The Effects of Reading Strategies Instruction on the Improvement of Reading Comprehension of Vocational High School Students in Taiwan

• Main Authors: Yung-yi Cheng, 鄭泳宜
• Other Authors: Li-Ying Hsu
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2009
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/94888452824675802746

碩士 === 雲林科技大學 === 應用外語系碩士班 === 97 === The purpose of the present study is to explore the effects of the explicit reading strategies instruction on EFL vocational high school students’ reading comprehension. The correlation between students’ perceptions of reading strategies and their reading performances is examined. The students’ comprehension for different types of questions in the tests is also investigated. In addition, the students’ responses to the strategies instruction and the retention effects of the strategies instruction are discussed as well. The participants of this study were 255 students from National Chia-yi Vocational High School. They responded to one questionnaire on their perceptions of the reading strategies and took the pre-test. 39 students were chosen to receive six-week strategies instruction. The experimental group was divided into two subgroups: one with GEPT Basic Certificate and the other without GEPT Basic Certificate. The explicit strategies instruction involved the instruction of the selected six strategies. These strategies were taught in an explicit approach which emphasized modeling, guided practice, independent practice, and application. Besides, pre-, post- and follow-up tests were conducted before, after and one month after the treatment to collect the related data for analysis and discussion. Another questionnaire was conducted to explore the students’ responses to the strategies instruction. One checklist of reading strategies was designed to know what strategies the students had used when taking the pre-, post- and follow-up tests. The major findings of the study are summarized as follows. 1. The correlation between the participants’ perceptions of reading strategies and their reading performances is significant. 2. The strategies instruction helps cultivate the experimental group of students’ perceptions and use of the instructed strategies. 3. The students of the subgroup without GEPT Basic Certificate benefit most from the strategies instruction. 4. Most of the students in the experimental group have a positive response to the strategies instruction. 5. The strategies instruction helps the experimental group of students perform better in main ideas, details, and inference questions, but not for word-guessing questions. 6. The strategies instruction still has positive effects on the experimental group of students’ reading comprehension even one month after the strategies instruction. The findings suggest several pedagogical implications. First, EFL teachers should explicitly teach the students the reading strategies. Second, EFL teacher should design their own teaching materials so as to incorporate the strategies instruction into the regular English classes. Third, in assessing the students’ reading comprehension, EFL teachers should avoid using multiple-choice questions which only focus on literal meanings of the texts. Fourth, EFL teachers should inspire and encourage students to read extensively, especially after the students have acquired the reading strategies. Finally, EFL teachers should make students practice adopting the reading strategies, and further motivate them to read English extensively.