Chapter Five Conclusion
5.4 Suggestion for future research
In this section, four aspects are drawn and offered to give some direction for future research. The first part is about the adopted teaching material; the second part is about the learners; the third part is about the research method.
First, in this study, in implementing reciprocal teaching, the researcher chose the narrative genre and picture books as the teaching material. For future research, teachers may introduce, recommend, and adopt other genres in addition to expository and narrative essays, making students’ reading richer and more diverse. By doing this, for the practical concern, students’ motivation might be higher, and for the theoretical concern, the effect of other genres can be further explored.
Second, in the study, the target students are four seventh graders. Due to the small sample size, the result is less generalizable. Hence, future research may be implemented on more students, examining whether EFL low achievers can generally benefit from reciprocal teaching, and whether they consistently demonstrate the same tendency as reported in the study. In addition to a larger student sample, since the current study was implemented on one particular grade level, and in one particular school, the result, again, might be partial and biased. To have fuller and deeper understanding of reciprocal teaching on struggling learners, more studies are needed to test students of different grades and schools.
Third, regarding the research method, while the current study is qualitative-oriented, it was only conducted for seven weeks. For future research, longer duration is suggested so as to allow closer observation. Besides, a quantitative approach can be incorporated into future research. Thus, more empirical evidence can be offered to examine the effect of reciprocal teaching from different aspects. For example, a standardized or researcher-developed test can be administered, which might be more objective in tapping students’ gain in language competency.
Fourth, in the discussion section, it brings up the issue concerning the influence of age and gender on strategy instruction. However, in reviewing literature, while many factors have been identified that play a role in strategy use, little is known about
what influences the feasibility of strategy instruction. Besides, since the current study only targets on four students, the limited sample size makes the result less applicable.
To have further insights, in the future, more studies can be carried out to examine the link between age, gender and strategy instruction.
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