Exploring strong and weak EFL readers’ strategy use after a reading strategy and extensive reading instructional intervention

2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 345-377 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ying-Chun Shih ◽  
Barry Lee Reynolds
Keyword(s):  
Reading Instruction ◽  
English Language ◽  
Strategy Instruction ◽  
Junior College ◽  
Reading Strategy ◽  
Strategy Use ◽  
Strategy Training ◽  
Extensive Reading ◽  
Verbal Reports ◽  
Language Class

Abstract After 16 weeks of extensive reading and reading strategy instruction in an English as a Foreign Language class (n = 52) at a junior college in Taiwan, three weak and three strong second language readers were recruited to investigate reading strategy use. Strategies were inferred from verbal reports gained through a think aloud methodology as participants read a text equivalent to those encountered during regular classroom instruction. Results indicated strong readers used more global strategies than weak readers. Strong readers had a more diverse reading strategy repertoire while weak readers tended to lean towards the use of a single strategy. In addition, strong readers tended to combine strategies. These and other results are discussed in terms of the translation-based reading instruction currently dominating Taiwanese secondary school classrooms. Suggestions are also provided on how classroom English teachers should implement reading strategy training in the English language classroom.

Can reading strategies be successfully taught?

1998 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia L. Carrell
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Reading Instruction ◽  
Reading Strategies ◽  
Strategy Instruction ◽  
Critical Issue ◽  
Reading Strategy ◽  
Strategy Training ◽  
Reading Strategy Instruction ◽  
Context Sensitive ◽  
Comprehensive Survey

The purpose of this article is to examine whether and how reading strategies can be successfully taught in second or foreign language reading instruction. A number of researchers agree that it is important for second or foreign language readers to become ‘strategic’ readers. Yet, there is disagreement among these same researchers as to how to accomplish this goal. Part of the problem is that there are no inherently ‘good’ or ‘bad’ reading strategies. What is a good strategy in one situation for one reader, may be a bad strategy in a different situation or for a different reader. Successful and unsuccessful strategy use is apparently context and text dependent. In this article I present a comprehensive survey of the research which has been done on reading strategy training, and confront the critical issue of how to make reading strategy instruction appropriately text and context sensitive rather than the mindless teaching of lists of strategies.

Influence of Reading-Comprehension Strategy Information on Children's Achievement Outcomes

1992 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dale H. Schunk ◽  
Jo Mary Rice
Keyword(s):  
Strategy Instruction ◽  
Strategy Use ◽  
Strategy Training ◽  
Comprehension Instruction ◽  
Comprehension Strategy ◽  
Children's Achievement ◽  
Remedial Readers ◽  
Achievement Outcomes ◽  
Improved Performance ◽  
Main Ideas

Two experiments investigated the effects of sources of strategy information on children's acquisition and transfer of reading outcomes and strategy use. Children with reading-skill deficiencies received comprehension instruction on main ideas. In Experiment 1, some students were taught a comprehension strategy, while others received strategy instruction and strategy-value feedback linking strategy use with improved performance; controls received comprehension instruction without the strategy. In Experiment 2, children were taught the comprehension strategy or received instruction without strategy training; they were then given comprehension instruction on details. Some children were taught how to modify the strategy; others did not employ the strategy on details. Children who received strategy-value feedback (Experiment 1) and strategy-modification instruction (Experiment 2) demonstrated the highest self-efficacy, skill, strategy use, and transfer. These results support the idea that remedial readers benefit from information about strategy usefulness.

scholarly journals Effects of Extensive Reading on Thai Tertiary Students’ Reading Attitudes

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arab World English Journal ◽  
Ketvalee Porkaew ◽  
Ariyadhorn Fongpaiboon
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
English Language ◽  
Structure Interview ◽  
Reading Engagement ◽  
Extensive Reading ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Significance Level ◽  
Language Class ◽  
Significant Difference

An exposure to free choice of inspiring reading materials among Thai students has not been largely promoted in English language class, affecting negative language learning attitudes and development of a reading habit. This present study examined the effects of extensive reading (ER) on Thai university students. To measure their attitudes towards comfort, anxiety, intellectual value, practical value and linguistic value before and after 15-week extensive reading. 68 undergraduate students were asked to complete the 5-point Likert scale questionnaire of 23 items adopted from Yamashita (2013). A semi-structure interview was also employed. The results revealed students had positive feelings in which ER increased their comfort and decreased their anxiety at the significance level of 0.05. They also had positive beliefs about the intellectual benefits. However, the practical value that ER might bring advantages to students’ study or future career was lower in the posttest. There was no significant difference between the pretest and posttest in their beliefs about English language study benefits. Qualitative data from the semi-structured interviews showed that students satisfied with their own choice of reading preference. The findings suggested the use of ER approach in English as a foreign language (EFL) classes to increase students’ positive attitudes, decrease their negative ones towards reading, and develop good reading habits through their reading engagement.

scholarly journals The Effects of L2 Proficiency on Pragmatic Comprehension and Learner Strategies

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 174
Author(s):  
Hsuan-Yu Tai ◽  
Yuan-Shan Chen
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Life Experience ◽  
Strategy Instruction ◽  
Strategy Use ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
World Knowledge ◽  
Verbal Reports ◽  
Amount Of Information ◽  
Multiple Strategies ◽  
Pragmatic Comprehension

The present study aimed to examine the effect of proficiency on the pragmatic comprehension of speech acts, implicatures, and routines, as well as the way learners of different proficiency levels employ strategies when comprehending a pragmatic task. Thirty-three high-proficiency and forty-one low-proficiency Chinese learners of English completed a multiple-choice discourse completion task (MDCT). Of the participants, six were selected from the two proficiency groups to perform verbal retrospections to probe their strategy use in the MDCT task. The quantitative results showed that the high-proficiency group performed significantly better than the low-proficiency group on speech acts, implicatures, and routines. In addition, the analyses of verbal reports identified eight major strategies the learners used while performing the task, including sociopragmatics, hearer’s response, relevance, keyword/key phrase, life experience/world knowledge, amount of information, intuition, and multiple strategies. The high-proficiency group showed a significant use of multiple strategies, life experience/world knowledge, amount of information and relevance. The low-proficiency group, on the other hand, indicated a significant use of intuition. Close examination further revealed that the high-proficiency group showed more flexibility in strategy use, thus leading to more accurate performance. Conversely, the low-proficiency group did not vary their strategy use, which normally led to incorrect responses on the task. Finally, the study closes by providing pedagogical implications for language teachers as to how strategy instruction can be implemented in L2 pragmatics classrooms.

scholarly journals Integrating Xreading into class time using post-reading tasks

2019 ◽  
pp. 174-179
Author(s):  
Peter Harrold
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Reading Speed ◽  
Virtual Library ◽  
Digital Reading ◽  
Extensive Reading ◽  
Student Progress ◽  
Class Time ◽  
Language Class ◽  
Reading Assignment ◽  
Graded Readers

The Xreading website provides students with access to an extensive virtual library of graded readers. Teachers can then use it to keep track of which titles the students access, the total number of words they read, their reading speed, and also whether they have completed post-reading quizzes. However, an overreliance on monitoring student progress entirely outside of class using word targets or quizzes can potentially be circumnavigated by reluctant students who dislike reading regularly. This paper will share how the teacher integrated short creative post-reading tasks into the weekly digital reading assignment of a compulsory English language class in an attempt to ensure students were engaging with the stories and reading regularly. It was found that the tasks enabled students to interact and discuss their reading with their classmates and also helped demonstrate the value and importance of extensive reading to students by further integrating it into class time.

The impacts of reading strategy instruction on improving the reading comprehension of students with different learning styles

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 413-432
Author(s):  
Mojtaba Tadayonifar ◽  
Mohammadreza Valizadeh ◽  
Mahnaz Entezari ◽  
Mosfata Bahraman
Keyword(s):  
Reading Comprehension ◽  
Learning Styles ◽  
Learning Style ◽  
Strategy Instruction ◽  
Reading Strategy ◽  
Strategy Training ◽  
Long Term Effects ◽  
Reading Strategy Instruction ◽  
Post Test

Abstract The current study explores the short- and long-term impacts of explicit reading strategy instruction for improving reading comprehension of students with different learning styles. Sixty Iranian EFL learners took part in this study. They took the Cambridge ECCE reading test as the pre-test and were divided into five groups according to learner type based on Flemings’s VARK questionnaire. The participants underwent 12 weeks of explicit reading strategy instruction and took a post-test to determine the immediate effects of reading strategy training. Three months later, they took a delayed post-test to check the long-term effects of the training. The results of paired samples T-Test and ANOVA using SPSS indicated that there were significant differences in the pre-and post-test scores for all groups in all tests. The results of the post hoc analysis indicated that the auditory type showed the most and the visual type showed the least amount of improvement. The study thus suggests equipping students with appropriate reading strategies that are tailored to their perceived learning style in order to lead to better comprehension and subsequently more enjoyment when reading.

scholarly journals THE SECONDARY SCHOOL ENGLISH LANGUAGE READING CURRICULUM: A TEACHER’S PERCEPTIONS

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hazlina Abdullah ◽  
Nik Suryani Abdul Rahman ◽  
Airil Haimi Mohd Adnan
Keyword(s):  
Reading Comprehension ◽  
Secondary School ◽  
Reading Instruction ◽  
English Language ◽  
Strategy Instruction ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Communication Process ◽  
Reading Curriculum ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Teacher's Perceptions

     Abstrak Kurikulum Membaca Pembelajaran Bahasa Inggris di Skolah Menengah: Sebuah Persepsi Guru. Permasalahan yang di hadapi dalam pembelajaran membaca pemahaman tidak hanya terjadi secara khusus pada siswa di Malaysia. Secara faktual banyak siswa di dunia yang mengalami kesulitan dalam memahami bacaan. Secara faktual, terdapat beberapa siswa yang memelukan strategi pembelajaran khusus yang konkret untuk membantu memahami bacaan. Pemikiran awal yang hendak di kedepankan dalam tulisan ini adalah dengan mendefinisikan kegiatan membaca, kemudian diikuti dengan sebuah kajian mendalam berkait dengan pembelajaran bahasa komunikatif (CLT) yang diadaptasi dari bentuk 5 kurikulum membaca bahasa Inggris di Malaysia. Bagi penulis, pembaca, dan teks, membaca merupakan bentuk aktual dari sebuah proses komunikasi yang menempatkan pembaca  memahami aturan-aturan secara aktif dalam sebuah proses membaca. Asumsi dasar dalam penelitian ini adalah pentingnya guru menerapkan aturan-aturan yang didasari pada tujuan belajar dalam meningkatkan kemampuan siswa membaca pemahaman. Hal ini merefleksi pentingnya kurikulum membaca yang akan diimplementasikan guru dalam pembelajaran membaca sebagai pijakan penyususnan ancangan kurikulum. Hal ini yang diharapkan kajian ini dapat memberikan manfaat termasuk dalam pengembangan kurikulum dan penyiapan ujian hanya untuk guru Malaysia tetapi juga di dunia sekitar.Kata kunci: kurikulum membaca bahasa Inggris, kemampuan membaca pemahaman AbstractThe Secondary School English Language Reading Curriculum: A teacher’s Perceptions. The problem of reading comprehension is not unique to only Malaysian graduates. In fact many students experience comprehension difficulties. This, some sudents need explicit comprehension strategy instruction. A rational starting point for this discussion is by defining what reading is. It is then followed by a brief review on Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) which is adopted in the Malaysian Form 5 English Language Reading Curriculum. Involving the writer, the reader and the text, reading is actually a communication process where a reader is seen to perform an active role in a reading process. Based on the many previous researches, it is obvious that the teacher’s role in aiding students’ reading comprehension skills is vital. This also reflects the importance of the reading curriculum, as teachers will impkement their reading instruction based on the outlined curriculum. It is hoped that this study may benefit those involved in the curriulum development and examination syndicate, to enhance the teaching and learning processes of reading in the second language, not only among teachers in Malaysia but also world-wide.Keywords: English language Reading Curriculum, reading comprehension skill

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