In this section, the discussion focuses on the results presented in Section 4.1.2, which show the effects of the integrated treatment on the participants’ self-perception of the strategies used and the difficulties encountered in taking the DS test. In this study, the participants’ metacognitive awareness in taking the DS test before and after the treatment is investigated and compared by using questionnaires with the same statements to see if there is any change caused by the treatment.
According to the self-perception of the participants’ awareness of the strategies they used in taking the DS test before and after the treatment, as shown in Table 4.2, significant differences are found for six items. This means that, after the treatment, the participants’ use of the strategies listed in the six items increased significantly,
including the general ideas of pronouncing every word and paying attention to unity and coherence of the text, and specific strategies like looking for pronouns,
demonstratives and lexical ties as clues.
The significant difference between pre-treatment and post-treatment for the general idea of paying attention to unity and coherence of the text (Statement 15)
demonstrates that the treatment as a whole was successful in making the participants more aware of textual organization when taking the DS test. Such awareness, as many participants stated in their response questionnaire, helped them to be more
meaning-based in reading and to better and more easily get the gist of a text. This meaning-based approach, according to Block (1992), is a characteristic of proficient ESL readers, which suggests that the treatment has enabled the participants to become potential proficient readers. Besides, the treatment seems to have upgraded the
participants’ reading strategies by successfully orienting their attention toward textual organization, which belongs to “global” reading strategies in Carrell’s (1989) category of reading strategies.
The success of the treatment in increasing the participants’ awareness of such cohesive ties as pronouns, demonstratives, lexical ties and conjunctions while taking the DS test (Statements 16-19) also echoes the claim that since coherence is an abstract concept, its concrete manifestations—cohesive devices—should be taught explicitly and comprehensively to facilitate reading comprehension (Johns, 1986;
Nunan, 1993; Rogers, 1974; Staddord, 1991). One can note, especially, that the participants’ recognition of pronouns and demonstratives (both under the category of References) has been much more greatly promoted after the treatment than that of the other items listed in the questionnaire. As one can clearly see in Table 4.2, these two cohesive ties (represented by Statements 16 and 17, respectively), while ranking as the fourth and sixth lowest-frequency ties among the twenty items before the treatment, are in fact the two that have the greatest gains between the pre- the post-treatment questionnaires. The above fact has revealed that the participants’
awareness of the usefulness of pronouns and demonstratives in taking the DS test has been more greatly enhanced than the other types of cohesive devices. This might be due to the differences in textual organization and cohesion conventions between
languages, which several researchers have warned against when teaching English to EFL learners (Chen, 2001; Johns, 1990; Ostler, 1987; Scollon and Scollon, 1995). As Chen (2001) has found out, there is discrepancy in the manifestation of referential cohesion such as pronouns and demonstratives between English and Mandarin Chinese. Likewise, the misuse of pronouns and demonstratives has been found common by several studies on Taiwanese students’ English compositions (Chang, 1997; Liang, 1997). In the present study, several participants also pointed out in the response questionnaire that it had never occurred to them that pronouns and
demonstratives should play important roles in the comprehension of text, and quite a few others mentioned pronouns or demonstratives as what they had learned most about among all types of cohesive ties during the treatment. These results further prove that it is necessary not only to teach EFL learners the exact usage and application of cohesive devices in English but also to bring to their attention the differences in textual organization and cohesion conventions between English and their mother tongue.
Nevertheless, it should be noted that, though there is a significant difference for the strategy of pronouncing every word (Statement 1), its mean scores rank the lowest before the treatment and the second lowest after the treatment. In other words, trying to pronounce every word is one of the two strategies that the participants least frequently used when taking the DS test. According to Carrell (1989), strategies having to do with sound-letter correspondences are classified as “local” reading strategies. In the response questionnaire, two participants (High 21, Mid 45) even pointed out the distracting nature of reading every word out loud as one of the reasons why they rejected think-aloud practice. The gain in the mean score of this statement after the treatment might suggest that the think-aloud modeling and technique did cause some participants to be more conscious of the pronunciation of individual
words, especially, according to one participant (Mid 43), when reading the words out loud helped them remember or associate with the meaning of the words.
Table 4.2 also shows a slight decrease in the mean scores and drop of ranking for Statement 5 “I will try to get the overall meaning of the text” and Statement 20 “I will try to look for possible clues—paragraph themes.” For Statement 5, the loss of the mean score for Statement 5 (from 4.33 to 4.22) and drop of ranking (from four to seven), though slight, is worth discussion. Despite the fact that most participants have tended to be more meaning-based in taking the DS test after the treatment, there are others mentioning in the response questionnaire that the clues of cohesive devices sometimes enabled them to decide on the answers even without having to understand what the whole text was about. Does this result imply that too much dependence on cohesive devices would lead the readers astray from understanding the text? Or does it suggest that the designing of the DS test require more advanced technique to avoid such a situation? Or is it an indication that the recognition or even prediction of appropriate cohesive devices is critical in taking the DS test? Further studies are needed to answer these questions. As to the decrease in the mean score and drop of ranking for Statement 20, the reason could be similar to that for Statement 5.
Table 4.2 also suggests that in general, the participants in this study were
initially more “global” than “local” in their use of reading strategies, and the treatment did not seem to have a negative effect on it, but rather has reinforced this phenomenon in some way. For example, two “global” strategies, according to Carrell (1989), Statement 9 “I will try to make inference based on contextual clues” and Statement 10
“I will try to ignore what I don’t understand and keep reading,” happen to be the two strategies most frequently used before and after the treatment, and gains arise in the mean scores for both items. On the other hand, two “local” strategies, Statement 1 “I will try to pronounce every word” and Statement 2 “Understand the meaning of each
word,” are among the three strategies least frequently used in taking the DS test for both before and after the treatment,.
The second part of the metacognitive awareness questionnaire, as shown in Table 4.3, is to tap the participants’ awareness of the difficulties they encountered in taking the DS test before and after the treatment (Statements 21 to 32). According to Table 4.3, significant differences are found for three items, all concerning the general idea of text structure or the use of strategies, including Statement 29 “In taking the DS test, the reason I have difficulties is because I am not familiar with text structure,”
Statement 31 “I am not equipped with effective strategies for taking DS tests,” and Statement 32 “I can’t make coherence out of the text.” The positive t-value with loss of mean scores indicates that these difficulties have become significantly less difficult for the participants in taking the DS test after the treatment. In other words, the
treatment as a whole was effective in helping the participants to be more familiar with text structure, to be equipped with effective strategies, and to be able to make
coherence out of the text in taking the DS test, thus contributing to the improved performance on the DS test. Among them, Statement 32, originally causing the greatest difficulty before the treatment, ranked the fourth least difficult afterwards, and Statement 31, initially the fourth most difficult, has become the least difficult after the treatment. This result demonstrates the effectiveness of the treatment, and is further echoed in the response questionnaire.
Besides, Table 4.3 shows a gain for the mean scores on three items, which are Statement 22 “I can’t figure out lexical cohesion,” Statement 24 “Sentence structures are complicated” and Statement 26 “I can’t figure out the main idea of the text.” The gains in the mean scores of the three items suggest that the participants have found these three aspects even more difficult in taking the DS test after the treatment. For the participants to feel it even more difficult to figure out lexical cohesion after the
treatment is understandable. For one thing, as suggested in Chen (1991) that lexical cohesion is especially difficult for Taiwanese students to perceive, a lack of
vocabulary is always counted by EFL students as a great barrier toward reading comprehension, which seems unlikely to be overcome easily. The consistent rankings of Statement 21 “There are too many words I don’t know” and Statement 25 “There are idiomatic expressions I don’t know”, before and after the treatment, have just reinforced this point: Both having a slight loss in the mean score, Statements 21 and 25 rank as the third and second most difficult items, respectively, before the treatment and the second and first most difficult, respectively, afterwards. The participants’
difficulty in vocabulary and idiomatic expressions seem to remain in spite of the treatment. Apparently, a lack of vocabulary and idiomatic expressions constitute so great a barrier to EFL reading comprehension that it is not likely to be easily overcome with a short-term treatment such as that administered in this study.
Another reason for the difficulty added to the aspect concerning lexical cohesion might be the participants’ activated awareness of their weakness in vocabulary. The treatment, either the instruction of text structure or think-aloud modeling, lays quite a lot of emphasis on looking for the relationship between lexical items. Such conscious concentration on vocabulary would lead the participants, especially the
low-proficiency ones, to be even more aware of their lack of vocabulary. This is probably why they were troubled by lexical cohesion. This finding may be an inspiration to EFL teachers: When they teach vocabulary, related words such as derivatives, synonyms, antonyms, superordinates, and general words should be included in the instruction and taught in context, and different types of lexical cohesion should be highlighted in the reading class.
As for the reason why, after the treatment, more participants claimed that sentence structures were complicated and that they couldn’t figure out the main idea
of the text, one explanation might be that the treatment had oriented them to be more meaning-based on the one hand, but on the other hand, their low proficiency
prevented them from achieving that intention, therefore making them regard sentence structure as more complicated and the main idea harder to grasp. Except for these three items, the other nine items are found to be less difficult for the participants in taking the DS test after the treatment. This result demonstrates an overall success of the treatment in helping the participants learn some effective strategies and overcome quite a few difficulties in taking the DS test.