Representing actions with nouns
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Teaching implications | page 2 of 8 |
Focusing on reading - points to consider
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Many students (both native speakers and second language learners) have
difficulty unpacking  nominalisation while they are reading and they do not properly acquire
this skill until secondary level, and sometimes beyond. |
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Writers who assume that their readers are experts in the field will use a
lot of nominalisation. Most writers and speakers have an adult audience in mind and so use
nominalisation to help them write more concisely. |
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Every instance of nominalisation introduces a degree of vagueness into
the text, and it is the responsibility of the reader to try and work out what the original
meaning was. |
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Some teachers do not realise that many students have difficulty
understanding nominalisations. It is important for teachers to focus on helping their
students to develop strategies for reading, focusing on unpacking texts which contain a
lot of nominalisation. |
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Nominalisation is very common in science and maths and this may help to explain why so many students find these subjects difficult and even alienating. |
For information about one of the problems that students have with heavily nominalised
text, see 
Representing actions with nouns:
Students' problems (p 2).
Introduction
Focusing on reading - points to consider
