.”

Moreover, Shravan Kumar (2017) supports Littlejohn and Windeatt’s opinion when
they affirm that “materials have a hidden curriculum that includes attitudes toward
knowledge, attitudes toward teaching and learning, attitudes toward the role and
relationship of the teacher and student, and values and attitudes related to gender,
society, etc.” and that “they have a basic instructional viewpoint, approach,
method, and content, including which provide linguistic and cultural information”.

Materials in language classrooms play a relevant role in creating effective

teaching and learning environments. Hence, those chosen by teachers should
promote pleasant settings and foster motivation, interaction and long-term learning,
in order to be effective. Effective materials, according to María Fernanda Téllez
(2009), “facilitate the learning of a language by increasing learner’s knowledge,
experience and understanding of it, helping learners learn what they want and
need to learn”; besides, they must offer meanings, relevance and motivation to the
learners.

Taking into account that this paper focuses on Reading Comprehension skill,
we will be focused on reading materials. The author of this paper considers that
reading materials include all the materials used for the successful development of
this linguistic skill in ESL classes. Among reading materials, we can find text
materials, which, also according to the author of this paper, are all the written texts
that could be or are implemented on ESL classes, especially on Reading
Comprehension classes.

Regarding this issue, Liisa Lautamatti (2017) quotes Lynn’s opinion when he
affirms that reading materials are “(…) extremely well done, the only trouble is that
one never seems to come across the students they were designed for (…)”. Liisa
Lautamatti (2017) highlights that the main reasons for general discontent regarding
reading materials are the following factors:

- They are created, most of the times, for large groups of people; hence, they
do not fulfill any particular learner’s or group’s needs.
- They include one-sidedness of approach. This means that authors will use
their own linguistic approaches; therefore, they will only include sources that
reflect these approaches, and the use of material from different kinds of
sources is needed to completely cover and practice grammar, vocabulary,
reading, information finding strategies, etc.
- They make an emphasis on testing, and not on teaching.
- They do not offer enough information about the author(s), which is of
paramount importance because knowing about the author provides
information regarding the possible linguistic and pedagogical approaches
that would be used.
1.7.1 Authentic texts.

Within text materials implemented on the ESL classes, we can find authentic texts.
There are several definitions for this term. For instance, those quoted by Fruzan
Khoshbakht and Bahman Gorjian (2017) in Using Authentic Materials in Teaching
Reading Comprehension to EFL Learners: “materials which have been produced
for purposes other than to teach language” (Nunan, 1988), "ordinary texts not
produced specifically for language teaching purposes" (Carter & Nunan, 2001),
and “texts produced by native speakers for a non-pedagogical purpose” (Bacon &
Finnemann, 1990).

The author of this paper considers that authentic texts are those written by (a)
native speaker(s) of a specific language intended to those people who completely
master that same language; hence, they are not designed with a pedagogical
purpose. Moreover, these text materials cannot be changed, edited or modified (in
case of including charts, pictures and/or diagrams, these items cannot be altered);
this means that they must be used as they were originally written by the author.
Some examples of authentic texts are newspaper articles, radio interviews and
traditional fairy tales.

Authentic texts provide the context of the texts and a rich source of real-life
language to the students, which prepares them to face and deal with real world
situations.

Nowadays, there are more experts that support the use of authentic materials
(include authentic texts) since the very beginning of the teaching learning process
of a second language, others still prefer non-authentic materials (Fruzan
Khoshbakht & Bahman Gorjian, 2017). This opposition of ideas is explained by
analyzing the advantages and disadvantages of implementing authentic materials
on ESL classes, which are summed up in the following chart 3:

Advantages Disadvantages
3
This chart was extracted of the article The Use of Authentic Materials in the Teaching of Reading,
by Sacha Anthony Berardo (2006).
“Real” language exposure with Often too culturally biased, difficult to
language change/variation being understand outside the language
reflected. community.
Students are informed about what is Vocabulary might not be relevant to the
happening in the world. student's immediate needs.
Textbooks4 tend not to include Too many structures are mixed, so
incidental/improper English and become lower levels have problems decoding
outdated very quickly the texts.
The same piece of material can be used Special preparation is necessary, can
for different tasks be time consuming.
Ideal for teaching/practicing mini-skills Can become outdated easily, e.g. news,
skimming/ scanning. stories, articles.
Contain a wide variety of text types,
language styles not easily found in
conventional teaching materials.
Encourage reading for pleasure, likely
to contain topics of interest.

After analyzing the pros and cons of implementing authentic texts on ESL classes,
specifically on Reading Comprehension classes, the author of this paper considers
their use worthy taking into consideration that these disadvantages can be avoided
if the teacher carries out a meticulous process of text materials selection, in which
learners’ needs must constitute the main aspect to take into account.

4
This term makes reference to didactically prepared materials used in ESL classes that may include
text materials, dialogues and grammar explanations; hence, they are considered non-authentic
materials.