Even if a foreign language student is an able decoder in English, the level of effort required to read for meaning in real time
academic situations can be a monumental task. Look how author Richard Rodriguez (1982) describes his own reading in English as a
new language: “Most books, of course, I barely understood. While reading Plato’s Republic, I needed to keep looking at the book jacket
to remind myself what the text was about”. One might ask how Rodriguez could be reading a book at such an advanced level in
English but still not reading with comprehension. How could he read and yet not read? And what is it that makes reading in a new
language so overwhelming? Perhaps part of the answer can be found in the less extensive listening vocabulary upon which foreign
language students can draw when reading written words, they have never seen before. Part of it may result from incomplete
knowledge of the syntax and grammar patterns of English. When we struggle with sentences in a new language, reading takes a great
deal of cognitive energy. As a result, retaining the gist of the previous sentences in a paragraph or of previous paragraphs in working
memory is hard to do as we move through a text. Even when decoding is no longer very effortful, it is still much harder to move
along through a text and construct meaning from it as we read in a new language. We might describe this as a real-time “delay”,
which has to do with discursive practices. When the rate of processing discursive meaning from text can’t “catch up” with the rate
of our decoding, the result may be the strange phenomenon of decoding but not comprehending, as lamented by Richard
Rodriguez above.

LEMS, Kristin; MILLER, Leah D.; SORO, Tenema M. Teaching Reading to English Language Learners. Insights from Linguistics. New York and London: 2010, pp. 171-2. (Adapted).
The excerpt discusses what the author calls ‘real-time delay’ in English as a foreign language students’ reading ability. After reading
this passage, choose the best alternative that may define this real-time delay.

Question

Even if a foreign language student is an able decoder in English, the level of effort required to read for meaning in real time
academic situations can be a monumental task. Look how author Richard Rodriguez (1982) describes his own reading in English as a
new language: “Most books, of course, I barely understood. While reading Plato’s Republic, I needed to keep looking at the book jacket
to remind myself what the text was about”. One might ask how Rodriguez could be reading a book at such an advanced level in
English but still not reading with comprehension. How could he read and yet not read? And what is it that makes reading in a new
language so overwhelming? Perhaps part of the answer can be found in the less extensive listening vocabulary upon which foreign
language students can draw when reading written words, they have never seen before. Part of it may result from incomplete
knowledge of the syntax and grammar patterns of English. When we struggle with sentences in a new language, reading takes a great
deal of cognitive energy. As a result, retaining the gist of the previous sentences in a paragraph or of previous paragraphs in working
memory is hard to do as we move through a text. Even when decoding is no longer very effortful, it is still much harder to move
along through a text and construct meaning from it as we read in a new language. We might describe this as a real-time “delay”,
which has to do with discursive practices. When the rate of processing discursive meaning from text can’t “catch up” with the rate
of our decoding, the result may be the strange phenomenon of decoding but not comprehending, as lamented by Richard
Rodriguez above.

LEMS, Kristin; MILLER, Leah D.; SORO, Tenema M. Teaching Reading to English Language Learners. Insights from Linguistics. New York and London: 2010, pp. 171-2. (Adapted).
The excerpt discusses what the author calls ‘real-time delay’ in English as a foreign language students’ reading ability. After reading
this passage, choose the best alternative that may define this real-time delay.  Alternativa A: Real-time delay has to do with discursive characteristics of a text in terms of recognizing grammar parts.  Ou Alternativa B: Real-time delay is a measure used by foreign language teachers to grade their students when reading.  Ou Alternativa C: Real-time delay helps identify proficient foreign language readers from basic ones in language classes. Ou Alternativa D: Real-time delay means that foreign language students do not possess the ability to read as natives. Ou Alternativa E: Real-time delay is a distance between decoding the words and discursively understanding a text.

Qconcursos · Accepted Answer

Alternativa [E] Real-time delay is a distance between decoding the words and discursively understanding a text. Gabarito: EFundamento decisivo: O próprio texto-base traz a definição de “real-time delay” em forma de paráfrase, e a alternativa E é a que a reproduz com maior fidelidade.Tema central: definição por paráfraseAnálise das alternativasAErradaEstá errada porque reduz o termo ao reconhecimento de partes gramaticais. O texto menciona sintaxe e gramática como possíveis fatores da dificuldade, mas não as usa para definir “real-time delay”; a definição dada é o atraso entre decodificar e processar o sentido discursivo.BErradaEstá errada porque inventa um uso avaliativo que não aparece no excerto. Não há base textual para tratar “real-time delay” como medida usada por professores para dar nota ou graduar leitura.CErradaEstá errada porque atribui ao termo uma finalidade classificatória ausente no texto. O excerto descreve um fenômeno de processamento na leitura em língua estrangeira, não um critério para separar leitores proficientes de básicos.DErradaEstá errada porque extrapola uma dificuldade específica de processamento para uma incapacidade geral de ler como nativos. O texto não fala em impossibilidade absoluta, mas em decodificação sem compreensão suficiente no ritmo da leitura.ECertaA alternativa E está correta porque corresponde ao trecho em que o texto afirma que o processamento do sentido discursivo não consegue acompanhar a velocidade da decodificação: “decoding but not comprehending”.Pegadinha da questãoA confusão real era trocar a definição de “real-time delay” por suas possíveis causas, especialmente sintaxe/gramática, ou por usos que o texto nunca atribui ao termo, como avaliação ou classificação.Dica para questões semelhantesQuando a questão pede a definição de uma expressão, procure primeiro se o próprio texto a explica diretamente em frase próxima ao termo.Separe definição de causa: vocabulário, sintaxe, gramática e esforço cognitivo aparecem como fatores contribuintes, não como o conceito pedido.Em questões por paráfrase, escolha a alternativa que preserve a relação central do trecho, aqui o descompasso entre decodificação e construção de sentido.

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