Reflections

MY READING AND WITING PROCESS

About readying…I'm not passionate about reading. Sometimes I read books that catch my attention but they are in Spanish, to be honest I don’t really read in English for fun, I usually read academic texts and articles that are require at the university but who I said before I don’t do it on my own.

Writing is totally different, I prefer to write in English than in Spanish, for example: I like to post my status on Facebook in English, when I don’t know any expressions or who to write something, I look for the meaning, most of my comments are in English as well and I enjoy chatting with friends from other counties in order to know more about their cultures and at the same time to improve my English, I think it is a fun way to improve my writing skills.

My expectations with this course are to improve my reading skills that is to understand and enjoy what I read, improve my writing skills and of course enrich my vocabulary.

PRE-READING PROCESS

Reflecting on how I read I will say that when I read a book for example in Spanish I use to read the title , the name of the author and his biography to know a little more about him and what other books he has written . I don't pose questions about what the book will be about, I just start reading to enjoy the story and I don’t really care about understanding everything but to have a relaxing and fun time. I don't do a deep pre-reading because I get bored, that's why I just try to start reading the book as soon as I can and if the book is a good one it will catch my attention and I wouldn´t stop reading until the end of it.

In contrast, when I read an article or a book that is required at the university I do a really conscious pre-reading. I do some research  before I start reading, I do a quick pre-reading like: see the images of the book, I use to read the introduction, the subtitles and something I read some short paragraphs of different parts of the book in order to have a taste of what the book will be about. I also take some notes. In this case, I understand the book better but I don't enjoy it at all, I do this exercise because I have to but most of the time I don't really enjoy what I read.

The biggest challenge I have for this semester is to form good reading habits, because it’s really hard for me to take an English book and read it with pleasure. I would like to also learn techniques of reading to have a better comprehension of what I read. I know it's not easy, but it’s not impossible and as teachers it is vital to investigate, namely general knowledge so that our classes have a context, off course most of that I want to achieve it!