REFLECTING ON " READING AS A SOCIAL PROCESS"

Reading as a social process by David Bloome.


In some circumstances, reading is a socio-cultural process which can be beneficial to students especially when they actively take part in selecting reading materials which are pertaining to their needs and interests or connected to their social background. Socioliterate approaches by A.M. Johns are telling!

However, in case teachers decide, for one reason or another, to choose reading materials for a multilingual and multicultural class, which ones (reading materials) to pick so as to meet everyone's interests? Such informed decisions would spare teachers from frustrating situations where students get to resist a teacher's lesson by silence just because she did not take into account their perceptions while choosing reading materials. Here is the story: “I had barely finished introducing myself when several of them vociferously started complaining about Debbie. It was as if their silence in class was just a matter of proverbial calm before the storm. They said she was not at all helping them improve their reading/writing skills. 'She is all the time talking about American culture and American heroes and nothing else, they complained bitterly.' Kumaravadivelu, Cultural globalization and language education. p. 192.