Journal II

Discuss readings skills that you have learned in this class, but have rarely used in your reading. Do you think they are really necessary ones for better reading? Why or why not?


             In this class, I’ve learned a lot of reading skills and strategies. When I first saw the tables and lists of reading skills, I was bit overwhelmed by the number of them. And I was surprised again because many of them were the skills that I've used while reading.
             By looking at the lists, and checking what kinds of skills I am using, I could realize my strong and weak points of reading. I often draw inferences of an unknwon word from  the context. I prefer finding meaning from the context than to looking at the dictionaries everytime.               
             This is because I had a bad experience of using dictionaries. One of my English teachers did not like students to use electronic doctrinaires, so she asked students to use paper dictionaries only. Now I understand why she asked the students to use paper dictionary. But at that time, for me, the paper dictionary was just too thick, heavy, and time-consuming to carry. I did not like the idea of carrying it because of few words that I did not know. Instead of carrying it, I started to pretend myself that I know every single word in the passage. So, I had to draw the meaning from the context. I think it somehow helped to read better without dictionaries. But, because of this, I started to skip and pass the words and lines though I did not fully understand what it means. So, my vocabulary knowledge is poor, and it is hard for me to recall word meanings after the reading.
             Now, I know that my guess is not always correct. Although guessing from the text has a clear strongpoint, one strategy alone cannot solve all the problems that I would face while reading. Mixing two is going to be even better!