Interview with Vicki Schrader on extensive reading and second language learning.

Vicki Schrader talks about how she uses extensive reading with her English as an additional language (EAL) students.

In this interview I talked to Vicki Schrader who teaches English as an additional language (known as English Language Learners or ELL in Canada) at Semiahmoo Secondary School in South Surrey, Vancouver. We discussed the role that extensive reading can play in learning a second language.

Jonathan McBride: Vicki, what kind of students do you work with? What would your typical class look like? 

Vicki Schrader: My classes at this school are predominantly students who have either immigrated from China or have come from China for an international education. They have the intention to graduate from secondary school and by and large intend to go to university, hopefully a high status university.

JM: What level of English do they typically come with? 

VS: You know, it’s varied. Last year there were a lot of level 1 students who are just in that beginning range on the British Columbia ministry scale. But usually there are more students at Level 2 or Level 3.

Vicky Schrader, ELL teacher at Semiahmoo Secondary School

JM: So it's quite a broad spectrum. It seems like there’s a lot of diversity within your class.

VS: Yeah there is. We have a small number of students who have come from other places, for example the Philippines and Europe. A couple of years ago we had a couple of students from Ukraine. It can be dependent on what's going on in the world.

JM: So I was thinking about this whole idea of extensive reading and using graded readers. Can you tell me a little bit about how you incorporate that into your lessons? 

VS: To me, it’s important that a student reads extensively and so I do whatever I can to encourage that, and just put a book in their hand and have them spend more time with words in print. There was a time in my teaching career, believe it or not, when I didn't make time for silent reading in my classroom. I just trusted that students would do it [at home]. You have parent meetings and send emails home to really encourage them to read at home, but if they don't have the books, it's not going to happen. So I've tried to build a library within my classroom and the other ELL teachers have here, too. We've tried to build libraries that students can draw from, and our librarian has been really good at doing that too. The problem is, it's really hard to find beginner level English novels for teenagers that are written for language acquisition. There are tons of primary level books, but not for teenagers who are starting English.

JM: What does a good novel that's written for acquisition look like for you? 

VS: Well, I’m loving reading some of the Spanish CI novels. Reading CI novels in other languages has opened my eyes to the learner experience and just how effective a good CI novel can be for language acquisition. In the last couple of months, I just finished Juliana [by Margarita Perez Garcia and Rosana Navarro] and I love Cara De Mosquita Muerta  by Adriana Ramirez. It’s so well written and it’s crafty! Arroz Con Cosas by Margarita Perez Garcia and Patricia Marti made me laugh out loud during silent reading while “modelling” for my students! I speak enough Spanish to get by when travelling, but it’s not enough. Finally I’m following Stephen Krashen’s advice and have started reading more novels in Spanish. From a teacher/writer perspective, reading these authors’ work is teaching me so much about how I should be structuring my language for my students (and how good a CI novel can be!).

 A couple of years ago, I started spending time looking more at what a novel needs [to enable language acquisition]. I did a course on how to write a CI novel over the summer course with Karen Rowan and Adriana Ramirez. I learned that it’s important to get the level of repetition of key structures, but to keep the language natural. Taking a classic book and simplifying the language just isn’t enough.

If I’m writing a story,  I write it first and then pare it all down. So if I can only use 150 words, I need to think “What are my 150 words?” I may have to eliminate a lot of the words to keep it within that 150 word frame. You can do it and it's a really fun game.

Recently I read a graded novel in Mandarin by Linda Li and Dr. Stephen Krashen called Shéi haokàn? This book is genius and it's also available with audio recording. My Chinese students got really excited about this, because I was reading in Mandarin. But you know what? It also has the English, so the fact that it’s bilingual means it’s helping both me and the students with our language acquisition.

Having the English keeps it really comprehensible and the number of repetitions of key phrases that are woven into the story makes it really accessible.

JM: How do you feel reading impacts your students learning?

VS: This year I've got a class of students who are doing Level 1 English. So before the class is ready to actually start taking books home, I tell them if there's anything they want to take home, it's available to them. They just have to sign the books out and take them home if they want. It's not homework, so you've got that level of autonomy. 

Sometimes my students will come back and say “I read it! I finished it!” and  I'm like, “Oh, tell me about it!” They get really excited. They talk about the book for 20 minutes and I’m like “We have to start our class!” 

JM: Fantastic!

VS: I’ll sometimes ask them to tell me about the main character and a couple of key points they really got into. Amongst those students, one of them's read fifteen books, the other one’s read fourteen just by taking what they want. They’ll say “Mrs. Schrader, can I get another book?” and I’ll say “Yes, absolutely, do you want another one? And they take another one and then another one.

I have seen so much growth in these particular students over the year. They’re more confident in their speaking, their vocabulary is growing, they write well and I’m not fixing grammar or sentence structure when they write, like I used to. Their writing flows, they can tell a story and it makes sense.

JM: That’s amazing to hear.

VS: So there’s definitely autonomy. When they do their silent reading in class, they fill in a little reading log. For me, it's not about doing a book report, it's about just spending a little bit more time thinking about what you've done and giving me something visual, so we can maybe talk a bit about the story. I have to do silent reading in class and I have to make time for it. Bryce Headstrom says a lot about that, as does Stephen Krashen.

JM: Do you talk explicitly about the benefits of reading to your students? Do you talk to them about the research into extensive reading?

VS: Well it’s difficult to talk to a Level 1 class about that, but I do try and sneak it in there. I think that they know I value it. If they're doing silent reading, I will try to set a pattern and model reading by sitting in front of them and reading. They’ll say “Are you reading a Chinese book?” And I'm like, “Yep, I'm trying!” As the teacher you're modelling silent reading to the class.  So yes, I'm trying to model reading.