時尚雙語:提高讀寫能力的四步曲
The most accurate predictor of earning power is literacy. According to a number of international studies, it is a better indicator than years of education.
Literacy does not just mean being able to read, but also refers to how well you cope with the written language. This is greatly affected by the number of words you heard or read as a child, or have learned since. For this reason, immigrants often have low literacy levels in the language of their new country. Improving literacy is something you can work on at any time, on your own, without going to school or taking special programs.
Nearly all publications thus reduce the complexity of written communications, as measured by various readability indicators. This is undoubtedly a sensible idea for communicating with and appealing to the majority of people. However, if you as an individual want to improve your word power, you should head in the opposite direction. Time Magazine and Newsweek are only written at a Grade 10 level and most popular novels are at a Grade 7 to 10 level. If everything you read is at a grade 10 level or less, your literacy level will stagnate. Try to read more challenging material to increase your literacy fitness and earning power.
Give yourself a literacy workout, regularly. Soon, you will see a difference in the way you use words and in the way people react to your input. Here's how:
Find articles on the Internet: Look for articles that are interesting but a little difficult or complex to digest. There is almost no limit to the variety of content available on the web, at all levels of difficulty. BNET and Gutenberg are just some examples of great sources of articles and e-books.
Push yourself beyond your comfort level. You may do most of your reading away from the computer, but the Internet is a great place to hone your skills. On the Internet you can identify the difficulty level of different types of reading, as I will explain. In addition you can access online dictionaries and other language resources which can help you.
Know the complexity of your reading material: Find out where your comfort level is. Copy a sample page from a source or article that interests you and paste it into Google Documents. There you can go to File/Word Count and you will see several readability indicators. I use the Automated Reader Index which indicates the number of years of schooling required to understand a text.
Now try to read content that is a level or two higher, whatever that level is. Keep challenging yourself with harder and harder material until you are comfortable with content that is at an index of 12 or 15 or higher. Once you have an idea of the complexity of different types of reading you can target this kind of content for your off line reading too.
Measure the richness of the vocabulary: While you have selected text still on your clipboard, go to Tom Cobb's Vocabulary Profiler. There you can see how many words are within the first 1000 most frequent words, how many are "academic" (AWL), and how many are Off-List words. Try to get to the point where you are comfortable reading material that has around 10% or more words in both the AWL and the Off-List categories. Don't hesitate to use online dictionaries and other word learning systems for increasing your vocabulary, if you need to.
Listen and read: If you want to train your brain to become comfortable with complex language content, seek out sites which offer audio with transcripts for free download. Voice of America, and Interesting Things of the Day are but two examples of such sites. To improve your ability to read complex content, listen to the same content as you are reading. This is an effective way to learn languages, and works wonderfully for improving your reading skills, whatever your level.
Writing that seemed unnecessarily complicated or confusing will gradually seem clear. If you are up to it, try something like James Joyce's Ulysses. I could never read Proust, but I now enjoy him through audio books.
Try an example. Listen to and read this article on Biometrics. It has the following profile:
Readability Index: 15 years of education
First 1000 frequency words: 70 %
Academic Word List words: 8 %
Off-List words: 13 %
You can train yourself to get used to language that at first seems difficult to understand. As your language skills improve, you will find that your writing and oral expression will also improve. You will not need to take those remedial writing, or "higher level thinking" courses which are offered in college to students with poor literacy skills. And your earning potential will increase, for life.
根據世界上大量研究顯示，獲得收益的最準確的預言家是具有讀寫能力的人，具有這種能力勝過接受幾年的教育。
有文化並不意味着你只會閱讀，而是指你運用書面語言的能力有多強。你在孩童時，聽到或讀到的詞彙量的多少或那時學到的東西的多少對以後語言運用的能力影響很大。因爲這方面原因，移民對其所移居國家的語言的讀寫能力一般都很低。你可以靠自學隨時隨地提高讀寫能力，不必非要去學校或者參加專業課程學習。
幾乎所有的出版物都將複雜的內容簡化了，就像被各種各樣的易讀指示器標準化了似的。這無疑對溝通和吸引更多的讀者是一個明智的想法。但是,作爲個人想要提高詞彙能力，則必須反其道而行之。時間雜誌與新聞週刊寫作水平只有十級，而大多數通俗小說只有7~10級水平。如果你讀的東西都在10級及其以下水平，你的讀寫能力就會停滯不前。努力讀一些較難的東西來提高你的讀寫能力及獲得收效。
定期爲自己做一個讀寫能力方面的測驗。很快，你就會看到自己使用詞彙的差距和人們對你這方面反應的差別。下面是一些方法：
在網上找文章：找一些有趣但有一點難度和複雜的文章。在網上幾乎可以找到各種各樣難度較高的文章。BNET和Gutenberg有許多這方面的資源和電子書籍。
儘量不讀易懂水平的東西。你可以不在電腦上閱讀，但是網絡是訓練你技能的好地方。在網上你可以分辨出不同閱讀類型的級別，正如我所要解釋的。另外，你可以藉助在線詞典和其他語言資源來閱讀。
瞭解你所閱讀材料的複雜程度：找出你最適宜閱讀的級別是多少。從你感興趣的一篇材料或文章中複製一篇樣本頁，把它粘貼進Google Documents.在這裏你可以點擊文件/詞彙，可以看到幾種可讀指示器。我使用Automated Reader Index ， 它可以指示出數字，代表學校要求理解的一篇課文屬於幾年級的水平。
現在試着讀比原來高一級或高二級的內容，無論幾級水平，都要堅持不懈讀越來越難的材料，直到你能輕而易舉讀懂指數爲12或15或更高級的內容。一旦你對不同種類閱讀內容的複雜程度有所瞭解，你可以同樣以此爲標準來閱讀不在網上的內容。
測量詞彙量多少：當你已經選擇了的課文仍在線，那麼你可以連接Tom Cobb's Vocabulary Profiler。你可以看到你選擇的文章有多少詞彙屬於列表中前1000個最常用的單詞，有多少詞彙屬於專業詞彙（AWL），有多少詞彙不在列表。盡力找出這樣的材料，適合你讀，而且材料中有大約10%或更多的詞彙在AWL或列表之外的範圍。如果需要，請使用在線詞典和其他單詞學習工具來豐富你的詞彙。
注重聽和讀：如果你想訓練你的大腦對複雜語言有良好的反應，那麼尋找能提供免費下載音頻材料的網站。Voice of America和 Interesting Things of the Day就是這樣的網站。爲了提高你閱讀複雜內容的能力，可邊閱讀邊聽。無論你處於什麼水平，這種方法都是你提高閱讀能力最有效的方法。
寫下看起來複雜的或令人迷惑的內容，理解就會逐漸變得清晰起來。如果你的起點高，那麼讀像James Joyce's Ulysses的內容。我從來沒讀過Proust,但是我通過聽音頻書籍，我現在很喜歡他的作品。
舉一個例子。聽讀this article on Biometrics.概況如下：
閱讀指數：教育15年級。
前1000個常用單詞：70%
專業詞彙：8%
列表之外的詞：13%
你可訓練自己熟悉那些剛開始看起來難理解的語言。當你的語言技能提高了，你會發現你的寫作和表達能力也隨之提高了。你不需要參加那些訓練寫作的補習班，或者參加爲讀寫能力差的在校大學生提供的“高水平思考課程”。同樣你的讀寫能力會不斷提高。
