oral presentation of methodology course 碩專一甲 na0c0003 程方麗 date : march 17, 2012

Oral Presentation of Methodology Course

碩專一甲NA0C0003程方麗

Date : March 17, 2012

Topic

Explicit Instruction of Reading Strategies at Senior High School in Taiwan

Motivation of the researcher

1. Most studies explore the reading problems at college level. And little is known about the effects of strategy instruction on EFL senior high school students’ reading comprehension.

2. In terms of EFL senior high school students’ failure in achieving strategic reading, it is

necessary for them to receive explicit strategy instruction to improve their reading ability.


3. EFL senior high students are not strategic readers and thus can’t use both top-down and bottom-up strategies flexibly for effective and efficient reading.

4. The researcher wants to explore whether EFL senior high students in Taiwan will benefit

from the explicit instruction of reading strategies and then become effective and efficient

readers.


5. In addition, the researcher hopes to investigate whether the strategy instruction can help enhance students’ positive attitudes toward English reading.

Research Questions

1. What are the subjects’ perceptions of the instructed strategies before and after the

treatment, and what is their reaction toward the learning of each strategy?

2. Does the strategy instruction change the subjects’ attitudes toward English reading?

3. Does the strategy instruction improve the subjects’ reading comprehension?

Research Questions

4. Which of the groups, higher, intermediate, or lower proficiency group, would benefit most

from the strategy instruction ? 5. Which types of reading comprehension

questions (main idea questions, detail questions, inference questions, and word-guessing questions) would be influenced by the strategy instruction?

6. What are the subjects’ responses to the explicit strategy instruction?

Literature Review

1. Evolving Perspectives of Reading

Clarke & Silberstein (1977) stated that in the past the reader was regarded as “working through a text in a rigid, word-by-word fashion, decoding information in a precise manner from print to speech to aural comprehension” (p.136).

Literature Review


Orasanu & Penny (1986) showed that the old view of reading involved the process of fluent decoding, in which the reader gradually achieved comprehension by proceeding letter by letter to unlocked sounds, combined sounds into words, and then strung the words into sentences.

Literature Review


Alderson (2000) thought of these readers as passive decoders of sequential graphic-phonemic-syntactic-semantic systems.

Reading is a passive process.

Literature Review

Psycholinguistic model of reading has had a great impact on views of language reading after the mid-1960s. (Goodman, 1967;1976; Smith, 1971;1973).

Literature Review

Goodman (1988) defined that reading is a receptive language process, a psycholinguistic process. In this process, the writer encodes thought as language while the reader decodes language to thought. That is, the reader is not merely a passive decoder but an active constructor of meaning.

Literature Review

According to Orasanu & Penny (1986), reading involved the active construction of meaning from text, and decoding was assumed as a means to the construction of meaning rather than the end in itself. They argued that reading was seen as a flexible set of interacting processes, in which good readers used many strategies to create meaning based on the text.

Literature Review

Reading is a passive process. ↓

Reading is an active process or an interactive process.

Literature Review

2. ESL/EFL reading theories and instruction

The psycholinguistic perspectives of reading have to a large extent directed the development of ESL/EFL reading, and have dramatically changed the theory of ESL/EFL reading from a bottom-up model to “reading as an interactive process” (Eskey & Grabe,1988; Grabe,1988).

Literature Review


The schema theory model provides insights to second language reading that efficient comprehension requires not only one’s linguistic knowledge but also the ability to relate the textual material to one’s own knowledge (Carrell & Eisterhold,1988).

Literature Review


Clarke & Silberstein (1977) pointed out that ESL/EFL reading teachers should train students to apply strategies to their reading, and provided them with practice in using a minimum number of syntactic and semantic clues to achieve the maximum amount of information.

Literature Review3. Reading strategies (v.s) Reading

comprehension Broek & Kremer (2000) defined

reading strategies as mental and behavioral activities that people used to increase their likelihood of comprehending text.

D’Arcangelo (2002) indicated that since reading was a recursive process that required active engagement, all the strategies were tools which allowed us to be more actively involved while reading.

Literature Review3. Reading strategies (v.s) Reading

comprehension Anderson (1991) highlighted that

strategies instruction helped increase students’ willingness to read difficult material and attempt to understand it. Besides, strategies-instructed students were more likely to collaborate with classmates to discover meaning in text.

Literature Review

4. Explicit Comprehension Instruction

Tierney, Readence & Dishner (1995) mentioned that “Explicit Teaching” was recommended as effective reading comprehension instruction for teaching selected reading comprehension strategies and skill.

Literature Review

4. Explicit Comprehension Instruction

Pearson & Dole (1987) mentioned that in explicit comprehension instruction, teachers provide guided practice or model what comprehension strategy is, how and when a comprehension strategy ought to be used, and then slowly release responsibility for task completion to students until students are able to complete the task on their own.

5. Five Reading Strategies Instruction

Skimming for the main idea. Identifying topics and main ideas. Making predictions. Making inferences. Guessing the meanings of unfamiliar

words from the context.

Literature Review

*Skimming for the Main Idea Nuttall(1996) pointed out that

skimming did not remove the need for careful reading, but enables the reader to select texts or parts of texts that are worth spending time on. Besides, skimming to get a top-down view is valuable as a way of approaching difficult texts.

Literature Review

*Skimming for the Main Idea Cohen & Poppino (1984) pointed out

that efficient readers know how to adjust their reading pace whenever necessary, whereas inefficient readers read all material at a consistently slow pace.

Literature Review Identifying topics and main ideas. Stevens (1988) argued that

deficiency in recognizing the main idea or theme of passages would hinder and frustrate students in many of their learning activities in school.

William (1988) highlighted that the skill of identifying the main idea was fundamental to successful comprehension as well as many aspects of comprehension.

Literature Review*Identifying Topics and Main Ideas Cognitive studies have revealed a lot

of distinct differences between good readers and poor readers in terms of their ability of recalling main ideas while reading (Brown & Smiley,1977; Thorndyke,1977, cited in Stevens,1988).

Literature Review

*Identifying Topics and Main Ideas Aulls (1986) highlighted that the

concept of topic should be taught before that of main idea because the central topic was introduced early in the text.

Literature Review *Identifying Topics and Main Ideas Aulls (1986) mentioned that students

tend to perform more poorly when asked to write out the main idea than when asked to infer implied main idea with exercises providing multiple choice answers. In fact, he pointed out that main idea instruction should not merely focus on using multiple choice responses to cue students to what to look for in the text.

Literature Review

* Making predictions Prediction begins from the moment

we read the title and form expectations of what the passage is likely to contain (Nuttall,1996).

For more systematic training of the skill, students can be given unfinished passages to complete in order to predict what is likely to come next (Grellet, 1981).

Literature Review

*Making Inferences Vonk & Noordman (1990) stated that

the writer would leave implicit information that was supposed to be computed from the text by the reader. The reader has to draw upon his prior knowledge or his understanding of the context to compute the implicitly-stated information embedded in the text.

Literature Review

*Making Inferences Dole et al. (1991) highlighted that in

the process of constructing their own models of meaning for a given text, both readers and listeners made inferences extensively to fill in details omitted in text and to elaborate what they read.

Literature Review

*Guessing the meanings of unfamiliar words from the context

Smith (1971) argued that the best way to identify an unfamiliar word in a text was to draw inferences from the rest of the text rather than looking it up in dictionary

Literature Review


Huckin & Bloch (1993) pointed out that a reader who fails to recognize words fast and automatically would manage to compensate by using higher levels of processing such as contextual information and top-level schemata.

Literature Review


Field (1985) proposed a model of Chinese student’s process strategies and found that Chinese students often resorted to a dictionary when encountering an unfamiliar word, instead of guessing its meaning from the context.

Literature Review


Based on Field’s view, Chern (1993) stressed that helping students develop the ability to infer the meaning of unknown words from the context should be a priority in the English reading class.

Methodology

Subjects (1) 89 third-year senior students from Hsiao-

Kang Senior High School in Kaohsiung City Only 84 subjects offered valid data (2) from two classes taught by the researcher (3)* higher English proficiency group, * lower English proficiency group, * intermediate English proficiency group

based on their individual English mean scores in the second academic year.

Methodology

Instruments1.Materials for the Strategy

Instruction Active: Skills for Reading (Book 2&

Book 3) (Anderson, 2003b) Reading Power (Mikulecky &

Jeffries,1998), Project Achievement: Reading (Level 1) ( Spache & Spache,1999)

Baumann’s (1986) lesson plans.

Methodology

Instruments2.Materials for the Practice of the

Instructed Strategies English textbook (Senior High School

English Textbook, Book 5) the English comprehension tests

adopted from the previous college entrance exam question bank.

Methodology

Instruments3.Reading Comprehension Test Material Sources : Six-Way Paragraphs (Middle &

Advanced Level ) (Pauk,2000) five reading passages

two passages were at readability of level seven and three passages were at readability of level eight according to Fry readability formula. why?

Methodology

Instruments3.Reading Comprehension Test Why are these material sources selected? The readability grade level of the English

textbooks provided for the third-year senior high students is 7 ( Fry,1991, cited in Huang,2001).

Bereiter & Bird (1985, cited in Song, 1998), reading process free from trouble does not require readers to call upon their strategic resources the three reading passages are a little beyond the subjects’ current proficiency level

Methodology

Instruments3.Reading Comprehension Test How are these material sources used? (1) a pre-test (2) a post-test

Methodology

Instruments4.Questionnaires (1) a questionnaire concerning students’

attitudes toward English reading (2) a questionnaire concerning students’ perceptions of reading strategies (3) a questionnaire concerning students’ responses toward the explicit strategy instruction

Procedures

The Pilot Study : another group of 40 students excluded from the

subjects in the study helped the final design of the questionnaire concerning students’ attitudes toward English reading

The Pre-treatment Phase: pre-test + questionnaire concerning students’ attitudes toward English reading

Treatment : 5 strategies instruction + English textbook (Senior High School English Textbook, Book 5) +modeling and guided practice // 10 weeks

Procedures

The Post-treatment Phase : self-practice of the instructed

strategies /2weeks post-test questionnaire concerning students’

attitudes toward English reading (the same as the pre-treatment one)

questionnaire concerning students’ responses toward the explicit strategy instruction

Results

Students’ Perceptions of Reading Strategies

(in response to RQ1) => What are the subjects’

perceptions of the instructed strategies before and after the

treatment, and what is their reaction toward the learning of each strategy?

How were the data collected? (yes-no Questionnaire)

Results

Students’ Perceptions of Reading Strategies

(in response to RQ1) Findings : 1. Not many subjects had an idea of

such strategies as “skimming for the main idea”, “identifying topics and main ideas”, and “making predictions” before the treatment.

2. Even though these participating subjects had an idea of the mentioned strategies before the treatment, they didn’t know how to use these strategies well.

ResultsStudents’ Perceptions of Reading

Strategies (in response to RQ1) Findings : 3. After the treatment, the subjects

reported that they had learned to use the instructed strategies, especially the three items they thought they were not familiar with before the treatment.

4. Most of the subjects revealed that they liked to use the instructed strategies after the treatment

ResultsStudents’ Attitudes Toward English

Reading (in response to the RQ2) -- how: 5-

point–scale Questionnaire Findings in terms of the following four

areas: (1)Students’ Learning Interest

Toward English Reading Between the Pre- and Post- treatments

(2) Students’ Self-initiative Learning Toward English Reading Between the Pre- and Post-treatments

Results

Students’ Attitudes Toward English Reading

(in response to the RQ2) Findings in terms of the following four

areas: (3) Students’ Opinions Toward English

Reading Between the Pre- and Post- treatments

(4) Students’ Perceptions of Their English Reading Ability Between the Pre- and Post-treatments

Results


(in response to the RQ2) 1. Overall speaking, the strategy

instruction helped change most of the subjects’ attitudes toward English reading, because they increase their learning interest toward English reading and because they are more confident in using strategies to improve their reading comprehension.

Results


(in response to the RQ2)2. Nevertheless, such strategy

instruction did not help develop their self-initiative learning habits toward English reading, and does not significantly change their opinions toward English reading.

ResultsEffects of the Strategy Instruction

on Students’ Reading Comprehension

(in response to RQ 3) How were the data collected? Pre-

and Post- tests for all the subjects (high, low ,

intermediate proficiency groups)----

1. In answer to research question 3, the strategy instruction helped improve the subjects’ reading comprehension.

Results

Effects of the Strategy Instruction on Students’ Reading Comprehension

(in response to RQ 3) for all the subjects (high, low ,

intermediate proficiency groups)----

2. This result highlighted the worthiness of teachers’ incorporating explicit strategy instruction into regular English learning settings.


on Students’ Reading Comprehension

(in response to RQ 4) how: pre- and post- tests

for each group: Ranking of the mean score gains higher in the post-test than in the pre-test)

1. The lower proficiency group benefited most

from the strategy instruction. 2. the intermediate proficiency group 3. the high proficiency group


on Types of Reading Comprehension Questions

(in response to RQ5) How were the data collected?

Scores of pre- and post- tests Four types of questions were

considered : main idea questions (○) detail questions (○) inference questions (○) word-guessing questions (Χ)

ResultsStudents’ Responses to the

Strategy Instruction ( in response to RQ 6) How were the data collected? five-point-scale questionnaire


Strategy Instruction ( in response to RQ 6)

Data were analyzed in terms of four areas:

(1) students’ acquisition of the instructed strategies

(2)students’ application of the instructed strategies in reading comprehension tests

(3)students’ reaction to the strategy instruction

(4) students’ feedback on the strategy instruction




(1) students’ acquisition of the instructed strategies ----- (from subjects’ standpoint)

identifying topics and main ideas (Χ)42.8 %

skim for the main idea (○) 81% making predictions (○) 71.4% making inferences (○) 80.9% guessing meanings of unfamiliar

words from context (○) 83.4%

Results

identifying topics and main ideas (Χ) Why? possible cause 1: subjects’ having

difficulty in acquiring the strategy possible cause 2: subjects’ inability

to write out topics and main ideas without clues hidden in the multiple choice answers, where they might cross out the impossible choice.




(2)students’ application of the instructed strategies in reading comprehension tests

identifying topics and main ideas (Χ) 40.5%

skim for the main idea (○) 76.2% making predictions (√) 57.1% making inferences (○)79.7% guessing meanings of unfamiliar

words from context (○) 90.5%




(2)students’ application of the instructed strategies in reading comprehension test


making predictions (√) 57.1% How did the researcher defend

herself as to the statistics?

Results

Students’ Responses to the Strategy Instruction ( in response to RQ 6)




Most of the subjects’ performance on it after the treatment was better than that before the treatment.





making predictions (√) 57.1% It was still a satisfying result

compared with the result that not many of the subjects (only 31%) knew how to use the strategy before the treatment.




(3)students’ reaction to the strategy instruction

a. positive reaction b. better grades on reading

comprehension tests c. motivation in reading English not

enhanced as much as other items researched.




(4) students’ feedback on the strategy instruction

a. like to learn b. like the teaching method c. willingness to learn more reading

strategies

0.00%10.00%20.00%30.00%40.00%50.00%

Percentage of Subjects’ Re-sponses to Their Liking of the

Instructed Strategies

Strategy

oral presentation of methodology course 碩專一甲 na0c0003 程方麗 date : march 17, 2012

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