Teaching Reading Strategies in an Ongoing EFL University Reading Classroom

Mi-jeong Song

《Asian Journal of English Language Teaching》 8卷 (1998/12) Pp. 41-54

摘要

This article reports a study of strategy training for reading in an ongoing university foreign language reading classroom. The training method was modified from the procedure developed by Brown and Palincsar (1984), which involved four concrete reading strategies: summarizing, questioning, clarifying, and predicting. The following research questions were addressed: ＂Does strategy training enhance the reading ability of EFL college students?＂ If so, ＂How is the effectiveness of reading strategy training related to the reading proficiency of the students?＂ ＂Which types of reading comprehension questions are affected by strategy training?＂ Results show that strategy training is effective in enhancing EFL reading, and that the effectiveness of the training varies with L2 reading proficiency. The results also indicate that students' performance on certain types of reading comprehension questions is improved by the training method. These findings suggest that foreign language reading pedagogy, especially for adult students in academic settings, should include explicit and direct strategy teaching.