Reading

Coherence and cohesion are two terms which arise in this unit. Kiwi Scott Thornbury writes that:

From here

...a text is cohesive if its elements are linked together. A text is coherent if it makes sense.  It should be clear that these are not the same thing. That is, a text may be cohesive (i.e. linked together), but incoherent (i.e. meaningless). Here is one such (invented) text:

I am a teacher. The teacher was late for class. Class rhymes with grass. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. But it wasn't.

Each sentence is notionally linked to the one that precedes it, using both lexical and grammatical means, but the text is ultimately senseless - to me anyway (and I wrote it!).

The following (much quoted) exchange, however, is coherent to most people, even though there are no obvious links between its parts:

A:         There's the phone.

B:         I'm in the bath.
A:         OK.

It is coherent because we can easily imagine a context in which it would make sense.

Put simply, then: cohesion is a formal feature of texts (it gives them their texture),  while coherence is "in the eye of the beholder" - that is to say, it is the extent to which the reader (or listener) is able to infer the writer's (or speaker's) communicative intentions. Thus, cohesion is objectively verifiable, while coherence is more subjective. A text may be coherent to you, but incoherent to me.

In the last paragraph Thornbury says that coherence reflects the readers ability to infer the intention of the writer. Can you remember the example of inferring which we discussed in class, the restaurant review?

The ability to infer is one of the subskills of the receptive skill of reading. How many other subskills can you recall? What subskill might you use in the following situations?

• a) You check a sports website to see if you favourite football team has won.
• b) You are in a library deciding between two books which you would like to borrow.
• c) You are applying for a new passport and are reading the "important information" section on the first page.
• d) You are reading a novel and come across the sentence: He had worked in Kirchen before moving to Berlin in 2004. You have never seen the word 'Kirchen' before. 

For situation 'a' you could use the subskill of scanning, i.e. reading for specific information. You are not interested in the baseball or tennis news so you scan for the football scores.

Skimming, i.e. reading for gist would probably be most useful in situation 'b'. You could look through the books quickly and get a general feel about their content before choosing the one which interested you most.

You would need to read for detail in situation c to ensure you fully understood the text.

In situation d you would hopefully realise that Kirchen is a proper noun (it has a capital K). You would also notice that it is preceded by the preposition 'in'. By putting these two pieces of information together you could deduce that Kirchen is the name of a town or city.


The ability to understand text structure can also be a useful subskill. For example, biographies of dead people generally follow a chronological sequence: they begin with their birth, give details about their life and finally end with their death. Here is an outline of the Wikipedia article on Welsh actor Stanley Baker:

1. Early career
2. Stardom
3. Personal life
4. Death
5. Legacy
6. Filmography
7. References


A good understanding of text structure helps a reader know where in the text they are and this can help them predict what information will come next.


How does all of this relate to the classroom? Take a look at this graded article and tasks from http://www.onestopenglish.com/. The topic is the financial crisis in Greece.

• What do you think is the purpose of the lead-in activity in part 1?
• What are some benefits of pre-teaching vocabulary in part 2?
• Is the task in part 3 practising the subskill of skimming or scanning?
• What are some benefits of the post-task activity in part 4?


 

Another key phrase on the topic of reading is extensive reading. If you are unsure of the meaning of this term, refer to the TKT glossary. In this article, Alan Maley discusses some of the benefits of extensive reading. Top of the list is:

From here

ER develops learner autonomy.

There is no cheaper or more  effective way to develop learner autonomy. Reading is, by its very nature, a private, individual activity. It can be done anywhere, at any time of day. Readers can start and stop at will, and read at the speed they are comfortable with. They can visualise and interpret what they read in their own way. They can ask themselves questions (explicit or implicit), notice things about the language, or simply let the story carry them along.

 We briefly discussed learner autonomy in class today. Can you remember some synonyms for autonomy in this context?