Effects of Explicit Reading Strategy Instruction on

EFL Students’ Reading Anxiety and Comprehension

明示閱讀策略教學對 EFL 學生閱讀焦慮與理解的影響

指導教授：鍾榮富 博士

研究生：李秋美

2011, May

INTRODUCTION

Background and Motivation

1. Why Reading?

-- The importance of mastery of EFL reading cannot be overemphasized.

-- Reading is tested. -- in school settings -- in standardized tests (College Entrance Examination, GEPT)

INTRODUCTION

2. Why Reading Anxiety?

(1) Students’ Reading Problems:

-- Anxiety about independent reading

-- Frustration over word-by-word translation and

low comprehension

INTRODUCTION

(2) Problems of English Reading Instruction in

Taiwan:

-- Grammar-translation approach (bottom-

up processing/ literal comprehension) is

still a dominant teaching method.

-- Little time is left for the teaching of

reading strategies.

INTRODUCTION

Word-by-Word Reading

Poor Comprehension

Anxiety and Frustration

Slow Progress

Limited FL Knowledge

Uncertainty and Insecurity

INTRODUCTION

Poor comprehension and anxiety reinforce

each other in the vicious circle.

INTRODUCTION

To stop the vicious circle, strategy-orientedreading instruction is necessary, which

-- shows potential to reduce reading anxiety (Horwitz, 1986; Kern, 1988; Saito et al., 1999) -- is proven effective in promoting reading comprehension (Chen, 2005; Pearson & Gallagher, 1983)

INTRODUCTION Purpose of the Study

The study is to investigate

1. the major causes of the students’ reading anxiety,

2. the effects of the strategy instruction on the

students’ reading anxiety,

3. the effects of the strategy instruction on the

students’ reading comprehension,

4. the influence of the strategy instruction on the

students’ ability to answer different types of reading

comprehension questions,

5. the students’ responses to the explicit strategy

instruction.

INTRODUCTION

Research Questions

1. What are the major causes of the students’ reading anxiety? 2. Does the strategy instruction reduce the students’ reading

anxiety? 3. Does the strategy instruction facilitate the students’ reading

comprehension? 4. Does the strategy instruction enhance students’ ability to

answer different types of reading comprehension questions, including main idea questions, detail questions, inference questions, and word-in-context questions?

5. What are the students’ responses to the explicit strategy instruction?

METHODOLOGY

Subjects

A. Sample: 84 male freshman students from Kaohsiung Municipal Senior High School

B. Grouping: They were categorized into three groups based on their scores of the Chinese version of the Foreign Language Reading Anxiety Scale (FLRAS).

METHODOLOGY

Groups High-anxiety Group

Mid-anxiety Group

Low-anxiety Group

FLRAS

Scores

Top 27%

(88-68)

Middle 46%

(67-56)

Bottom 27%

(55-35)

Number 22 40 22

METHODOLOGY

Instruments A. Materials for Instructing Each Reading Strategy Handouts and worksheets edited according to the model of explicit comprehension instruction (Duke & Pearson, 2002) are used for instructing each strategy. They are composed of four parts:

1. Part A: Explanation 2. Part B: Modeling 3. Part C: Guided practice 4. Part D: Independent practice

METHODOLOGY

B. Materials for Multi-strategy Reading Practice

Multiple-choice reading questions are adapted mainly from 1. Six-Way Paragraphs– Introductory Level 2. Success with Reading 2

METHODOLOGY

C. Reading Comprehension Test (RCT):

The test consists of 9 passages of 30 multi-choice reading questions.

1. Sources: standardized tests such as College Entrance Examinations, and GEPT Intermediate Level Tests 2. Readability grade (Fry’s readability formula, 1963): five passages at level seven, and four passages at level eight 3. Question types: main idea questions (7 items), detail questions (12 items), inference questions (6 items), and word-in-context questions (5items)

METHODOLOGY

D. Foreign Language Reading Anxiety Scale (FLRAS)

1. Introduction: The FLRAS, designed by Saito, Horwitz and Garza (1999) was used and the Chinese version of the scale was administered to the subjects. The FLRAS consisted of 20 items, and each was answered with a five point Likert-type scale, ranging from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree.”

METHODOLOGY

2. Scoring rules: (1) For the negative statements: “strongly agree” (5 points), “agree” (4 points), neither agree nor disagree” (3 points), “disagree” (2 points) and “strongly disagree” (1 point).

(2) For the positive statements: “strongly agree (1 point), “agree” (2 points), neither agree nor disagree” (3 points), “disagree” (4 points) and

“strongly disagree (5 points)

METHODOLOGY E. The Questionnaire on Students’ Responses toward the Explicit Reading Strategy Instruction (QSRERSI) 1. Section one : 21 questions of five point Likert-type scale, ranging from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree.” They are categorized into five aspects

-- students’ acquisition of the instructed strategies -- students’ fondness for the strategy instruction -- students’ feedback to the teaching method -- students’ evaluation of the effectiveness of the strategy instruction -- students’ application of the instructed strategies in tests

METHODOLOGY

2. Section 2: two open-ended questions, raised to

elicit

(1) the students’ comments about the benefits of

receiving the strategy instruction,

(2) the difficulties they encountered in the

training process.

METHODOLOGY

Study Procedures A. The pilot study: 42 students excluded from those subjects of the experiment did the questionnaire to check the reliability and validity of the Chinese version of the FLARS

B. The pre-treatment phase: The 84 subjects were required to answer the FLARS, and take the Reading Comprehension Test.

METHODOLOGY

C. Treatment overview: 1. How was the reading strategy instruction given? (1) The strategy instruction was integrated into the regular English class.

(2) Five reading strategies were taught explicitly through the steps of -- explanation, -- modeling, -- guided practice, -- independent practice.

METHODOLOGY

2. The procedures of the treatment (1) It took ten weeks to complete the instruction of the five strategies, with two weeks for each strategy.

(2) Each two-week period involved the classroom activities of explanation (30minutes), modeling (30 minutes) and guided practice (60 minutes), and the after-class activity of independent practice.

METHODOLOGY

(3) After the ten-week instruction, students were guided to continue their practice on integrating all the instructed strategies for another two weeks.

(4) After a total of 12 weeks, the subjects were encouraged to transfer successful strategies to new and different reading contexts.

METHODOLOGY

Data Analysis

A. Quantitative Analysis

1. A paired-samples t-test was applied to see if any

significant differences were related to the explicit

reading strategy instruction in terms of

(1) reading anxiety

(2) reading comprehension

(3) abilities to answer different types of reading

questions

METHODOLOGY

2. Eta squared statistics were calculated to show the magnitude of the intervention’s effect on (1) students with different levels of reading anxiety (2) the scores of different question types 3. Frequencies and percentages were used to see how the students responded to the explicit reading strategy instruction in the post-test questionnaire.

METHODOLOGY

B. Qualitative Analysis

Subjects’ responses to the two open-ended

questions in the questionnaire were examined

qualitatively.