Funnell's three-route model of single word reading as an account of false beginners' interlanguage¶

Theory · All theories
Evidence · 1 claim (1 for) · 1 study (1 associational), q1 · 0 of 1 report an effect size · 1 claim rests on one study

Description¶

The article imports Funnell's three-route model of single word reading, developed for a case study of surface dyslexia with semantic impairment, to explain L2 learners' word vocalization. When regular pronunciation of irregular words is observed, the reader "takes the sublexical route which does not connect to the semantic system among the three groups." The model explains how false beginners can read faster than true beginners while their comprehension remains as low, since even correct pronunciations may take the direct lexical route, avoiding the semantic system indispensable for comprehension.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Applies to oral single-word reading performance where regularization of irregular words can be observed as evidence of sublexical route use

Constraints¶

• Derived from a case study of a subject with progressive impairment of semantic memory and surface dyslexia; the article presents its application to L2 learners as an interpretive account, not a tested prediction

Target Learners¶

• Japanese young adult EFL learners, including false beginners at a technical college

Target Learning Objectives¶

• English phonological decoding and recoding of single words
• reading comprehension

Claims¶

• Early failure in phonetic recoding and decoding widens the acquisition gap between false beginners and successful learners over time [+W]

Related Theories¶

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• Nakamura, Tomoko. (1997). What Makes Language Learners False Beginners? Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Japan Association for Language Teaching. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED420194