ASSESSING THE SELF-PERCEIVED USE OF READING STRATEGIES IN ESL READING COMPREHENSION: A NEEDS ANALYSIS

Despite great appreciation on the important roles played by metacognitive reading strategies in the attainment of comprehension, heightened prevalence of reading difficulties is depicted among Malaysian learners. Therefore, this study aimed at investigating the current status of self-perceived use of metacognitive reading strategies among the ESL learners in six secondary schools in one of the districts in Sabah. Utilizing an adapted version of Revised Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategy Inventory (MARSI-R), data was obtained from 274 ESL learners in the same district. Descriptive analysis was used to determine the mean scores of three sub reading strategies, namely global reading strategies, problem-solving strategies and support strategies. The findings revealed that despite being aware of the use of metacognitive reading strategies, little emphasis was given on optimizing the use of global reading and support strategies, resulting in only medium usage of these two strategies. Therefore, it may be concluded that the findings implied the need to develop a reading comprehension module that incorporates the use of metacognitive reading strategies within reading comprehension instruction to facilitate Malaysian ESL learners to improve their reading comprehension.

A Preliminary Analysis of Text Coverage and Extensive Reading of Chinese ESL Learners-- Range Analysis of The Little Prince and Pride and Prejudice

One of the common problems for L2 learners in ESL reading is that the text is either too difficult to understand or too simple to challenge, particularly the extracurricular reading material. The Little Prince and Pride and Prejudice are typically listed in the key reading materials for L2 learners. Contrary to the popularity, a large number of L2 learners find it is hard to complete due to the low text coverage with existing vocabulary. The corpus has become an important language research tool to store language materials according to the specific goals and the way through certain technical means. This paper is going to explore the text coverage of The Little Prince and Pride and Prejudice by range analysis, and comparing with English Curriculum Standards to figure out suitable reading targets of these two materials.

Using Cloud-Based Tools for English as a Second Language Reading Activities among Malaysian Polytechnic Students

Reading is important in helping English as a Second Language learners’ mastery of language. With the emergence of cloud-based tools and the availability of advanced technology, education and language learning process have become much more interesting. However, even with the availability of the Internet and other cloud tools, still the reading frequency rate among students especially in higher learning institution is considered low. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the polytechnic students’ perceptions on the ease of use of using cloud-based tools for ESL reading activities, and the polytechnic students’ perceptions on the usefulness of using cloud-based tools for ESL reading activities. The sample for this study was from semester one students (n=100) of a polytechnic in Malaysia. The questionnaire survey was developed based on Technology Acceptance Model. The findings revealed that the students have positive perceptions towards the use of cloud-based tools for ESL reading activity. The results of the current study are hoped to provide insight and idea for educators in implementing the use of cloud-based tools for ESL reading activity, and the administrators to help providing the best support for the benefits of students as a whole. Significantly, the findings of this study were hoped to redound to the benefit of reading considering that the majority of ESL learners in higher learning institutions especially in Malaysian polytechnics are not a habitual reader.

Using Cloud-Based Tools for English as a Second Language Reading Activities among Malaysian Polytechnic Students

Reading is important in helping English as a Second Language learners’ mastery of language. With the emergence of cloud-based tools and the availability of advanced technology, education and language learning process have become much more interesting. However, even with the availability of the Internet and other cloud tools, still the reading frequency rate among students especially in higher learning institution is considered low. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the polytechnic students’ perceptions on the ease of use of using cloud-based tools for ESL reading activities, and the polytechnic students’ perceptions on the usefulness of using cloud-based tools for ESL reading activities. The sample for this study was from semester one students (n=100) of a polytechnic in Malaysia. The questionnaire survey was developed based on Technology Acceptance Model. The findings revealed that the students have positive perceptions towards the use of cloud-based tools for ESL reading activity. The results of the current study are hoped to provide insight and idea for educators in implementing the use of cloud-based tools for ESL reading activity, and the administrators to help providing the best support for the benefits of students as a whole. Significantly, the findings of this study were hoped to redound to the benefit of reading considering that the majority of ESL learners in higher learning institutions especially in Malaysian polytechnics are not a habitual reader.

Classroom Discourse Analysis: A Case of ESL Reading Class

More than the recognition, perception, and interpretation of written materials, reading has been dubbed as our bridge to other skills that are necessary for academic success. Subsequently, one way for teachers to monitor both the quantity and quality of output of the students is through Classroom discourse analysis, which is an aspect of classroom process research (Jiang, 2012). This paper, therefore, aimed to determine teacher’s questioning vis-à-vis students’ reading strategies in the case of an ESL reading class in one of the private schools in Zamboanga City, Philipenese through classroom discourse analysis. As a qualitative endeavor, it made use of classroom observations with the aid of an audio recorder to enable the analysis. A total of 131 exchanges were generated in a 45-minute discussion, with roughly 25 minutes allotted to the said discourse, and the rest for other activities. Teacher-Pupil-Teacher (TPT) captured as Teacher-Student-Teacher (TST) in the case of this paper, is the recurring sequence during the whole duration of the discourse. Discourse analysis that was done to an audio recording transcript of a reading class observation revealed patterns that are primarily present in some, if not most, discourse analysis (DA) research literature. Interestingly, it, however, uncovered the following: for teacher’s way of questioning (in this case, echoice and epistemic), epistemic questions (mostly, rhetorical for this matter), were made reference(s) by the students in answering questions. Consequently, the lesson or activity became, to some extent, communicative, because of the above mentioned points.

The Effectiveness of Teaching Reading Skill Using Communicative Approach in Malaysian Secondary Homeschooling ESL Classroom

The objectives of this study are to investigate the perceptions of the secondary homeschooling students on the use of the communicative approach (CLT) in their reading classrooms and to find out to what extent CLT contributes to the development of ESL learners’ reading skill. Four procedures were employed for data collection which included Pre-test and Post-Test, Classroom Observation, Questionnaire and Structured Interview. In general, the results in the Experimental Group showed that there was significant improvement among the learners between pre and post-test scores. Therefore, we can conclude that there was a significant improvement in scores between pre-test to post-test scores. Most secondary homeschooling students are enthusiastic and positive about the communicative approach in their ESL reading classrooms, whereby they learn more vocabulary through group discussions and improve their reading comprehension when exchanging ideas and opinions. Responses and attitude were very positive and strongly agreed with the use of CLT for improving their reading skills as the CLT approach has changed the reading class atmosphere to be better than before. Therefore, the homeschooling students felt pretty cheerful, comfortable and excited during the learning process of reading using CLT activities. Besides that, both homeschooling teachers tend to have a clear, positive and supportive attitudes and perceptions toward CLT. They strongly agreed that CLT is an effective and useful teaching method to accommodate the demands of the time as this method put high emphasis on the interpersonal skill, stimulate the students to communicate their enthusiasm as well as stimulate their interest in their language learning process. Moreover, this approach is advantageous and favourable as the approach is to involve every student in the communicative activities and places high emphasis on communication which highly encouraged the students to communicate and interact with each other as well as stimulate their interest in English learning and developing their learner autonomy.

Analysis of Lexical and Cohesive Ties usage in Undergraduate Students’ Writing by Applying Task-Based Language Learning Methodology

The present scenario fact that the English is a language of modern technological and scientific developments, text is a primary tool for students to gain the knowledge in writing skills. However, most male Saudi students show minimum efficient in L2 writing skill and do not have sufficient competence for writing the authentic English passages. To enhance this various study were undergone to cope up the gap between the student’s use of lexical and cohesive ties by applying task-oriented teaching. However, the immediate need to fill the gap, the researchers made pioneer study on this filed. The present study investigates analysis of lexical and cohesive ties usage in undergraduate students’ writing by applying task-based language learning methodology. The study was performed by thirty-five students from an advanced ESL Reading class at King Saud University, Arts College in Riyadh for 15 weeks. This study has been investigated by Four English passages including behavioral psychology, scientific and two general passages throughout the semester respectively. The analysis of the obtained data proved that the students’ language abilities in grammar and vocabulary significantly improved especially in the discourse analysis passages. In addition, the results of the study evidenced that students are more engaged and motivated during group work activities, and learn more about structure, identifying, cause and effect, purpose and function and if clause of analyzing passages. Proficiency of grammatical category results concluded among the 35 students, average 60% of the students were prefect in tenses, passive structures, if clause, cause and effect, purpose and function, documented 37.14,57.14,54.28 and 77.14% respectively. Overall, the present study concludes with pedagogical implications that ESL teachers might consider a task in their ESL classrooms.

Identifying Learners’ Difficulties in ESL Reading Comprehension

Reading is one of the fundamental skills in language learning and all English as Second Language (ESL) learners need to acquire it in order to master a language. However, statistics show that Malaysians are not reading enough especially the school students who are labeled as reluctant readers. This is deeply reflected in their reading comprehension which is one of the tested components in the SPM examination. Therefore, this study aimed to identify the learners’ difficulties in ESL reading comprehension. Thus, a survey was conducted among 80 upper secondary students in Johor. Questionnaires were used in the survey and given out to the respondents involved. The data obtained from the survey were analysed using SPSS. There were five categories of reading comprehension difficulties among the upper secondary school students. Based on the analysis, it was found that most of the students have agreed that the main difficulty faced by them in ESL reading comprehension is related to the reading process. Finally, the implications of these findings on ESL reading comprehension difficulties were discussed from the aspects of what the teachers could do in their teaching practices to address this issue and provide ways to solve them.