Abstract:

At the School of Pharmacy and Biochemistry, University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, we propose a global, interactive and strategic approach to academic reading comprehension, of research papers in particular, within a framework of English as a foreign language. According to our theoretical perspective, the reading comprehension process involves the acquisition of action dynamics for the construction and reconstruction of the parallel text from a transactional approach and recognizes the major role of the activation of prior knowledge for the development of reading hypotheses.

Two main dialogic instances arise: the first, between the reader and the text (author), and the second, between the reader and his social context: other readers. Thus, during the first encounter with the text, readers, driven by their sense of responsiveness and their general knowledge of the world and of the specific subject matter, engage in a dialogic exchange with the author, the concepts put forward in the text proper and the underlying intentions in an active and fructiferous transaction. In this regard, in the assumption that sense is not in the text but within this transaction itself, the first hypotheses are activated as predictions and inferences about the possible meanings emerge. Assuming our classroom context, when our university students first approach the reading materials presented in the class, the initial provisional predictions arise individually, in an internal dialogue with the text, hypotheses constructed quietly and introspectively.

In a second instance, also dialogic but more collaborative, our practices propose peer working among our students, activities that foster pooling ideas freely, exchanging divergent previous knowledge and verifying or rejecting those previous, individual and internal predictions. More specific hypotheses are thus elaborated in a social, collaborative and dialogic discussion. This approach to academic reading engages foreign language (English) students in building and rebuilding the meanings of the text in cooperation and reciprocity, thus leading them to gain in confidence and certainty. Moreover, it often compensates for linguistic weaknesses or disparity in previous knowledge of the language but, most importantly, highlights the benefits of cultural diversity.

These two instances – inter subjective, dialogical and collaborative - make up the scaffolding of the predictive stage of the global approach to reading comprehension implemented by our Chair.

This paper aims to account for the dialogic and collaborative practices our students are involved in when they globally approach scientific papers during the hypothetical pre-reading stage. The interaction, responsiveness and dialogue with peers gives rise to the necessary scaffolding for sense construction within the framework of the richness of diversity and academic/cultural heterogeneity.

Keywords:

Collaborative, dialogic, reading comprehension, English, foreign language.