The Foreign Language
Reading Brain: Connecting the Dots in the Age of Paper and Pixel
El
cerebro que lee una lengua extranjera: haciendo conexiones en la edad del papel
y el píxel
Charles
Elkabas
Profesor
University of Toronto
Recibido: 22 de septiembre de 2017
Aprobado: 19 de diciembre de 2018
Abstract
Since the early eighties, numerous experiments
have been conducted in order to answer the following question: How does reading
on paper differ from reading on screen? Our article presents a brief review of
comparative studies in this field of research. We then look at reading models
in L1 and L2 and posit that digitally displayed language actually provides a
rich source of comprehensible input, and that foreign language readers can
benefit from digital presentation of texts, in particular by way of eBook readers.
We also highlight the inevitable and profound impact of Information and
Communication Technologies (ICT) on the reading brain and, as digital literacy
is fast becoming the norm in today's modern society, we draw attention to the
pedagogical implication for foreign language teaching and learning.
Keywords: Reading on paper versus reading on screen, reading models in L1 and L2,
eBook readers, comprehensible input, ICT
Resumen
Desde principios de los años
ochenta, se han realizado numerosos experimentos para responder la siguiente
pregunta: ¿cómo difiere la lectura en papel de la lectura en pantalla? Nuestro
artículo presenta una breve revisión de estudios comparativos en este campo de
investigación. Luego se analizan los modelos de lectura en L1 y L2, y se
propone que el desplegar el lenguaje en la pantalla es una fuente rica de
insumo de comprensión y que los lectores de lengua extranjera pueden
beneficiarse de la presentación digital de los textos, especialmente a través
de los libros electrónicos. También se destaca el impacto inevitable y profundo
de las Tecnologías de Información y Comunicación (TIC) en el cerebro del lector
y, dado que la alfabetización digital está convirtiéndose cada vez en la norma
de la sociedad moderna, se llama la atención a las implicaciones pedagógicas
para la enseñanza y aprendizaje de lenguas extranjeras.
Palabras-clave:
Lectura en papel versus lectura en
pantalla, modelos de lectura en L1 y L2, lectores de libros electrónicos,
insumo de comprensión, TIC
Cómo citar este
artículo:
APA
Elkabas, C. (2018). El cerebro que lee una lengua extranjera: haciendo
conexiones en la edad del papel y el píxel. Matices en Lenguas Extranjeras, 0(12).
MLA
Elkabas, Charles. "El cerebro que lee una lengua extranjera: haciendo
conexiones en la edad del papel y el píxel." Matices en Lenguas Extranjeras [En línea], 0.12 (2018): s. p.
Web. 16 ene. 2020
CBE
Elkabas, C. 2018 ene 1. El cerebro que lee una lengua extranjera: haciendo
conexiones en la edad del papel y el píxel. Matices en Lenguas Extranjeras. [En línea] 0:12
As information and
communication technologies (ICT) gradually occupy many areas of our social,
personal and professional lives, many researchers, neuroscientists,
psychologists and educators, among others, are now questioning the nature of
the impact these technological tools have on the human brain. Some researchers
believe that when individuals are given a reading task on screen they fall
behind when compared to subjects who perform the same task on paper. Other
researchers also note that the use of computers may negatively impact the
cognitive and physical aspects of the brain. In other studies, however,
researchers debate the validity of these findings and report that reading on
screen actually has many advantages.
The purpose of this paper
is to find out if there are notable differences between reading on paper and
reading on screen. First, we examine two succinct review articles that stand
out in this field of research. Dillon's Reading
from paper versus screens: a critical review of the empirical literature
(1992) is a thorough review of the empirical literature between 1981 and 1992; Computer — vs. paper-based tasks: Are they
equivalent? by Noyes and Garland (2008) covers a period from 1992 to 2006.
These authors give us an overview of 40 studies and experiments undertaken
between the years 1981 and 2006. Results as reported by these two researchers
show that learners and participants in their majority demonstrated a preference
for reading on paper. But before drawing a definite answer, we must approach
these results with caution. As Dillon (1992) points out in his thorough study:
One is struck in
reviewing this literature by the rather limited and often distorted view of
reading that ergonomists seem to have. Most seem to concern themselves with the
control of so many variables that the resulting experimental task bears little
resemblance to the activities most of us routinely perform as 'reading'. It is
perhaps no coincidence that the major stumbling block of reader preference has been
so poorly investigated beyond the quick rating of screens and test documents in
post-experimental surveys (p. 1322).
Noyes and Garland (2008) arrive at the same conclusions:
These early comparisons
of computer- and paper-based tasks generally favoured paper for better
performance according to the metrics of speed, accuracy and comprehension.
However, inconsistencies in earlier findings could largely be attributed to
variations in visual quality of the two presentations, in that like was rarely
being compared with like (p. 1357).
We also looked at a series of articles published after 2006
to see if preference for reading on paper was still holding. As we review well
known and established theories of the act of reading in first (L1) and
second/foreign language (L2/FL), we also assess the applicability of these
theories during the on-screen reading process. Our study looks at three domains
of digital reading: the degree of comprehensible input, the teaching and
learning of reading in foreign language acquisition, and the use of eBook
readers in particular.
Learners today are fairly tech-savvy, and differences
between reading on paper versus reading on screen are decreasing. As language
teachers and pedagogues, we should not be primarily concerned if students take
more time to complete tasks on screen; our main objective should focus on
guiding our students to become better language learners regardless of the type
of medium being used.
From the clay tablet to
the digital tablet
Steve Jobs' DNA ancestry
[1]
takes us back 5,000 years in history. We are using this genetic term liberally
of course, but we can surmise that the ingenious spark that gave us today's iPad
was no more different than the Sumerian's creative mind that developed the
first clay tablet to record business transactions. These first written records
in the form of symbols, known as cuneiform, pressed on fresh clay would become
modern tools of communication with the advantage of relieving individuals from
the task of memorizing data. This was the beginning of reading and writing.
Inevitably, new material discoveries and their applications would render these
cumbersome clay tablets impractical. Thus, in the last 3,000 years, the medium
changed: we moved to papyrus, then parchment and later to print paper. While
these tools simplified social communication, they nonetheless imposed material
and economical as well as cognitive constraints. Clay tablets offered a limited
amount of data 'storage' and were weighty; although light, rolled papyrus was
fragile; codex were time consuming and expensive to produce; paper books would
have to wait until the 20th century to become affordable. Thus, for
every new medium, the human brain had to adapt to different text presentations,
orientations and densities.
With the advent of the LCD monitor, today's debate centered on
reading is primarily preoccupied in demonstrating marked differences between
reading on print and reading on screen and in showing the superiority of paper.
Although we find this discussion very instructive, it should not deter
educators of foreign languages to exploit the many pedagogical advantages that
ICT provide. Whether reading on paper is superior or inferior to digital
reading, we believe that no matter what differences are established, reading on
screen will supplant reading on paper and the brain, thanks to its plasticity
(Doidge, 2007; Li, Legault & Litcofsky, 2014), will again find ways to
adapt to screen reading in the same manner that it had to adapt to reading on
paper after the Gutenberg revolution.
Since ICT today dominate
communication, the teaching of reading in foreign languages must also take its
rightful place in the digital revolution. Indeed, reading literacy in a digital
environment is an unavoidable required skill in today's world, as the authors
of the 2009 PISA[2]
Report justly point out. This document (OECD, 2010) now includes "a
re-developed and expanded framework for reading literacy, which incorporates an
innovative component on the capacity to read and understand electronic texts,
thus reflecting the importance of information and computer technologies in
modern societies" (p. 10).
Research findings:
reading on paper versus reading on screen
In the last three
decades, a number of experiments were conducted in order to understand the
differences between reading on paper and reading on screen. Most studies were
centered on the following tasks: proof-reading, comprehension, information
retrieval, surveys, tests and exam questions, reasoning, personality
assessments, interviews, essay composition among others. Comparative
measurements were speed and accuracy. With regard to reading on screen many
variables were also considered for assessment: screen design and size, colour
background, margins and columns, typeface, line spacing, images and reading
distance from the LCD monitor. Dillon (1992) and Noyes and Garland (2008)
highlight those components that bear significance to our topic of study. They
are as follows:
On paper:
a. proof-reading is
20-60% faster;
b. comprehension tasks
are performed much faster than on CRT, Microfiche and TV screen;
c. better recall is
noticeable;
d. although there are no
significant differences in multiple choice testing, electronic environment
requires more attention;
e. there are better
scores on print in the Nelson-Denny Reading Test;
f. problem solving is
faster.
Reading on screen is better when:
a. difficult questions
are posed;
b. information retrieval
is being tested.
In their lengthy article, Macedo-Rouet, Ney,
Charles and Lallich-Boidin (2009) also corroborate these two sets of results.
The authors give a brief survey of 24 studies undertaken between 1997 and 2007
comparing Web versus paper-based learning. Of these studies, 22 were published
after 2000. Macedo-Rouet et al.
(2009) conclude that "most studies show mixed results, with both positive and
negative aspects of each medium" (p. 376). Many of these experiments also attempt
to find out if reading comprehension on paper is superior to reading on screen
when speed and accuracy are key comparatives.
Indeed in many of these
studies, results show that reading comprehension on paper is superior when
factors such as speed and accuracy are assessed. But do these differences
impact the way we teach and learn reading in a foreign language? Do these
differences matter? It is worth noting in passing that reading on screen today
is less of a daunting task than it was ten years ago. There are still ergonomic
and graphic challenges that can have an impact on the students' performance,
but most previous criticisms are no longer valid today. eBook readers are just
an example: light is adjustable, pages can be flipped from right to left to right,
two pages can be viewed on one screen, books are electronically adapted rather
than digitized, and fonts can be made to look like those of print material. The
tangibility of books and documents has now taken another dimension by way of
interactive screens.
Beginning and skilled
readers
For memory, let us
summarize some basic notions of the reading process (Carrell, 1988; Cornaire,
1991). Contrary to speaking which is innate, reading is a learned skill for it
takes years to master the techniques of decoding the graphic system. Reading is
after all an intense physical activity that mobilizes several parts of our
brain (Schiffmann, 2001). Thus, during a reading activity, we constantly exert
pressure on our brain to decode signals that are placed before our eyes. Poor
vision for example conveys the wrong signals to the human brain, which in turn
produces a distorted physical or cognitive map (Hou, Rachid & Lee, 2017).
We know very well that a child who has undetected poor vision will face
intellectual and cognitive challenges. As our brain is progressively wired to
the new language system being learned, the act of reading involves "an array of
mental or cognitive processes: attention, memory; and visual, auditory, and
linguistic processes" (Wolf, 2007, p. 8). During our reading activity, we sense
that our eyes extend widely onto the text in front of us, but this sensation of
a panoramic view is just an impression. Actually, our eyes only cover eighty
per cent of words of the passage being deciphered. And, depending on the
language being examined, the eyes follow a movement from left to right — in the
case of romance languages, marked by a series of saccades every 8-10 letters
with a fixation of about 225-250 milliseconds (Beymer, Russell & Orton,
2008; Cornaire, 1991). The brain manages to cover seven/eight information units
at a time that are temporarily kept within the realm of short term memory and
later transferred to the long term memory. When it comes to reading
comprehension, an expert reader would tend to use the lexical route — which is
the representation of the visual word and its association with an image that is
part of our lexical inventory. The beginning reader chooses the phonological
route which becomes a deciphering exercise:
the reader dissects the word into syllables that are translated into
mental or vocalized sounds. In their seminal article, Coltheart, Rastle, Perry,
Langdon and Ziegler (2001) suggest that readers automatically adopt a "dual route cascaded model" (p.
213), whereby the phonological and lexical routes are activated, and that they
will choose the one that best helps them identify the word. Indeed, while this
cascaded model is the norm espoused in our typical reading activities, the
foreign language reader on the other hand would lean towards using the
phonological route more heavily.
Reading models in L1 and
L2
As was mentioned above,
there are two ways of approaching the act of reading: lexical and phonological.
The latter is used by beginning or inexperienced readers whose comprehension of
the text is derived from a linear decoding of graphical signs - moving from
letters to syllables, to the word, to the phrase, etc. This is a bottom-up
approach as opposed to the top-down approach favored by experienced readers
(Cornaire, 1991). Before even exploring the text, the skilled reader is first
able to seize the text as a whole in order to quickly check any item that may
hold useful clues — such as titles and subtitles, icons, pictures, layout
presentation, structure, and then make inferences and elaborate hypotheses on
the text's meaning. Is this process similar when we read a text in a foreign
language? It is obvious that beginning and intermediate second/foreign language
learners face several obstacles as a result of their weak or incomplete grammar
mastery, their reduced lexical inventory and their L1 interference. These
individuals tend to adopt a bottom-up approach, move their eyes slowly, have
longer fixations and use frequent regressions.
The foreign language
reading brain: reading on screen and pedagogical implications
Of the twenty articles
published between 1981 and 1991 comparing paper versus computer (see Dillon's
survey, 1992), fifteen studies looked into the speed factor in task completion.
We noticed though in our reading of Noyes and Garland (2008) survey that this
number dropped significantly in studies undertaken between 1994 and 2006. Only
four studies on speed were carried during that period, and seven articles
examined participants' scores and the quality of their performance. Of these
forty studies reviewed by Dillon (1992), Noyes and Garland (2008), one single
article deals with a foreign language — a placement test for learning French
(Weinberg, 2001). Although we recognize the importance of these forty studies,
we find their conclusions limited due to the fact that screens can never
faithfully replicate what is represented on paper. Therefore, further
investigation is warranted, and as Kim and Kim (2013) rightly point out in
their article, Reading from an LCD
monitor versus paper: Teenagers' reading performance : "Determining whether
computer presentation of text affects reading comprehension would be more
difficult than the question of reading speed due to the difficulty of devising
a suitable means of quantification" (p. 17).
There is abundant
research literature detailing the many ICT applications and their practice in
the foreign language classroom (Blake, 2016; Guan, 2014; Huang, 2014; Kessler,
2018; Levy, 2009; Park, Yang & Hsieh, 2014). The younger generations of
language instructors who are now very familiar with the latest gadgets in
technologies do not hesitate to put to test a variety of public and private
programs and software. These instructors are already remodeling the
'pedagogical triangle' (Legendre, 1988) where the relationships between
teacher, learner and knowledge or object of teaching are being reassessed and,
thanks to their acquired technological know-how, tech-savvy students seem to
embrace this new learning configuration where they are empowered to become
autonomous learners (Shang and Chen, 2018). However, unless this pedagogical
triangle is well thought out, instructors run the risk of demotivating their
students (Elkabas & Wooldridge, 2011). Reading activities feature
prominently in the foreign language curriculum because they provide an
important source of comprehensible input to students, and as a result, this
helps them build up their lexical inventory (Krashen, 2004). But, with regard
to the use of computers for reading instruction, Krashen (2008) cautions
against most program applications. For this author, these applications are
based on the traditional 'Skill-Building Hypothesis' which implies "that we
develop competence in language and literacy by first 'learning about' language,
that is, consciously learning the rules, and by deliberately studying
vocabulary" (Krashen, 2008, p. 178). In opposition to this traditional
principle, Krashen (2008) rightly defends his 'Reading Hypothesis' which is
"the claim that reading is the source of much our vocabulary and spelling
competence, our ability to handle complex grammatical structures, and to write
with acceptable writing style" (p. 180).
For Krashen then, the
best way to use the Internet as a source of reading may be
'free voluntary
surfing', or FVS. In FVS, as in free voluntary reading, students read what they
want to read (within reason), with no accountability, no follow-up exercises,
no assigned topics, and no vocabulary list that they must try to remember.
(Krashen, 2008, p. 184)
However, we must keep in mind that even 'free
voluntary surfing' could present many technological and pedagogical challenges.
This concept is certainly attractive, but one should first of all insure that
learner-surfers possess the right navigating reading strategies. Indeed,
whether they are reading online or attending to on-screen guided reading tasks,
learners should be taught pertinent reading strategies. Park, Yang and Hsieh
(2014) draw a helpful reading guideline for good reading practices. According
to these researchers, good readers call upon their prior knowledge of the
topic, of Internet services and their affordances, of informational web
structures, of printed text structures, and of computer skills.
Student assessment
Of particular concern is
the administering of reading comprehension tests on screen. Since these
represent a standard mode of assessment in the foreign language classroom, our
general tendency would be to replicate on screen the layout model used for
paper. We type a text borrowed from an authentic document, or we photocopy a
newspaper article, a passage from a novel or a non-fiction book; then we
transfer it as a document to screen or we scan it as a PDF. A series of
questions - multiple choice items or open ended questions- normally follow the
text presented. In a recent study
(Mangen, Walgermo & Brønnick, 2013), 72 tenth graders in Norway were
divided in two groups. One group read a text on screen in a PDF format; the
other group read the same text in print in an identical PDF layout.
Participants from both groups answered questions on screen; those who read the
PDF text in print received higher scores in reading comprehension. Although
they have no definite answer, the authors of this study suggest that
participants in the screen test may have been hindered by constant navigation
and scrolling (going from the PDF document window, to the questions window)
while participants in the print condition were able to experience a complete
spatial effect of the paper and more fully comprehend the text in its entirety.
This experiment may therefore signal that poor performance of students in the
screen condition is not necessarily the consequence of inferior reading skills
but rather the less intuitive aspects of handling technology that become a
contributing factor in poor reading comprehension. Two important lessons can be
learned from Mangen, Walgermo and Brønnnick's (2013) experiment when one
administers reading comprehension tests in a foreign language: 1. Scrolling has
a negative impact; 2. Reading text and questions must be contained in one
single window in order to avoid the negative impact of on-screen navigation.
The solicited brain
Students read a lot;
while perhaps not reading what we would like them to read —Dostoyevsky, Dante,
Cervantes, and Hugo or other classics — they are reading constantly (searching
on Google, Wikipedia and social media), text messaging, reading blogs and
digests of current events. They know
what they are seeking, they are curious, and they have their personal reading
strategies. But reading on screen in a foreign language is as complex as
reading on screen in L1.
In these modern times,
as technology opens boundless opportunities, humans must confront new
challenges every day. Levitin (2014) in The
Organized Mind reminds us that our brain is constantly bombarded with
information (radio, street noise, music, phone rings, emails, movements in the
street, infographics, etc.) and that we attend to those that need our immediate
attention. However, when we are expected to process them all instantly, the
brain is overworked. Levitin (2014) calls this situation a "cognitive overload"
(p. 7).
Our brains do have the
ability to process the information we take in, but at a cost: We can have
trouble separating the trivial from the important, and all this information
processing makes us tired. Neurons are living cells with a metabolism; they
need oxygen and glucose to survive and when they have been working hard, we
experience fatigue (Levitin, 2014, p. 6).
For language learners,
cyberspace which is a "non-linear online reading environment" (Park, Yang &
Hsie, 2014, p. 161) can turn into the longest of journeys. Attention-seeking
stimuli and distractors such as pop-up windows, flashing signals for cookies,
multiple headlines, cues for inter- and extra-navigation, commercial
enticements, are all competing in such a way that the brain's "attentional
filter" is unsettled (Levitin, 2014, p. 7). Faced with this plethora of
distractors, the brain is at a crossroads. To borrow Levitin's analogy: "The
decision-making network in our brain doesn't prioritize" (Levitin, 2014, p. 6).
This additional challenge presents a new source of stress to the foreign
language reading brain.
Language instructors are
eager to use the web because it is a valuable source of authentic documents and
useful reading materials, but when assigning task-based projects with this medium, they must be aware
of the many challenges their language students face. Paradoxically, the web is
the tool that can best build up students' comprehensible input and bring
together a community of highly interested and motivated learners. Content-based
instruction and activities such as task-based projects are also extremely
constructive (Ellis, 2003; Long, 2015; Thomas & Reinders, 2010).
As noted in many
research studies, when students read on screen, they fail to match the
performance of their peers who read on paper because they practice skimming and
scanning techniques. But, rather than seeing these two techniques as a handicap
for teaching and learning foreign languages, we believe these techniques can
act as a counterpoint to the cognitive overload. In actuality, students should
be taught how to quickly examine the general content of an article or to locate
needed information to swiftly accomplish their tasks. Indeed, the profile of
the good language reader is an individual who perfects the techniques of
skimming and scanning, is able to identify the type of text (narrative,
descriptive, directive, expository, or argumentative) and its structure, and
uses cues such as graphics, pictures, titles, and subtitles to make inferences
before even engaging in the act of reading. When confronted with a crowded web
page, students should be taught how to practice a top-down approach and make
inferences right from the start.
eBook readers as a
useful pedagogical tool
Many studies undertaken
since the 1980s comparing reading on screen and reading on paper demonstrate
that individuals who read on screen received lower test scores. eBook readers
for example were used as one medium for comparison (Connell, Bayliss, &
Farmer, 2012; Coyle, 2008; Jeong, 2010; Margolin, Driscoll, Michael, Toland,
& Kegler, 2013; Pinto, Pouliot, & Corton-Garcia, 2014; Staiger, 2012;
Wright, Fugett & Caputa, 2013). At present, we would like to revisit some
particular features of this reading tool which, it seems, have had a negative
impact on participants' interest and performance (Chou, 2016; Clark, Goodwin,
Samuelson, & Coker, 2008; Connell, Bayliss, & Farmer, 2012; Torres,
Johnson, & Imhondy, 2014). For example, backlight and font type and size
were found to be tiring for the eyes and affect the quality of reading
performance and comprehension. Regardless of their length, texts were presented
in one single page and one had to scroll down to study, read or view the
document. It was also difficult to locate the place where one had stopped
reading. Understandably these characteristics can become a hindrance to
sustained or deep reading, but technology evolves at a rapid pace, and today
newer features in eBook readers are a welcome sign to general readers and to
foreign language learners in particular (Qian, 2011). Most commercial eBook
readers offer multiple options that transform the reading activity as close as
possible to the one we engage in when reading on paper: use of E Ink,
easily-affixed bookmarks to return to a page after a pause; print and type
setting as varied as those found in paper books (Zeng, Bai, Xu, & He,
2016), page-flipping and adjustable background contrast. These eBook readers
have other features that paper books could never match and that are
pedagogically useful to the L2/FL learner: looked-up words inventory,
integrated dictionary and other language tools, intra-text navigation, easy
access to in-line footnotes, and virtual stickie margin notes. These options
and other audio functions offer multiple pedagogical possibilities in the
classroom and bring much support to language learners whose tendency is to
become autonomous in their adopted digital habitat. As ICT become prevalent in
our society, we just cannot ignore the impact digital texts may have on our
teaching and learning foreign languages (Chou, 2016). Consequently, accepted
theories on reading, top-down and bottom-up, Gestalt and schemata (Ajideh,
2006; Carrell, & Eisterhold, 1983; Goodman, 1988; Shuying, 2013) will
inevitably have to be revised in light of technological developments when we
take into consideration other modes of text presentation such as graphics,
signs, images and integrated auditory clips. Therefore, to know how to read in
this modern age implies being able to move from the state of being literate to
that of being transliterate. As Thomas, et
al. (2007) propose: "Transliteracy is the ability to read, write and
interact across a range of platforms, tools and media from signing and orality
through handwriting, print, TV, radio and film, to digital social networks" (n.
p.).
Conclusion
As reported by Dillon (1992),
Noyes and Garland (2008), and Macedo-Rouet, et
al. (2009), the majority of experimental testing shows that reading on
screen is slower than reading on paper. But as Noyes and Garland (2008) justly
point out in their thorough investigation, researchers' findings are
inconclusive due to the fact that it is very hard to establish balanced
comparative indicators "since two different presentation and response modes are
being used" (p. 1371). Moreover, we believe that because most of these tests
were administered to individuals who are not truly 'digital natives', it would
be hasty to draw definite conclusions with regard to on screen reading
performance. Above all, individual digital skills and literacy are important
factors as Sun, Shieh and Huang (2013) remind us: "Reading from computer
screens requires a certain degree of individual technical skill. However, most
researchers did not objectively take the variable into account when conducting
an experiment regarding the comparison between print and screen reading." (p.
90) Only in the next decade, thanks to international investigations that are
being carried out by the OECD (2010), will we be able to see a larger and much
clearer picture of students' reading literacy and to measure their digital
navigation skills.
Interestingly though, a number of researchers
offer a different picture of technology-assisted foreign language learning.
Their articles do not focus on speed and time factors but rather on the quality
of the participants' performance in FL. Good results, we read, are best
obtained when students are taught a strategies-based reading approach (Huang,
2014), when they are trained for online self-learning (Shang & Chen, 2018),
and when they activate their prior knowledge during their reading (Park, Yang,
& Hsieh, 2014). Thanks to their integrated resources and mobility, eBook
readers were seen favorably by the majority of students (Chou, 2016; Clark,
Goodwin, Samuelson & Coker, 2008).
Will the next generation
of learners more easily navigate the meanders of cyberspace? Will their brains
be wired differently? To these questions our answer is in the affirmative.
Humans, as we all know, are not pre-programmed to read, but our brain has the
admirable plasticity that allows us to adapt to new forms of communication and
"the ability to learn to connect and integrate at rapid-fire speeds what it
sees and what it hears to what it knows" (Wolf, 2007, p. 8). Thus, when it is
highly stimulated through various sensory interactions, the adult brain is
constantly reorganizing and reconstructing itself (Schiffmann, 2001). According
to Schiffmann (2001), if the conditions are met, the brain has the potential to
create an infinite number of neuronal connections with the benefit of
maintaining and strengthening cerebral functions. For this reason ICT, with
their boundless amount of visual and cognitive distractors, may actually
increase the quality of the brain's activity. Nevertheless, reading on screen
may have undesirable effects: 1. Physical — frequent users are now showing
signs of asthenopia and computer vision syndrome (Rosenfeld, 2011); 2.
Cognitive — reading and multitasking do not make a perfect combination because
they confuse our attentional system (Ackerman & Goldsmith, 2011; Levitin,
2014; Mangen, Walgermo and Brønnick, 2013; Subrahmanyam et al., 2013).
Referring to his "attentional switching" principle, Levitin (2014) remarks:
"Multitasking is the enemy of a focused attentional system" (p. 16). Indeed, cyberspace distractors could have a
negative impact on foreign language learners at the beginning level, but
instructors can promote the use of eBook readers in order to partially
alleviate this problem.
Computers, tablets,
eBook readers and other devices such as smartphones are part of our daily
digital landscape, and we are often told that students prefer these modern
tools of communication. As technology evolves, foreign language instructors
will have to adapt to their students' reading habits and understand the
pedagogical implication of digital reading. But even if today's reading on
screen presents a number of challenges, surely the human brain will find ways
to develop new neuronal pathways for reading in order to circumvent those
obstacles. In his book The Organized Mind,
Levitin (2014, p. 15 ) lists a series of famous
authors who complained about the disruption caused by the incursion of
writing or who found the large and public dissemination of books threatening;
Plato, Seneca the Younger, Erasmus, Leibnitz, Descartes are just a few. Levitin
(2014) continues with these ironic remarks:
Intellectuals warned
that people would stop talking to each other, burying themselves in books,
polluting their minds with useless, fatuous ideas. And as we well know, these
warnings were raised again in our lifetime, first with the invention of
television, then with computers, iPods, iPads, e-mail, Twitter, and Facebook.
Each was decried as an addiction, an unnecessary distraction, a sign of weak
character, feeding an inability to engage with real people and real-time exchange
of ideas (Levitin, 2014, p.15).
"An addiction" perhaps, but we must accept the
fact that communication and human interaction have never been as widespread as
today.
We recognize that those individuals
positioned between pre- and post-ICT (MTV Generation — X and Echo Boom
Generation — Y) face certain obstacles when they read texts online, but there
is no doubt that today's 'screenagers' or millennials (iGeneration) will be
lodged in their natural digital habitat and will have already developed new
reading brain circuits well before 2030. As technology moves forward, so will
follow the foreign language reading brain.
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[1] Co-founder and chief
executive officer of Apple Inc. from 2000 to 2011.
[2] PISA is the acronym for
'Programme for International Student Assessment'. In 2000, the Organization for
Economic Co-operation and Development or OECD began a worldwide study to assess
15-year old participants' academic performance on reading, mathematics and
science. Literacy skills are assessed every three years and in a selected
domain: thus, reading was assessed in 2000 and 2009 and will be measured again
in 2018. When this study was launched, only 43 countries participated. In 2015,
this number increased to 72. A panel of forty-one experts contributed to this
292-page study which was commissioned by the Secretary-General of the
OECD.