scholarly journals Deployment of Background Knowledge and Performance in Comprehension Passage Reading among Primary School Learners in Vihiga County, Kenya

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Mary Susan Anyiendah ◽  
Paul A. Odundo ◽  
Agnes W. Kibui
Keyword(s):  
Reading Comprehension ◽  
Primary School ◽  
English Language ◽  
Background Knowledge ◽  
Study Data ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
Control Group ◽  
English Language Teachers ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Experimental Group

Background. Primary school learners in Vihiga County have been recording a lower mean score in English language examinations than their counterparts in neighbouring counties, with the score being lower in comprehension passage than in grammar sections. Few previous studies conducted in Kenya have investigated the issue from the instructional dimension, thereby limiting stakeholders’ understanding of the issue and delaying appropriate interventions. Aim. To determine how the deployment of learners’ background knowledge influences performance in reading comprehension passages. Method. Solomon Four-Group Design guided the study. Data were sourced in mid-2017 from standard six learners and English language teachers. Regression analysis generated two models, one for the experimental and control groups, each. Results. In both models, deployment of background knowledge had a significant positive effect on the performance in reading comprehension passages, which prompted rejection of the null hypothesis. However, the effect was stronger in the experimental group than in the control group. The variation was attributed to training provided to the experimental group teachers, which improved their skills in activating learners’ background knowledge. Conclusions. Activating learners’ background knowledge is a vital antecedent to better performance in reading comprehension passages and the English language. Although prereading vocabulary is vital for the activation of learners’ background knowledge, overreliance on a single strategy to activate learners’ background knowledge undermines optimal deployment of background knowledge skills in reading, albeit with implications on performance.

scholarly journals Learners’ Summarisation Skills and Their Achievement in Reading Comprehension: A Case of Vihiga County, Kenya

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 77
Author(s):  
Mary Susan Anyiendah ◽  
Paul A. Odundo ◽  
Agnes Kibui
Keyword(s):  
Reading Comprehension ◽  
Null Hypothesis ◽  
English Language ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
Primary Data ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Group Design ◽  
Lesson Delivery ◽  
English Language Teachers ◽  
Experimental Group

Learners in Vihiga County perform poorer in English language examinations than their peers in neighbouring counties; and their performance seems to be weaker in comprehension compared to grammar sections. The purpose of this study was to determine the influence of summarisation skills on learners’ achievement in reading comprehension in Vihiga County. The Solomon Four-Group Design was applied to obtain primary data from 279 primary school learners and 8 teachers in 2017. Multiple linear regression was also applied to generate two models, one for the experimental group and one for the control group. In both models, summarisation skills influenced learners’ achievement in reading comprehension positively, and the effect was significant at 90% confidence level; thus, leading to rejection of the null hypothesis. However, the effect seemed to be stronger in the experimental than in the control group, which suggests that training English language teachers on how to correctly apply summarisation skills impacted on learners’ achievement in reading comprehension. Based on the findings, it’s concluded that: training teachers of English language on the correct procedures for activating learners’ summarisation skills is likely to add value by making them more effective in lesson delivery. Such training is likely to inspire teachers to go an extra mile in their efforts to activate learners’ summarisation skills.

scholarly journals Role of Content Schema in Reading Comprehension Among Saudi EFL Students: EFL Teachers’ Perspective and Use of Appropriate Classroom Strategies

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 96
Author(s):  
AbdulRahman Al Asmari ◽  
Choudhary Zahid Javid
Keyword(s):  
Reading Comprehension ◽  
Reading Strategies ◽  
English Language ◽  
Reading Skills ◽  
Background Knowledge ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Classroom Strategies ◽  
English Language Teachers

This empirical survey investigates the perceptions of English language teachers towards the role of content schemata in reading comprehension among Saudi EFL learners. Furthermore, it also attempts to explore the use of appropriate classroom strategies employed by English language teachers to activate content schemata to enhance learners’ reading comprehension. A modified Likert-scale strongly-agree to strongly-disagree questionnaire was administered to 61 male and female EFL faculty from English Language Center (ELC), Taif University to generate data. The findings have reinforced that background knowledge of Saudi EFL learners help them significantly in reading faster with better understanding. It has also been reported that pre-reading strategies of brainstorming, classroom discussions about the topic and questioning are the most favored ones to activate Saudi EFL learners’ background knowledge. It has also been learnt that while-reading strategies of directing the students’ attention to signal words, main idea, important phrases, titles, subtitles and effectively linking the target text to their students’ cultural and social experiences also contribute towards reading comprehension. The findings have also revealed that English language teachers consider low English language proficiency and poor reading skills of Saudi ELF leaners as well as the lack of appropriate teaching aids as the major obstacles in activating the content schemata. Several recommendations have been forwarded which have significant pedagogical implications in materializing much sought-after goal of effective ELT in the KSA by ensuring better reading skills among Saudi EFL learners.

scholarly journals The Effect of Typographical Features of Subtitles on Nonnative English Viewers’ Retention and Recall of Lyrics in English Music Videos

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (7) ◽  
pp. 122
Author(s):  
Farshid Tayari Ashtiani
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
Music Videos ◽  
Music Video ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Computer Assisted ◽  
English Music ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
English Language Teachers ◽  
Experimental Group

The goal of this study was to test the effect of typographical features of subtitles including size, color and position on nonnative English viewers’ retention and recall of lyrics in music videos. To do so, the researcher played a simple subtitled music video for the participants at the beginning of their classes, and administered a 31-blank cloze test from the lyrics at the end of the classes. In the second test, the control group went through the same procedure but experimental group watched the customized subtitled version of the music video. The results demonstrated no significant difference between the two groups in the first test but in the second, the scores remarkably increased in the experimental group and proved better retention and recall. This study has implications for English language teachers and material developers to benefit customized bimodal subtitles as a mnemonic tool for better comprehension, retention and recall of aural contents in videos via Computer Assisted Language Teaching approach.

scholarly journals Interplay between Beliefs about Reading Stratagems and Classroom Practices of Secondary School Teachers in Teaching Reading Comprehension

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 56-62
Author(s):  
Itbar Khan ◽  
Farooq Nawaz Khan ◽  
Nazia Saeed
Keyword(s):  
Reading Comprehension ◽  
Secondary School ◽  
English Language ◽  
Classroom Practices ◽  
Secondary School Teachers ◽  
Pearson Correlation ◽  
Belief System ◽  
Study Data ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
English Language Teachers

The current study is built on the idea that teachers’ classroom practices are influenced by their belief system. The research investigated the beliefs of teachers about the position of reading stratagems, and their classroom implementation among 141 secondary school English teachers and found the association between their beliefs about the position of reading comprehension stratagems and their classroom application. It is a descriptive study, data were collected through a questionnaire. Means and Pearson correlation were calculated for finding out the relationship between the variables. The study found that reading stratagems in reading comprehension and their practices in classrooms are positively correlated. The study recommends understanding the conceptions of English language teachers in schools for the effective teaching of English in general and reading stratagems in particular.

scholarly journals Use of Action Songs and Total Physical Response to Promote the Development of Listening Skills among Year 4, Low Enrolment-Tamil Vernacular Primary School Students in Malaysia

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Uthaya Kumar, S. ◽  
Sandaran, S. C.
Keyword(s):  
Primary School ◽  
English Language ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
School Type ◽  
Listening Skills ◽  
School Students ◽  
Post Intervention ◽  
Listening Skill ◽  
Physical Response ◽  
English Language Teachers

Total Physical Response (TPR) is built around the coordination of speech and actions. Action songs promote dance or acts while singing. In this study, we look at action songs as part of TPR to investigate its effectiveness in enhancing students’ listening skills to develop their mastery of the English Language. Seven Year 4 students from a Low Enrolment (SKM) Tamil Vernacular Primary school type (SJKT) were selected as the participants of a within-group experimental design. Upon completing a pre-test on listening skill, students were given six treatment lessons, whereby one hour per lesson was allocated. The treatment was conducted once a week, for every listening lesson. The data was collected while and after the pupils were taught through a series of lessons or interventions that incorporated songs and TPR to complete a variety of listening tasks. The finding shows that even though action songs and TPR are not commonly used among English Language teachers, teachers should implement the method especially for students from Low Enrolment Vernacular Primary School Type as the students in this study showed a significant increase in their post intervention scores of the listening test. The findings also discusses SJKT English Language teachers perceptions on the use of songs and TPR and suggests that there is still a lack of understanding among the teachers on the potential benefits of action songs and TPR for their particular students who have high levels of anxiety and inhibitions to learning English. 

scholarly journals Effect of Word Recognition Skills on Learners’ Achievement in Reading Comprehension in Vihiga County, Kenya

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 45
Author(s):  
Mary Susan Anyiendah ◽  
Paul A. Odundo ◽  
Agnes Kibuyi
Keyword(s):  
Reading Comprehension ◽  
Word Recognition ◽  
English Language ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Group Model ◽  
Interactive Approach ◽  
New Words ◽  
Source Data ◽  
Experimental Group ◽  
Better Than

Word recognition is one of the comprehension processing skills encapsulated by the interactive approach instruction. Word recognition skills enable readers to understand the meaning of comprehension passages by decoding the sound of new words. Learners in Vihiga County perform poorer in English language examinations than their peers in neighbouring counties. The performance is weaker in comprehension than in grammar sections of the English paper. Despite this, there is paucity of empirical information about the nexus between activation of word recognition skills and learners’ achievement in reading comprehension in the County. This study applied the Solomon Four-Group Design to source data from 279 primary school learners and 8 teachers in 2017. Multiple linear regression was used to generate two models, one for the experimental group (Model 1) and one for the control group (Model 2). Key results show that the influence of word recognition skills on learners’ achievement in reading comprehension was statistically significant in both groups. However, the effect was stronger in the experimental than in the control group, suggests that training teachers in the experimental group enabled learners in that group to perform better than their colleagues in the control group. Thus, activation of learners’ word recognition skills is likely to improve achievement in reading comprehension.

scholarly journals Effect of Student Teams Achievement Division and Think-Pair-Share on Students' Achievement in Reading Comprehension

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 218-237
Author(s):  
Eucharia Okwudilichukwu Ugwu
Keyword(s):  
Reading Comprehension ◽  
Cooperative Learning ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
English Language ◽  
Teaching Method ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
Analysis Of Covariance ◽  
Control Group ◽  
School Students ◽  
Student Teams

AbstractThe study investigated the effect of two cooperative learning strategies, Student Teams-Achievement Divisions (STAD) and Think-Pair-Share (TPS) on senior secondary school students’ achievement in reading comprehension in Vandeikya Local Government Area, Benue State, Nigeria. A total of 78 students (43 males and 35 females), drawn from three secondary schools participated in the study. Experimental and control conditions were randomly assigned to the three intact classes: EG1 (STAD), EG2 (TPS) and CG (Control Group). The instrument used was Reading Comprehension Achievement Test (r=0.784). Data were analyzed using Mean, Standard Deviation and Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA). The results show higher achievement gains for students in the EG1 and EG2 over those of the CG, but not across gender. The findings support the existing evidence on the efficacy of cooperative learning over the traditional teaching method. English language teachers will therefore find the two techniques useful in teaching reading comprehension.   Keywords: cooperative learning, Student Teams-Achievement Divisions, Think-Pair-Share, academic achievement, reading comprehension      

scholarly journals The Effect of Using Meta Cognitive Strategies on the Development of Reading Comprehension in English language on the Second Grade of Secondary students in Jeddah City

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (20) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fatimah Miteib Almutayri , Khitam Mohammed Alghazu
Keyword(s):  
Reading Comprehension ◽  
Secondary Students ◽  
Test Scores ◽  
English Language ◽  
Cognitive Strategies ◽  
Second Grade ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Jeddah City ◽  
Post Test ◽  
Experimental Group

The current study aimed to find out the effect of using meta cognitive strategies on the development of reading comprehension in English language on the Second Grade of Secondary students in Jeddah city. The researcher used a quasi-experimental approach with two groups (control group and experimental groups). The sample, which included (58) female students from the second grade of secondary students on Jeddah city, was convenience sample. The researcher prepared three tools for studying as the following: • A list of reading comprehension skills in English language. • A test of a reading comprehension in English language. • A guide book for teacher and students to use the meta cognitive skills. The researcher used appropriate statistical methods as the Means, standard deviations, and one way ANOVA and MANCOVA, the following results have been reached: 1- There are statistical significant differences at the level of ≤ 0.05 between the average post-test scores of the experimental group and the average post-test scores of control group in all reading comprehension levels of English language for experimental group after controlling pretest for experimental group. 2-There are no statistical significant differences at the level of ≤ 0.05 between the average post-test scores of the experimental group and the average post-test scores of control group in literal comprehension level of English language after controlling pre-test for experimental group. 3- There are statistical significant differences at the level of ≤ 0.05 between the average post-test scores of the experimental group and the average post-test scores of control group in interpretative comprehension level of English language after controlling pre-test for experimental group. 4- There are statistical significant differences at the level of ≤ 0.05 between the average post-test scores of the experimental group and the average post-test scores of control group in critical comprehension level of English language after controlling pretest for experimental group. The study has recommended to develop the English curriculum in order to apply the implementation of meta cognitive strategies, as well as, to train the teachers of English language before and during the service on using the meta cognitive strategies. The study has suggested to study the effectiveness of other strategies for " meta cognition " in the development of reading comprehension. Also, it has suggested to study the effectiveness of the " meta cognition " strategies for the development of language skills in different stages of learning.  

A visual interactive reading system based on eye tracking technology to improve digital reading performance

2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 680-702 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chih-Ming Chen ◽  
Jung-Ying Wang ◽  
Yu-Chieh Lin
Keyword(s):  
Reading Comprehension ◽  
English Language ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Digital Reading ◽  
Interactive Reading ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Field Independent ◽  
Reading System ◽  
And Control ◽  
Experimental Group

Purpose Developing attention-aware systems and interfaces based on eye tracking technology could revolutionize mainstream human–computer interaction to make the interaction between human beings and computers more intuitive, effective and immersive than can be achieved traditionally using a computer mouse. This paper aims to propose an eye-controlled interactive reading system (ECIRS) that uses human eyes instead of the traditional mouse to control digital text to support screen-based digital reading. Design/methodology/approach This study uses a quasi-experimental design to examine the effects of an experimental group and a control group of learners who, respectively, used the ECIRS and a mouse-controlled interactive reading system (MCIRS) to conduct their reading of two types of English-language text online – pure text and Q&A-type articles on reading comprehension, cognitive load, technology acceptance, and reading behavioural characteristics. Additionally, the effects of learners with field-independent (FI) and field-dependence (FD) cognitive styles who, respectively, used the ECIRS and MCIRS to conduct their reading of two types of English-language text online – pure text and Q&A-type articles on reading comprehension are also examined. Findings Analytical results reveal that the reading comprehension of learners in the experimental group significantly exceeded those in the control group for the Q&A article, but the difference was insignificant for the pure text article. Moreover, the ECIRS improved the reading comprehension of field-independent learners more than it did that of field-dependent learners. Moreover, neither the cognitive loads of the two groups nor their acceptance of the technology differed significantly, whereas the reading time of the experimental group significantly exceeded that of the control group. Interestingly, for all articles, the control group of learners read mostly from top to bottom without repetition, whereas most of the learners in the experimental group read most paragraphs more than once. Clearly, the proposed ECIRS supports deeper digital reading than does the MCIRS. Originality/value This study proposes an emerging ECIRS that can automatically provide supplementary information to a reader and control a reading text based on a reader’s eye movement to replace the widely used mouse-controlled reading system on a computer screen to effectively support digital reading for English language learning. The implications of this study are that the highly interactive reading patterns of digital text with ECIRS support increase motivation and willingness to learn while giving learners a more intuitive and natural reading experience as well as reading an article online with ECIRS support guides learners’ attention in deeper digital reading than does the MCIRS because of simultaneously integrating perceptual and cognitive processes of selection, awareness and control based on human eye movement.

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