FOREIGNERS FIND READING ENGLISH DIFFICULT TO LEARN

Nao Nakano from Aichi prefecture in Japan began learning English when she was in seventh grade. But even now, after 10 years of study, she has difficulties at times reading in her second language.

Nakano, who is a graduate teaching assistant at Southeast Missouri State University, said that part of the problem was in the way she learned English in Japan. She was taught to read very short passages that were written especially for people who were learning the language.

At the university, she has to read many lengthy passages that were written on a collegiate level. Sometimes, she said, instructors will assign 50 pages for the next class period.

"There are too many unknown words," she said of the problems she has run into while reading.

She tried reading with the textbook in one hand and the dictionary in the other, but she still couldn't understand many of the things she was reading. Sometimes she would end up reading the same thing three or four times.

"I would see the words, but not understand them," she said.

But in many ways, when it comes to reading, Nakano is one of the lucky foreigners to come to the United States. She came to this country already knowing how to read in her first language and knowing something about English.

She also came from a culture that is developed academically and educationally, and from a culture that emphasizes the written word as well as an oral tradition.

For Nakano, reading is easier than for many immigrants and refugees. Some come to this country not being able to read in their first language and from countries that emphasize the oral tradition more than the written word.

Dr. Adelaide Parsons, English professor and Southeast's director of the international program, said that the first thing to determine when teaching someone from a different country how to read is whether he can read in his first language.

If a person is literate in his native language, many of the processes and strategies for reading in the first language can be transferred to his reading in a second language, Parsons said.

What is different is the grammar, vocabulary and sometimes the writing system.

"If they use the Latin alphabet, it helps," she said, pointing out that the students who have the easiest time adjusting are those from France, Spain and Germany.

Most difficult is teaching someone who does not read in his first language, Parsons said. These are not university students, but people, such as from Cambodia or Vietnam, who come to this country as immigrants and refugees.

Many of the immigrants and refugees come from countries that not only use a different alphabet or writing system, but that also emphasize the oral tradition more than reading and writing. In such cases, language instruction is more challenging because the teachers must teach both the language and how to read at the same time.

Teaching the language itself is not easy. English is, after all, the language with the largest vocabulary of any language in the world. It is estimated that English has more than 750,000 words. The next largest language is French with about 500,000 words.

Its history of development, borrowing new words from other languages, has left English with sometimes inconsistent pronunciations.

"The oddities of English make it difficult," Parsons said.

She gave, for example, the words "bough" and "bow," "through" and "threw," and "there," "their" and "they're," words that even confuse native speakers.

If the student of English is also trying to learn to read, the job for the teacher is much more difficult.

Parsons said that the teachers start with the very basics -- with phonics and reading in context. They show the students pictures of concrete objects with labels so that students know what word goes with what object.

"Going to the grocery store is a wonderful lesson," she said.

Sometimes the teachers will ask students, who come from cultures that emphasize storytelling, to tell a story. The teachers will write the story down and then give it back to the students. The teachers then teach the students to read using the students' own words.

Parsons said it was exciting to watch students from different cultures learn to read in English, especially immigrants and refugees, who seem so determined to learn.

"They know that if they can speak and read and write English, they've got it made," she said.