Good TVES Readers' Comprehension Monitoring Strategies and the Functions of the Researcher's Intervention in Their Reading Processes

• Main Authors: Liu, Chin-Chih, 劉晉治
• Other Authors: Shih-guey Joe
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 1998
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/27195393760273746192

碩士 === 國立彰化師範大學 === 英語研究所 === 86 === The purpose of this study is to investigate the reading strategies of Technological and Vocational Education System (TVES) students when they read an English technical text. More specifically, this study aims to investigate readers' comprehension monitoring strategies. Besides, the functions of the researcher's intervention in readers' reading processesare also discussed. Ten good TVES freshmen participated in this study. This study adopted the think-aloud method to explore readers' comprehensionmonitoring strategies of solving three types of difficult words (technical,general, and special words) in reading a technical text and the functions ofthe researcher's intervention questions. Results indicated that TVES students' monitoring processes included three phases and six specific steps: the evaluation phase (problem identification and problem comment steps), the action phase (plan and solution steps), and the regulation phase (check and correction steps). The monitoring strategies used most frequently were: usingbackground knowledge, integrating information, using clue-words and usingword analysis. Readers used different strategies to solve different types of words. Their using of various strategies to solve different words implied that these good TVES students were able to differentiate the importance of words. Besides, readers' different academic backgrounds affected their strategy use( reader-based or text-based). This supported the schema-based theory oflearning. Still, individual differences existed among students of the sameacademic background. This showed that failures to comprehend a technical textwere not necessarily due to the lack of background knowledge but rather the lack of ability to activate it. Finally, the researcher's intervention duringthe think-aloud task was found to have five functions: comprehension testing,stimulation, clarification, exploration, and promotion. On the basis of the findings, this study suggests that the researcher's intervention during readers' think-aloud processes be recommended as a compensatory method for the think- aloud method and as an effective way to enhance readers' monitoringability. Besides, TVES teachers are encouraged to conduct various prereadingactivities to activate students' background knowledge and to model the think-aloud processes to teach students how to evaluate and regulate their comprehension of technical texts.Key words: English Reading Strategies, Comprehension Monitoring Strategies, Intervention, The Think-aloud Method.