Independent Learning Association 2007 Japan Conference
Reading Strategies: When, Where and How to Use
I-Ju Chen
National Changhua University of Education
Shan-Mao Chang
National Changhua University of Education
Sheng-Hui Huang
National Changhua University of Education
Abstract
This case study aims to explore reading strategies used by EFL
learners of the high-intermediate proficiency level. With the use of the
open-ended questionnaire, face-to-face interviews and think-aloud protocols,
we intended to generate an in-depth understanding of when, where and how
learners use specific reading strategies. In order to enhancing reading,
learners were found to use strategies that help to regulate reading habits,
select appropriate materials and evaluate reading comprehension.
Think-aloud protocols revealed that reading strategies were categorized into
general strategy use, strategy use for passages, and strategy use across
passages. Among the strategies identified, some were found to be
text-specific and task-specific while others tended to be observed across the
passages read. Extra strategies were heavily used when learners read
unfamiliar texts in which reading difficulties were successfully conquered
with the appropriate strategies used.
Phrase-to-phrase Translation and
Analyzing Sentence Structures were found to be the two most frequently
used strategies, which was suspected to be related to the learners’
educational background.
Key words: reading strategies, EFL learners
INTRODUCTION
Investigations into the language learning strategies used by successful learners in
the field of second and foreign language learning has attracted attention through the
studies of Rubin (1975), Stern (1975), and Naiman et al. (1978), which attempted to
discover what effective learning strategies might be and to share those strategies with
unsuccessful language learners. Based on these initial studies, other researchers
have explored the relationships between strategy use and language learning outcomes.
With the hope of identifying the nature of learning strategies employed by successful
or effective language learners, those studies defined good successful learners as the
ones performing well on tests or examinations or being rated a good learner by their
teachers (O’Malley & Chamot, 1990; Green & Oxford, 1995; Vann & Abraham, 1990;
Gan et al., 2004).
Since the late 1970s, studies on reading strategies mainly focused on discovering
what effective reading strategies might be. Early studies on reading strategies aimed
to identify the reading strategies of good readers and to teach good reading strategies
Independent Learning Association 2007 Japan Conference
to poor readers (Block, 1986; Hosenfeld, 1984). Recent research in reading strategies
has attempted to reveal the characteristics of students with good comprehension that
distinguish them from students with poor comprehension (Anderson, 1991; Kletzien,
1991, 1992; Lau & Chan, 2003) and found certain characteristics which differentiate
more successful from less successful learners. With the hope of implementing reading
strategies used by successful readers in reading instruction, it is important to evaluate
good readers’ reading strategies (Paris & Myers, 1981) and figure out strategies
successful readers use for different reading tasks (Kletzien, 1992).
Learning strategies are believed to play an important role in second language
learning in that strategies may assist students in mastering the forms and functions
required for comprehension and production when they learn a second language and
thus affect students’ achievement (Rubin, 1981; O’Malley & Chamot, 1990). In a
study of assessing the use of language learning strategies worldwide (Oxford and
Burry-stock, 1995), the researchers indicated that some studies found strong
relationships between frequency of strategy use and English proficiency levels
(Phillips, 1990, 1991; Chang, 1991; Green, 1992; Park, 1994), while others revealed
that the use of certain strategies were related to the language proficiency level or
language achievement scores (Rossi-Le, 1989; Wen & Johnson, 1991; Takeuchi,
1993). Based on the findings of the previous studies, high proficiency learners
demonstrated a greater use of learning strategies or adopted certain strategies for the
use in the learning task. It seemed that those studies mainly focused on the frequency
and the types of the strategy use. Nevertheless, if the function of language learning
strategy use is to help both teachers and learners be aware of the use of strategies that
good language learners frequently adopt, a general assessment of learners’ typical
strategies based on the students’ responses to the questionnaire may not generate an
in-depth understanding of learners’ use of specific strategies and may not elicit the
mental process underlining the strategy use.
Research on strategy use in learning L1 or L2 reading revealed an important
concept that strategic reading is not only a matter of knowing what strategy to use, but
also that the reader must know how to use a strategy successfully (Anderson, 1991;
Kletzien, 1991). Under this circumstance, reading strategies needed to be explored not
only for what they reveal about the ways good readers adopt certain learning
strategies but also for how the use of strategies is related to effective reading
comprehension (Carrell, Gajdusek & Wise, 1998). Moreover, Lau & Chan (2003)
pointed out that students’ ability in using reading strategy was found to be the most
crucial factor in their reading comprehension performance. Base on the suggestions of
previous research, since learning reading is not merely the conception of how to learn,
it may involve in methods readers use in their reading process. Therefore, reading
strategies that help students comprehend different reading texts need to be explored in
order to obtain a clear picture of strategy use in reading comprehension.
This study aims to investigate the strategies used by high-intermediate English
proficiency learners in enhancing reading skills and in different comprehending
reading tasks. In order to achieve the goals, the researcher adopted qualitative
methods to address the following research questions: 1) What are the strategies used
by high-intermediate English proficiency learners in improving their reading ability?
2) What are the strategies adopted by high-intermediate English proficiency learners
in comprehending reading tasks? By probing into the mental process of
high-intermediate English proficiency learners using text-based learning strategies, it
is hoped that the findings of the present study may provide valuable information for
educators and poor learners to address the questions on what to use, when to use,
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where to use, and how to use certain strategies.
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
As for the strategies in enhancing reading skills, some research has investigated
the reading strategies used by successful and unsuccessful language learners.
Hosenfeld (1977) used a think-aloud procedure to identify relations between reading
strategies and language reading success and found that successful readers kept the
meaning of the passage in mind while reading, read in broad phrases, skipped
inconsequential or less important words, and had a positive self-concept as a reader.
Hosenfeld (1984) later used the think-aloud procedure to figure out word guessing
strategy use of L2 young readers and found that successful readers usually keep the
meaning of the passage in mind and use it to infer the meaning of unfamiliar words,
skip the unfamiliar words and guess the meanings from others in the sentences,
identify the part of speech of unfamiliar words, and employ background knowledge to
derive the meaning of unknown words. Anderson (1991) carried out a study to
investigate the Spanish-speaking students in ESL program in two reading tasks: taking
reading comprehension test and reading academic texts and found that high scoring
readers applied strategies more effectively and appropriately; that is, the readers know
when and how to apply reading strategies on a given task. In Kletzien’s (1991) review
of previous research, good readers tend to report using more strategies than do poor
readers (Hare & Pulliam, 1980; Smith, 1976; Sullivan, 1978). Kletzien (1991)
conducted a study to examine the strategy use by good and poor comprenhenders
reading expository text of differing levels. With the different proficient levels on a
reading comprehension test, the subjects with good comprehension performance used
more strategies on the easiest passage, but their strategy use was the same on the
medium and difficult passage. Later, Kletzien (1992) examined proficient and less
proficient high school comprehenders’ use of strategies for different top-level
structure and found that proficient comprehenders differed from less proficient
comprehenders in their great use of previous knowledge on the collection passage and
their greater use of vocabulary strategies on the causation and comparison passages.
In Carrell, Gajdusek & Wise’s (1998) review of Block’s (1986) study, four
characteristics in strategy use were found to differentiate the more successful from the
less successful readers: integration, recognition of aspects of text structure, use of
general knowledge, personal experiences, and associations, and response in extensive
versus reflexive modes. Recently, Lau & Chan (2003) examined reading strategy use
in Chinese reading comprehension among Chinese good and poor readers in Hong
Kong and found that good readers reported using more cognitive and metacognitive
strategies in the Chinese reading comprehension test.
With regard to the studies on reading strategy use in the local setting, Chi (1995)
examined the relationship between readers’ previous literacy experiences and the text
the readers were reading and found that 10 advanced college EFL readers were more
capable of linking their previous literacy experiences to the information they were
reading. Lin (1996) used a think-aloud task to investigate the comprehension
strategies adopted by six TVES (Technological and Vocational Education System)
proficient readers with teacher recommendation. The findings indicated that five
strategies were used by proficiency readers, including translating, rereading, guessing
meaning, questioning meaning, and monitoring comprehension. With the technique of
think-aloud method, Chi (1997) compared the reading strategies used by good and
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Independent Learning Association 2007 Japan Conference
poor senior high students and concluded that those who were defined as good readers
by their English teacher tended to use strategies of confirmation, elaboration, and
inference-making and have shown more dependence on interpretive-level strategies
when they tried to understand the text as a whole. Liu (1997) investigated the reading
strategies used by good readers in the Technological and Vocational Education System.
Those who were recommended by their English teacher as good readers used
monitoring strategies most frequently, such as using background knowledge,
integrating information, clue-words and word analysis. Huang and Tseng (2000)
conducted a study on the strategies used by successful EFL learners who obtained
TOEFL scores of higher than 600 and found that these EFL learners used much more
metacognitive strategies than others to improve the reading ability, such as paying
attention to reading materials, ignoring Chinese translation, building up background
knowledge and the like. Certain cognitive strategies, such as reading for main ideas,
making summaries and underlining, were used to process reading messages. Guessing
intelligently was also adopted to overcome the reading difficulties.
METHODOLOGY
Participants
Two English as a foreign language learners who passed the high-intermediate
level of the General English Proficiency Test participated in the present study. The
General English Proficiency Test was a standardized test which aims to assess English
learners’ general English proficiency. Since the present study focused on investigating
the reading strategies used by higher English proficiency learners, the learners who
passed the GEPT test higher than the intermediate level were defined as learners with
higher proficiency level. Both of the participants are at the age of 30 and are female
English learners. With their major being in English, the participants have learned
English for more than fifteen years and have obtained master’s degrees. However, one
of the participants obtained her master’s degree with the specialty of Literature; while
the other specialized in Linguistics. In terms of their occupations, both of them engage
in English teaching.
Instrumentation
The study included three phases. An open-ended questionnaire was used to
obtain surface information on the reading strategies used by the participants in the
first phase. After analyzing the questionnaire, interviews were conducted in the
second phase to obtain detailed information. For the last phase, a think-aloud
method was designed to have participants verbalize their thoughts of the strategy use
in different reading tasks.
The Open-ended Questionnaire
An open-ended questionnaire, the English Learning Questionnaire, used by
Huang and Tseng (2000) was revised and adopted in the present study. Huang and
Tseng’s (2000) questionnaire focused on determining participant’ strategy use when
learning four skills and aimed at finding out the original phenomena of strategy use
without any wording constraints. Because of the study purposes, the question related
to reading skills was used in the present study.
The example question of the
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Independent Learning Association 2007 Japan Conference
open-ended questionnaire was “What strategies did you use to improve your English
reading skill?”
Face-to-face Interviews
Following the open-ended questionnaire, interviews were conducted in depth to
obtain more detailed information based on the results of the questionnaires.
Interviews aimed to clarify any unclear or confusing expressions in the questionnaires
and to explore more deeply the specific use of certain strategies in enhancing the four
language learning skills. The example questions which served to address participants’
use in specific contexts included 1) Under what condition or situation will you adopt
this strategy? 2) How did you use this strategy? 3) Can you give me an example? ”
The Think-aloud Method
After gathering the data from the open-ended questionnaire and interviews,
participants were provided with a learning text and were asked to speak aloud about
the steps they took to complete the task. In order to obtain complete information on
the learners’ task-based strategy use, participants were trained in thinking aloud
before being asked to give a thinking aloud verbal report. In Tsai’s (2004) review of
Ericsson and Simon’s (1980) study, three situations were suggested to train learners to
verbalize the task they are performing. First, subjects report only information that
they normally notice while they are doing the task in the first situation. Then,
reporting only information subjects normally attend to while they are performing a
task will be the main concern in the second situation. In the third situation,
participants try to report the information which they do not usually notice.
Data Collection Procedure
After contacting the participants and obtaining their consent, the researcher
made appointments with the participants and administered the open-ended
questionnaire. Participants were encouraged to describe their learning preference in
enhancing reading ability in as much detail as they can. Each respondent spent about
20 minutes in completing the questionnaire.
Following the administration of the questionnaire, the researcher examined the
results and marked the ambiguous responses. The use of certain strategies stated on
the questionnaire was generally grouped to analyze the interview questions in a more
systematic way. Furthermore, any ambiguous responses were clarified by the
interviewees with certain examples in the interviews. Each face-to-face interview
was taped and was transcribed into written form. The average interview time was 30
minutes.
During the procedure of the thinking-aloud session, the researcher provided
participants with three reading passages drawn from the high-intermediate level of the
General English Proficiency Test (2002). The types of reading passages were
selected based on participants’ familiarity of the content (see Appendix 1). Since
two participants were English major, one who had specialty of Literature may be
familiar with the passage relating to literature, while the other who specialized in
Linguistics may be acquainted with the passage regarding to linguistics. Therefore,
two passages related to participants’ specialties were selected. Moreover, in order to
elicit possible strategy use when the participants encountered unfamiliar content, one
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Independent Learning Association 2007 Japan Conference
passage other than participants’ specialties was randomly selected from the
high-intermediate level of GEPT (2002). Under this circumstance, one reading
passage was related to Literature; the other was relevant to Linguistics; another was
concerned with Geology.
Participants were asked to verbalize their thoughts
when trying to accomplish each task. Each task lasted about 30 minutes with a rest
interval of 20 minutes.
DATA ANALYSIS
The participants’ open-ended questionnaires were analyzed first so as to examine
the responses which would reveal focuses for interview use. Then, interview data
and verbal reports were recorded and transcribed into written forms. All of the
strategies reported by the participants in questionnaires and interviews were analyzed
and categorized so as to elicit participants’ strategy use in enhancing reading skills.
In addition, strategies reported by participants during the think-aloud phase were
defined, categorized, and synthesized into different types of categories in order to
explore participants’ strategy use in comprehending the reading task. Meanwhile,
strategies used during the reading processes were categorized with the use of the
strategy classification scheme developed by Kletzien (1992), including strategy types,
definitions, and sample responses. After that, strategies used in enhancing reading
abilities and in the comprehending reading text were compared so as to determine the
similarities or differences among various responses pertaining to each reading task
RESULTS
Strategy Use in Improving Reading Ability
As for the first research question, results from open-ended questions indicated
that strategies reported by high-intermediate English proficiency learners in
improving their reading ability included reading magazines, novels or stories, and
newspapers. Participants seemed to discipline themselves to have daily reading and
make themselves more engaged in intensive reading.
Specifically, when probing into the specific strategies used in enhancing reading
skills, the results from interviews revealed more detailed information on the use of
these strategies. When it comes to the types of readings, magazines like Studio
Classroom—Advanced, Live ABC, Time, Seventeen, novels Pride and Prejudice,
stories like mythology and those from films or stories for children, and newspapers
like The China Post were reported as reading sources by the high-intermediate
English proficiency learners. One participant said that she chose the readings based
on personal interest, while the other participants revealed that readings needed to be
chosen based on one’s reading ability. With regard to the time spent on these
readings, one participant indicated that she read magazines when she had time, but she
read novels at least 10 minutes every day before going to bed. The other participants
mentioned that she kept the habit of magazine reading at least 20 minutes every day
after dinner, read the newspaper once or twice a week, and read novels in her leisure
time.
Concerning the methods of reading, strategies the participants used to
improve their reading ability were summarized in 12 categories. Among 12
categories of strategy use, seven of them were used by both of the participants,
including 1) choosing appropriate or interesting reading materials, 2) underlining
unfamiliar words or phrases, 3) checking the usage of unknown words in dictionary
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after reading, 4) reading for main ideas, 5) ignoring unknown words when scanning
the passages, and 6) building up background knowledge, 7) regular reading. The
other five strategies covered 8) paraphrasing the content of readings by retelling the
stories, 9) ignoring Chinese translation, 10) paying attention to vocabulary usage in
context, 11) intensive reading, and 12) evaluating reading comprehension by
self-questioning and self-responding.
The results show that the high-intermediate English proficiency learners
tended to control their reading habits including regular and intensive reading, select
appropriate materials including choosing appropriate or interesting reading materials,
evaluate reading comprehension by self-asking and self-answering, and pay attention
to the reading by recognizing the vocabulary usage in contexts.
In addition,
participants used certain strategies which helped them understand and process reading
messages, including ignoring Chinese translations or unknown words when scanning
the passages, building up background knowledge, reading for main ideas, underlining
unfamiliar words or phrases, checking the usage of unknown words in a dictionary
after reading, and paraphrasing the content of readings by retelling the stories.
General Strategy Use in Comprehending Reading Texts
Results from the think-aloud protocol revealed that a total of 17 strategies were
reported by high-intermediate English proficiency learners in comprehending
different reading texts, including reading aloud, scanning, using background
knowledge, skimming, analyzing sentence structure, translation, breaking lexical
items into parts, using synonyms, reinterpreting words or sentences, association,
stating success in reading, making guesses, decoding, planning the use of reading
skills, recognizing structures in the passage, visualization, and evaluating sentences.
The findings of the strategy use reported by the participants were accordant with the
processing strategies proposed by Anderson’s (1991) classification scheme. The
strategies used by participants can be basically grouped into four categories including
supervising strategies, support strategies, paraphrase strategies, and strategies for
establishing coherence in texts. Supervising strategies included stating success in
reading, planning the use of reading skills, recognizing structures in the passage, and
evaluating sentences. Support strategies included scanning, skimming, analyzing
sentence structures, making guess, decoding, and visualization. Paraphrase strategies
contained translation, breaking lexical items into parts, using synonyms, and
association. Strategies for establishing coherence in texts included reading aloud,
using background knowledge, and reinterpreting words and sentences. In addition to
the strategy categories and strategy types, it is noticeable that the participants
preferred using translation (157 times) and analyzing sentence structures (86 times) in
comprehending different reading texts. The strategy use of evaluating sentences
(once), using synonyms (twice), and visualization (three times) was reported as the
three strategies least often used by the participants.
Strategy Use for Different Passages
Although the participants reported using 17 different strategies in comprehending
three different passages, from the think-aloud protocols, it was noticed that the
participants used different number of strategy types for different passages. In case of
the passage related to literature, 11 strategy types were reported, including reading
aloud, scanning, using background knowledge, skimming, analyzing sentence
structures, translation, breaking lexical items into parts, using synonyms,
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reinterpreting words or sentences, association, and stating success in reading.
Concerning the passage about linguistics, 12 strategy types were used, including
reading aloud, scanning, using background knowledge, skimming, analyzing sentence
structures, translation, breaking lexical items into parts, association, reinterpreting
words or sentences, making guesses, stating success in reading, and decoding. With
regard to the passage on the geology, it was found that more strategies were adopted
by the high-intermediate English proficiency learners; that is, 16 different strategies
were found to be in use in order to comprehend this passage, including reading aloud,
scanning, using background knowledge, skimming, analyzing sentence structures,
translation, breaking lexical items into parts, association, reinterpreting words or
sentences, making guesses, using synonyms, decoding, planning the use of reading
skills, recognizing structures of the passage, visualization, and evaluating sentences.
Strategy Use Across Passages
With the synthesis of strategy use across three different passages, it was found
that high-intermediate English proficiency learners reported using nine strategy types
in all passages. In other words, the following nine strategies may be defined as
common strategies which can be adopted for three different reading texts, including
reading aloud, scanning, using background knowledge, skimming, analyzing sentence
structures, translation, breaking lexical items into parts, association, and reinterpreting
words or sentences.
Comparing the strategy use in the three passages, it was found that the tendency
of the strategy use in the passage about literature was similar to that of the passage
about linguistics. Ten strategies were used in both the literature and linguistics
passages. In relation to the nine common strategies stated above, this revealed that one
more strategy was used by both participants in both passages—stating success in
reading. However, using synonyms was a strategy used only in the literature passage,
while making guesses and decoding were strategies used only in the linguistics
passage. It was obvious that the strategy use for the geology passage was greater than
that of the other two passages. Ten strategies were used in both the literature and
linguistics passages, whereas 16 strategies were reported used in the geology passages.
Among, 16 strategies used in the geology passage, ten strategies in both the literature
and linguistics passages appeared in the geology passage, except the strategy of
stating success in reading. Moreover, four strategies were reported used in the geology
passage, but neither in the literature nor in the linguistics passages, including planning
the use of reading skills, recognizing structures of the passage, visualization, and
evaluating sentences.
Strategy Use Across Participants
To facilitate the comparison of strategy use across participants, the frequency of
strategies used by each participant were recorded. It was found that both participants
adopted the following five strategies across the passages, including reading aloud,
scanning, skimming, analyzing sentence structure and translation. Specifically, among
eleven strategies reported in the literature passage, eight strategies were utilized by
both participants, including reading aloud, scanning, skimming, analyzing sentence
structures, translation, breaking lexical items into parts, reinterpreting words or
sentences, and stating success in understanding the text. Both participants heavily
adopted the strategies of analyzing sentence structures and translation in
comprehending the reading passage, but used the strategies of reading aloud,
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skimming, and stating success only once. It was revealed that one participant used
three more strategies than the other, such as using background knowledge, using
synonyms and association. Furthermore, among twelve strategies reported in the
linguistics passage, all strategies were reported by both participants, except
reinterpreting words or sentences by using context clues. Actually, only one
participant adopted this strategy in comprehending the linguistics passage. Both
participants heavily adopted the strategies of analyzing sentence structures and
translation, but used the strategies of reading aloud, making guesses, stating success,
and decoding abbreviations only once. In addition, among 16 strategies reported in the
geology passage, 12 strategies were reported by both participants. In fact, one of the
participants used one more strategy to help her comprehend the passage; that is, using
background knowledge. Nevertheless, the other participant adopted three exceptional
strategies to comprehend the passage, including breaking lexical items into parts,
using synonyms, and evaluating sentences. Both participants adopted the strategies of
analyzing sentence structures and translation to a great extent, but used the strategies
of reading aloud, skimming, and recognizing structures of the passage only once.
DISCUSSION
From the open-ended questionnaire and face-to-face interview,
high-intermediate learners tended to first select appropriate materials or materials that
interested them and then enhance their reading habits with regular and intensive
reading. This finding reflected those of Huang and Tseng’s (2000) and Lau &
Chan’s (2003) studies which revealed that high proficiency learners used much more
metacognitive strategies than others to improve their abilities. Moreover, the finding
that high-intermediate learners tended to select appropriate materials before reading
may also echo the statement of Rubin (1994). Choosing appropriate reading
materials and choosing materials that are of interest to learners were the strategies to
develop reading skills.
When probing further into the specific use of participants’ application in
reading context, the researcher found that high-intermediate English proficiency
learners adopted both metacognitive strategies like self-evaluation and paying
attention to the vocabulary and cognitive strategies like reading for main ideas,
ignoring Chinese translation, and underlining unfamiliar words. This finding echoed
the findings of some previous studies (Huang and Tseng, 2000; Lennon, 1989; Reiss,
1983). Also, the use of background knowledge seems to be one of the crucial
strategies used by good readers (Hosenfeld, 1984; Kletzien, 1991; Liu, 1997).
Besides, the participants reported using two reading strategies which may be defined
as post-reading activities, including checking the usage of unknown words in the
dictionary after reading and paraphrasing the content of readings by retelling the
stories. As one of participants indicated, “I will check the usage of unknown words
after reading and then write them down. If I get the chance to write, I will try my
best to use new words in written context.” Another participant indicated, “Retelling
stories that I have read may enhance my oral skills.” These two examples implied
that high-intermediate English proficiency learners not only adopted strategies for
reading practice but also integrated reading strategies into other abilities.
From the findings of the strategy use, it was noticed that strategy use in
developing reading skills may be divided into pre-reading strategies which were
related to metacognition of the strategy use, strategies while reading covering
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metacognitive and cognitive strategies, and post-reading strategies which contained
integrative concepts of strategy use in productive skills such as writing and speaking
abilities.
As for participants’ general use of the strategies, a total of 17 strategies were
reported by high-intermediate English proficiency learners in comprehending
different reading texts. Among these strategies, certain strategies were confirmed as
strategies used by learners with good comprehension, including skimming, scanning,
using synonyms, stating success in reading, translation, breaking lexical items into
parts, analyzing sentence structures, using background knowledge, reinterpreting the
sentences, and association. Anderson (1991) indicated that advanced level students
who scored the highest on reading tests reported using background knowledge,
skimming reading material for a general understanding, and scanning reading material
for a specific word or phrase on the standardized reading test and textbook reading
measure. Anderson (1991) furthermore pointed out that good comprehenders who
scored high on reading comprehension tests tended to paraphrase, state success in
understanding a portion of the text, and translate a word or phrase into the L1 in the
reading process. Similarly, Lin (1996) also revealed that proficient readers at the
technology college level reported using translation while reading the passage.
Moreover, in Liu’s (1997) study on the reading strategies at the technology college
level, the strategy of using word analysis was reported most frequently used by the
good readers. In addition, Kuo (1994) indicated that the high reading ability group
behaved higher metacognitive skills than the low reading ability group, including
analyzing structures of complex sentences, using background knowledge, and
scanning. Besides, Chi (1997) pointed out good readers used the elaborating strategy
which means good readers may interpret the sentence or content so as to construct the
fragment of the concept into a whole and adopted the evaluating strategy which
denotes that good readers may express their own opinion on the content of the
passages. This finding may explain why the high-intermediate English proficiency
learners reported using the strategy of reinterpreting words or sentences. Furthermore,
in Carrell, Gajdusek & Wise’s (1998) review of Block’s (1986) study, it was revealed
that associations seem to be one of the characteristics that differentiate the more
successful from the less successful of non-proficient readers at the university level.
With the exploration of the strategy use in the different passages, it was noted
that the participants used a different number of strategy types in different passages, 11
strategy types for the literature passage, 12 ones for the linguistics passage, and 16 for
the geology passage. It seems that strategies found in the literature and the linguistics
passages were similar and about the same number, but strategies adopted by the
participants in the geology passage increased. This may illustrate the relationship
between strategy use and the subject in which the study participant majors. With
English majors, participants may be more familiar with the passages pertaining to
literature and linguistics, and thus may have quite similar strategy number and types.
As for the geology passage, it may be the case that the participants who had less prior
or background knowledge on this topic needed to adopted more strategy types to
overcome their limitation of unfamiliarity with the passage as Kletzien (1991) pointed
out “good comprehenders continued to try different strategies to construct the
meaning of the text” (p.79).
When it comes to the strategy use across passages, among the different number
of strategy types used in the three passages, nine of them were used in all three
passages. This implied that high-intermediate English proficiency learners may adopt
basic or common strategies in comprehending different passages. Among nine basic
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strategies, six of them were confirmed as strategies used by good readers in the
previous studies as stated above, including scanning, using background knowledge,
skimming, breaking lexical items into parts, association, and reinterpreting words or
sentences. The other three may be accounted for the relationship between the
participants’ profession and strategy use, including reading aloud, analyzing sentence
structures, and translation. Translation and sentence analysis were reported to a great
extent by both participants. In other words, high-intermediate English proficiency
learners preferred using translation (157 times) and analyzing sentence structures (86
times) in this case. The finding that both of the participants depended heavily on the
use of the translation strategy was inconsistent with that of Chi’s (1997) study which
indicated that good readers used the translation strategy only when they can not
understand the sentences. Furthermore, Kuo (1994) also indicated that the high
reading ability group tended to analyze structures of difficult or complex sentences.
Nevertheless, both participants in the present study appeared to analyze most of the
sentences in their reading processes. The finding of the previous studies (Chi, 1997;
Kuo, 1994) implied that readers used strategies of translation and sentence analysis to
help them comprehend difficult or complex sentences. However, the fact that both
participants translated and analyzed most of the sentences may illustrate the
relationship between strategy use and participants’ profession or teaching styles. Both
of the participants have made teaching for their profession; that is, they are English
teachers at the high school level. It was suspected that the frequent use of these
strategies may be related to learners’ educational background.
In comparison with the strategy use in the three passages, nine common
strategies were used by both participants in all three passages. Ten strategies were
reported using by two learners in both the literature and the linguistics passages. One
strategy used by both participants in the literature and linguistics passages but not in
the geology passage was the use of stating success in reading. It was possible that the
participants’ major may influence their use of reading strategies. As learners majoring
in English, they may be familiar with the passages relating to literature and linguistics,
and thus reported stating success in reading in these two passages, but not for the
geology passage. The finding that high-intermediate proficiency learners stated
success in reading the passages which met their educational background may be
accordant with the finding of Kletzien’s (1991) study which suggested that if the
result of reading processes is positive, it leads to a positive effect (confident) and thus
approaches the learning task. Meanwhile, in MacIntyre’s (1996) review of Chamot
(1990) study which also pointed out that prior educational experience may influence
the use of certain strategies.
Moreover, the differences of the strategy use across passages may echo
Kletzien’s (1991) findings that learners with good comprehension appeared to have a
greater ability to control their strategy use by changing types of strategies, depending
on the passages. As for the differences of strategy use between the literature and
linguistics passages, using synonyms was the strategy used in the literature passage,
while making guesses and decoding were strategies used in the linguistics passage.
Concerning the differences of strategy use between the literature and linguistics
passages as well as the geology passage, four strategies were reported only in the
geology passage, but neither in the literature nor in the linguistics passages, including
planning the use of reading skills, recognizing structures in the passage, visualization,
and evaluating sentences. These findings also confirmed those of previous studies
(Anderson, 1991; Kletzien, 1991, 1992) which revealed a tendency that certain
strategies were used in certain types of reading passages. It seems that the use of
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Independent Learning Association 2007 Japan Conference
reading strategies is not only associated with learners’ professions and educational
backgrounds, but also related to different reading text types. Certain strategies were
appeared to be text-specific.
Furthermore, with regard to the strategy use across passages and across
participants, it was found that both participants adopted the following five strategies
across the passages, including reading aloud, scanning, skimming, analyzing sentence
structure and translation. It appeared that certain strategies tended to be core skills
adopted by readers in comprehending different reading passages. Specifically, one
participant used three more strategies than the other in the literature passage, such as
using background knowledge, using synonyms and association. One participant used
one strategy more in comprehending linguistic passage—reinterpreting words or
sentences by using context clues. In the geology passage, one participant adopted
three more strategies, including breaking lexical items into parts, using synonyms, and
evaluating sentences. Nevertheless, the other participant reported using background
knowledge in this text. When some strategies were observed as core skills across
participants in comprehending different passages, other strategies appeared to be
identified as text-specific. In addition to this tendency, the finding that different
participants may adopt different strategies in the same task reflected Anderson’s (1991)
assertion that “individual learning styles may influence what strategies are employed
during the reading process” (p. 471). It was suspected that strategies were not only
text- specific, but also individual-specific.
CONCLUSION
This study sought to investigate strategies used by high-intermediate English
proficiency learners in developing reading skills and in comprehending the reading
tasks. According to open-ended questionnaires and interviews, the findings
indicated that in enhancing reading skills, high-intermediate English proficiency
learners tended to control their reading habits, select appropriate materials, evaluate
reading comprehension, pay attention to the readings, and adopt certain skills to
enhance the reading process. Based on the results of think-aloud protocols, strategy
use in comprehending different reading texts can be divided into general strategy use,
strategy use for passages, and strategy use across passages. A total of 17 strategies
were reported by high-intermediate English proficiency learners in comprehending
different reading texts. Moreover, participants used different number of strategy types
for different passages, 11 strategy types for the literature passage, 12 ones for the
linguistics passage, and 16 for the geology passage. In addition, nine common
strategies were found across passages. The other eight strategies were varied
according to the different types of passages. Besides, five core strategies were
observed across passages and across participants, while other strategies were varied
according to different texts and different learners. Based on the results, it was implied
that some strategies tended to be core skills adopted by both readers. Others
considered as the strategies that appeared to be text-specific in comprehending
different reading passages. Still other strategies were suspected to be
individual-specific. Among the strategies identified, translation and sentence analysis
were two strategies most often used by the learners, which may be related to
participants’ educational background.
The present study achieved the purposes of discovering strategies used in
comprehending different reading texts. Although the findings provided information
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about what the strategies were, how they should be used, when and where to use the
strategies, further research needs to be conducted by exploring reading strategies used
by more EFL learners with different professions and educational backgrounds and by
probing into processing strategies with different text types so as to obtain a full
picture of strategy use in developing EFL learners’ reading skills.
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APPENDIX 1
Reading passages for the think-aloud protocol
Reading I:
Nowadays, when someone mentions reading a book or seeing a film that was
“very romantic,” he usually means the plot contained a happy or unhappy love story.
Originally, though, the word romantic had a different and more complex meaning.
The adjective came from Romanticism, a philosophical and literary movement which
took place in Britain and throughout Europe roughly between 1770 and 1848. Inspired
by the revolutions in American and France and the popular wars of independence in
Spain and elsewhere, the movement supported the importance of the individual, the
value of personal experience and feelings, and the superiority of imagination and
creativity over pure reason.
Reading II
The beginnings of the Roman alphabet can be traced back several thousand years
to the Phoenicians, a group of people who lived in the Middle Eastern region occupied
today by Lebanon. In their day, the Phoenicians were notable merchants who
established important trading colonies as far away as northern Africa and Spain. They
were also clever inventors. By the 11th century BC, the Phoenicians had developed an
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Independent Learning Association 2007 Japan Conference
alphabet of their own which consisted of 22 characters, and which was based on a
more primitive form of writing. Two centuries later, this new form of writing had
already been borrowed by their close neighbors. After the 9th century BC, the Greeks
and Romans also adapted it to their own languages, mainly by adding characters to
represent the vowel sounds a, e, i, o and u.
Reading III
In the southwestern Pacific Ocean, scattered over an area of three and a half
million square miles, are twenty to thirty thousand islands. Together with the
continent of Australia, these islands make up the geographic region known as
Oceania.
All the islands in Oceania were made in one of two ways. The higher islands,
which usually contain a central hill or mountain, were created by volcanoes. The
volcanic ash covering the islands acts as a fertilizer, which explains the rich
vegetation found on them. These islands also tend to have a large amount of rainfall
each year. The other Oceanic islands are made up of coral reefs—ridges formed from
the skeletons of tiny sea animals—which attach themselves to undersea mountains.
These long, low islands barely rise above sea level. Most coral islands lack the fertile
soil and rain found on the higher islands.
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