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Great interactive reading activity for a Spanish classroom! 

Second-Language Reading Comprehension and Vocabulary Learning with Multimedia Lee B. Abraham Hispania , Vol. 90, No. 1 (Mar., 2007), pp. 98-108 Published by: American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20063468 This article presents a research study where ESL students were put into 3 groups a control group, a forced look-up group, and a choice look-up group. The study was trying to find out if using multimedia would aide in the increase in vocabulary in ESL students. The study found that students in the control group had little vocabulary growth, but the students in the two other groups had the same percentage growth of 18%. When I first started reading this article, I was interested to see if using multimedia tools would increase the vocabulary. I was specifically interested in the use of technology. There is no differentiation about which types of multimedia are better. As I further read, I thought that the students who were given a choice of what to look up would make more growth, because they would be working off their own motivation, but the study showed that whether they were forced to look up words or had a choice, they made the same growth. This reinforces the importance of teaching my students to use context clues, but when that doesn't help, to learn how to use a dictionary and the computer to find the meaning for words.

I know that this isn't *exactly* about reading and learning.  However, this article was so revealing of our culture and mindsets.  I read it with a reading comprehension group I lead at school.  Basically, we (society) spend almost all of our time consuming and, consequently, judging information from all sorts of electronic screens.  We create very little and are so afraid that what we are capable of creating will be judged as "not good enough" because of our judgments of the creations of others.  So, it encourages the reader to go out and create something - write, draw, dance, and learn what makes him or her tick. 

Actually, I think this article has a lot to do with reading and learning. Based on what you read, what would you apply in your teaching practice? (And what did your comprehension group have to say?)

We make a LOT of things in my Spanish classes. Creativity is stretched and encouraged. As far as my comprehension group, they all said, "this is boring... Is it almost over...??" except for one student who loved it and said, "So, we just need to do things that make us happy! It doesn't matter what other people think!" So, I am not sure how much they got out of it...