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明示閱讀策略教學對EFL學生閱讀焦慮
與理解的影響
Effects of Explicit Reading Strategy Instruction on
EFL Students’ Reading Anxiety and Comprehension
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 (bottomup processing/ literal comprehension) is
still a dominant teaching method.
-- Little time is left for the teaching of
reading strategies.
INTRODUCTION
Limited FL
Knowledge
Slow Progress
Anxiety and
Frustration
Uncertainty
and Insecurity
Word-by-Word
Reading
Poor
Comprehension
INTRODUCTION
Poor comprehension and anxiety reinforce
each other in the vicious circle.
INTRODUCTION
To stop the vicious circle, strategy-oriented
reading 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.