Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
,2008.12
by each persons knowledge, experience, and purpose for reading a particular text.
Proficient readers are aware of the strategies involved in making the most possible
meaning with print; they make predications, make inferences, see images in their
minds, draw conclusions, and revise hypotheses about the text. (p. 22)
For second (ESL) or foreign language (EFL) learners, reading is an even more
complicated process because they usually dont have enough language background and
knowledge that they can bring to the task of acquiring literacy as do first language learners.
Therefore, reading comprehension strategies must be taught directly with modeling to
reveal how reading tasks can be accomplished by a proficient reader. A well-planned
comprehension strategy for instruction that involves directly teaching reading strategies is
especially recommended for second or foreign language readers (Ediger, 2001).
Numerous studies on learning strategies maintain that teaching strategies can
facilitate students reading comprehension (Cohen, 1998; Chamot, 1999). Researchers also
believe that using strategies well can foster and lead to students autonomous learning,
especially for students who performed less well on academic fields. Caverly, Nicholson,
and Radcliffe (2004) indicate that developmental students showed significant improvement
in a teacher-made reading comprehension test and a standardized reading test, as well as a
significant growth was found using cognitive, metacognitive, and affective strategies in
their study. Moreover, Caverly et al.s study (2004) revealed that developmental readers
who received strategic reading instruction over four years outperformed the control group
on a standardized test, suggesting that these developmental readers can transfer strategic
reading skills to a future curriculum course. Consistent with Caverly et al.s (2004) study,
Radcliffe et al.s study revealed that students who received strategic reading instruction
outperformed the control group on the abilities of textbook reading. Furthermore, several
research done in Asian context indicated that the training in reading strategies could
enhance reading proficiency (Song, 2003; Shang, 2007).
According to Oxfords (1990) explicit instruction model, several major features such
as the explicit explanations, teacher modeling, scaffolding and self-regulated use of
strategies are provided by the teacher to enhance students reading comprehension. Lapp,
Fisher, and Grant (2008) also suggest the need for teachers to share guided reading through
a gradual plan, which enabled students to be able to independently monitor their own
reading comprehension.
English language learners in an EFL context, such as Taiwan, do not have much
exposure to foreign language use. Therefore, reading English texts plays a vital role for
Taiwanese students to improve their English skills as a whole. Some students in Taiwan
have the misconception that reading well means to recognize every word and figure out its
meaning from the printed text, hence they look for every unfamiliar word up, and translate
sentences word-by-word. With this misconception, struggling foreign language readers,
often make little sense of what they have been reading, or they choose to ignore
meaning-making completely and give up in frustration (Booth & Swartz, 2004, p. 22).
154
Theory of Reading Strategies and its Application by EFL Learners: Reflections on Two Case Studies
Research maintains that reading is actually a complex mental and cognitive process that
requires more than just deriving meaning from the text. It may involve the readers both
bottom-up process of analyzing textual information word by word and top-down processing
of using prior knowledge to comprehend the text (OMalley & Chamot, 1990). Teachers
of English language learners (ELLs) in Taiwan should seek out more effective ways to help
students use strategies to comprehend a text. OMalley et al. (1990) also claim that there
is a need for teachers to provide students with self-report strategies use so that students can
understand and apply them into the language tasks.
Definition of Terms
Comprehension strategy instruction. Comprehension strategy instruction is a
method of direct and explicit teaching of comprehension strategies in order to help students
become more proficient readers with the ability to apply a set of effective and
155
,2008.12
Method
Case Study 1: Strategies Used by a Struggling EFL Reader
Subject
Wang, the participant of this study, was an EFL college student aged 22 with a
low-level of English proficiency. Wang has learned English since he was in fifth grade
and has learned English for more than ten years. However, he showed little interests in
English and was defined as a poor English learner and reader by his English teacher. In
the first two years at college, he got about 60~65 scores in English performance tests.
Instruments
The instruments in the data collection of case study one include pre- and postreading comprehension test, reading strategy instruction, and the think-aloud approach.
The reading comprehension tests were used to elicit the subjects use of reading strategies
through the think-aloud approach. Reading strategy instruction was conducted by the
researcher and lasted for three weeks. The reading strategy instruction integrated the
following three categories of strategies: cognitive, metacognitive, and testing strategies, to
enhance the students English reading comprehension. In addition, the reading sections of
the Far East General English Proficiency Test were selected as the teaching material. The
objective of this course was to explain and model a series of strategies through the
researchers lecturing.
Theory of Reading Strategies and its Application by EFL Learners: Reflections on Two Case Studies
instruction, he was asked to take a reading comprehension test with time limit, and the test
was composed of two articles (length from 80~85 words), followed by some multiple
choice questions. These two articles were excerpted from the Far East General English
Proficiency Test (beginning level), which was a little beyond Wangs current level.
The result of Wangs strategy use before reading strategy instruction indicated that
Wang, as a struggling adult EFL learner, had basically some awareness of strategies and was
able to use them when reading English texts. In the test, he used more cognitive strategies
than testing and metacognitive strategies. Cognitive strategies, which accounted for 77.77
% (almost 78%) of his strategies use, involved word-by-word translation, meaningful
translation, underlying keywords, guessing meaning from the context, word association, and
inferring, while metacognitive and testing strategies, accounted for 2.78 % (almost 3%) and
19.45 % respectively, involved self-correction, eliminating unrelated answers and looking
for main points in details (see Table 1 and Figure 1).
Table 1 Frequency count of reading strategies through thinking aloud (pretest)
Strategy types
Cognitive
strategies
Strategies
Times
Percent
6
4
7
16.67 %
11.11 %
19.44 %
19.44 %
5. Word association
6. Inferring meaning from text clues
3
1
8.33 %
2.78 %
28
77.77 %
subtotal
Strategies used in
answering questions
1 (2), 4 (2), 17(1), 13(1)
1 (1), 2 (2), 4(1)
3 (1), 4 (1), 6 (1), 10(1),
11(1), 15(1), 18(1),
1 (1), 2 (1), 4 (1), 6 (1),
8 (1), 13(1), 18 (1)
1 (1), 2 (1), 10(1)
7 (1)
Metacognitive
Strategies
7. self-correction
subtotal
1
1
2.78 %
2.78 %
18 (1)
Testing
Strategies
5
2
7
13.89 %
5.56 %
19.45 %
36
100%
total
19%
3%
Cognitive
Metacognitive
Testing
78%
,2008.12
from the Far East General English Proficiency Test from the section of the same level and
his use of reading strategies during the test was also elicited by the think-aloud approach.
In the post-test, the most common strategies used remained cognitive strategies,
which accounted for 73.91 % (almost 74%) of his strategy use. Strategies added to the
previous list after the strategy instruction were chunking context with vocabulary words and
chunking context with discourse markers. Chunking context with vocabulary words
means that the student used the words he knew to understand the context. For example, in
the sentence When you go to the bank to open an account, the bank teller will ask you to
fill out an application form, Wang didnt know the meaning of account and application
form, but he used his already known words such as bank, open, fill and inferred that the
context might be . Another similar strategy
he used to comprehend the relationship between sentences was chunking context with
discourse markers, because Wang was told that making a good use of discourse markers
(e.g., however, because, so, but) could help him comprehend the text better even with
limited vocabulary size.
Compared the results to Wangs strategy use before reading strategy instruction, the
number of meaningful translation increased, and the number of word-by-word or literal
translation decreased in the post-test. This indicated that after receiving the strategy
instruction, Wang began to integrate all information in the texts, figure out the meaning, and
get the gist of the text. In the post-test, the new added strategies such as chunking context
with vocabulary words, chunking context with discourse markers, time-monitoring
strategies, and skimming for questions first were strategies taught explicitly by the
researcher during the strategy instruction (see Table 2 and Figure 2).
Table 2
Strategy types
Cognitive
strategies
Times
1. word-by-word translation
8.7 %
2. meaningful translation
17.39 %
3. underline keywords to
highlight the importance
13.04 %
4.35 %
3 (1), 12 (1)
5. Word association
10.87 %
4.35 %
7 (1), 18 (1)
8.7 %
6.52 %
158
Percent
Strategies used in
answering questions
Theory of Reading Strategies and its Application by EFL Learners: Reflections on Two Case Studies
subtotal
Metacognitive
Strategies
Testing
Strategies
34
73.91 %
9. self-correction
2.17 %
6 (1)
10. Time-monitoring
2.17 %
9 (1)
subtotal
4.35 %
8.7 %
2.17 %
7 (1)
10.87 %
subtotal
10
21.74 %
total
46
100
Figure 2
22%
4%
Cognitive
Metacognitive
Testing
74%
,2008.12
contained 194 words. Both reading materials were authentic and the first article was close
to the level of a high-intermediate English learner while the second one was more advanced.
Both topics in the two articles selected were related to the subjects daily life to control the
effect of ones prior knowledge
Procedures
In Step one, the researcher interviewed Ling to understand her English learning
background, motivation to learn English, and perceptions on the use of reading strategies.
In Step two, the researcher demonstrated how to do the think-aloud task when reading a text
True Colors, selected from the Studio Classroom. After the researcher had done the
think-aloud task for the first paragraph in the article, the participant was asked to practice
thinking-aloud while reading the second paragraph. In Step three, two English articles,
Take Control in the Supermarket and Keep Out Keyloggers were used for formal data
collection. Ling was required to read those two passages with think-aloud. During the
reading time, the researcher noted the questions and used an MP3 player to record the
think-aloud protocols. In Step four, an oral post-interview was conducted, in which the
researcher asked Ling about her perceptions on these two reading materials and how she
used reading strategies during reading. The recorded data of the subjects think-aloud in
reading two English articles were both transcribed verbatim.
Theory of Reading Strategies and its Application by EFL Learners: Reflections on Two Case Studies
,2008.12
wisely, listening to your body, asking for clarifying/verification and asking for correction.
Both perceived reading strategies and strategies actually used in the two think-aloud tasks
indicated that Ling tended to use more cognitive strategies. The findings suggest that
proficient English learners may unconsciously use more reading strategies than they are
aware of while reading English texts.
Table 3
Differences of Reading Strategies Perceived and Actually Used by the Subject
Category
Memory Strategy
Strategy
Perceived Reading
Strategies (n=10)
Associating /elaborating
Using imagery
sending messages
Reasoning deductively
Analyzing expressions
Translating
Taking notes
Highlighting
Metacognitive
Self-monitoring
Strategy
Self-evaluating
Social-affective
strategy
P.S. The symbol in the column indicates the utilization of the reading strategy.
The Least and the Most Reading Strategies Utilized by the Subject
As we can see from table 4, Ling utilized overall eighty-three times of reading
strategies in two think-aloud tasks. The most frequent used reading strategy category was
cognitive strategy, which contained forty-four times in the two think-aloud tasks. On the
other hand, the least frequent used reading strategy category was metacognitive strategy,
162
Theory of Reading Strategies and its Application by EFL Learners: Reflections on Two Case Studies
which contained only ten times of the reading strategy use in the think-aloud tasks. The
most frequent reading strategy used was translating while the least ones were highlighting
and asking for correction. The findings demonstrate that the subject tended to use more
translating to assist her in making meaning from English texts and further interacting with
the texts.
Table 4
Frequency Use of Reading Strategies in Two Think-aloud Tasks by the Subject
Category
Memory Strategy
Strategy
Each Strategy
Associating /elaborating
13
Using imagery
15
Repeating
Reasoning deductively
subtotal
Cognitive strategy
Analyzing expressions
Translating
14
Highlighting
21
23
44
10
10
5
subtotal
Metacognitive
Self-monitoring
Strategy
subtotal
Social-affective
strategy
Asking for
10
14
38
45
83
clarifying/verification
Asking for correction
Subtotal
Total
,2008.12
difficult and challenging article. This result suggests that proficient English readers may
be inclined to utilize more reading strategies while reading English materials that are
slightly difficult above their current English proficiency level. The thinking-aloud time
while reading article two lasted for seven minutes, which was much longer than that of
reading article one, four minutes and thirty-seven seconds. The results suggest that more
difficult reading materials are both linguistically and cognitively demanding than less
difficult ones and the former might elicit more strategy use from the reader. Regarding the
post-interview about the subjects perceptions on the two English reading materials, Ling
felt that article two was more intriguing than article one. Even though Ling was not sure
of some computer technical words in article two, she found that this slightly difficult
English text provided her practical computer information that she didnt know before.
Ling thought that it was quite boring to read article one since she already had the common
sense discussed in the text. The findings concerning text difficulty evidence that
information gap and background knowledge in English materials play a vital role in
stimulating proficient English readers to interact more with texts to explore unknown
information.
Theory of Reading Strategies and its Application by EFL Learners: Reflections on Two Case Studies
Therefore, the suggestion is to explore how to help poor learners like Wang use more
metacognitive strategies to comprehend the English texts.
For the second case, drawing on findings and discussions of this study, there are
some implications for teaching reading strategies to EFL students at high-intermediate
English proficiency level like Ling. First, teachers should select reading materials that
contain information gap in order to motivate students to utilize more reading strategies
when interacting with texts. In addition, teachers can choose reading materials that are
slightly above the students current English proficiency level as Krashens (1982) term i +
1, so as to stimulate students to adopt more reading strategies to deal with challenging
English texts. Third, students like Ling are often unconscious about how they would
actually utilize reading strategies. It is the teachers responsibility to make students
visualize the process of their own thinking while reading English texts by adopting
think-aloud activities. Teachers demonstrations of think-aloud while reading can assist
students in better understanding how to use reading strategies.
Last but not the least, this study suggests that some research-based principles and
guidelines regarding effective teaching methods of strategies need to be provided for
improving students reading comprehension (Center for the Improvement of Early Reading
Instruction [CIERA], 2004; Graves, Juel, & Graves, 2004; Keene & Zimmermann, 1997;
Pressley, 2004): students should be encouraged to coordinate and synthesize the use of
various strategies; good reading comprehension instruction should involve appropriate
teaching materials such as various types of texts, genres (e.g., narrative, expository, poetic),
and school subjects (e.g., social studies, science, literature). In this study, Ling mentioned
in the interview that none of her English teachers ever taught students English learning
strategies directly and explicitly. She said, If I had been taught English learning strategies
at that time, I would have saved a lot of effort and time in learning English. She hoped
that English teachers could teach learning strategies to students in order to help them learn a
new language more efficiently and creatively. There is a Chinese proverb that says, A
student is like a piece of blank paper on which teachers leave a mark. Teaching EFL
students in Taiwan how to master comprehension strategies to overcome the English
reading difficulties and become life long and avid readers would be one of the best marks
teachers and educators could leave on students in their lives.
References
Abraham, R.G. & Vann, R. J. (1987). Strategies of two language learners: a case study. In
Weden, A. & Rubin, J.(Ed.), Learner Strategies in Language Learning (pp.85-102).
Prentice Hall.
Booth, D., & Swartz, L. (2004). Literacy techniques: Building successful readers and
writers (2nd ed.). Ontario, Canada: Pembroke Publishers Limited.
Brown, R., El-Dinary, P.B., & Pressley, M. (1996). Balanced comprehension instruction:
Transactional strategies instruction. In E. McIntyre & M. Pressley (Eds.), Balanced
165
,2008.12
Theory of Reading Strategies and its Application by EFL Learners: Reflections on Two Case Studies
,2008.12
168