國中生對於互惠教學法用於英語閱讀課程之看法

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(1)國⽴立臺灣師範⼤大學英語學系碩⼠士論⽂文 Master’s Thesis English Department National Taiwan Normal University. 國中⽣生對於互惠教學法⽤用於英語閱讀課程之看法 Exploring Junior High School Students’ Perception on the Effects of Reciprocal Teaching in English Reading Courses. 指導教授：陳秋蘭 Advisor: Dr. Chiou-Lan Chern 研究⽣生：鍾宜君 Yi-Chun Chung 中華民國⼀一百零五年八⽉月 August, 2016 .

(2) Chinese Abstract 近年來，台灣英語學習熱潮及對英語能⼒力檢定的要求已蔚為⾵風氣。︒｡⼗十⼆二年國民義務教育也要求國中⽣生具備⾜足夠的英語閱讀能⼒力。︒｡因此，學校教師極需協助學⽣生提升閱讀理解的能⼒力。︒｡⽂文獻顯⽰示出互惠教學法可應⽤用在不同程度的學⽣生⾝身上。︒｡在英語為母語的國家及英語為第⼆二外語的學習環境中，互惠教學法的效益已得到證實。︒｡但在以英語為外語的台灣，⼤大多數的相關研究僅著重⼀一般的學⽣生。︒｡有鑑於此，本研究⽬目標在於探索互惠教學法是否對英語中低學習表現的台灣國中學⽣生也具有同樣的效益。︒｡此項研究在桃園市某國中實施，並以⾏行動研究⽅方式進⾏行，為期七週。︒｡七位⼋八年級學⽣生參與此項研究，由研究者擔任閱讀課程的授課教師，所採⽤用的教材為圖畫書。︒｡研究者觀察學⽣生的課堂表現並加以記錄。︒｡研究實施期間學⽣生必須填寫課堂學習單以便瞭解學⽣生使⽤用策略的程度，及在學習歷程中的改變及進步。︒｡此外，為了瞭解學⽣生對互惠教學法的看法，在課程結束後學⽣生須填寫⼀一份問卷。︒｡在問卷填寫完畢之後，研究者⼀一對⼀一訪談七位參與的學⽣生，以更進⼀一步瞭解他們如何理解故事內容，以及在英語學習動機上的改變。︒｡研究結果顯⽰示，互惠教學法對學⽣生的閱讀理解有正向的影響。︒｡學⽣生認為⼩小組討論、︑､同儕間的幫助、︑､⼩小組互動、︑､及策略使⽤用有助於閱讀理解。︒｡然⽽而，在研究過程中，我們也發現學⽣生會在課堂上聊天及少數學⽣生參與程度較低。︒｡儘管如此，⼤大多數的學⽣生對互惠教學法持正⾯面的態度及表⽰示未來希望繼續使⽤用互惠教學法的策略來進⾏行閱讀。︒｡⼤大多數學⽣生亦反應互惠教學法讓他們提升了英語學習的動機。︒｡依此結果，本論⽂文針對英語閱讀教學提出了相關建議。︒｡. 關鍵字：互惠教學法, 閱讀理解, 動機, 性別, 及策略教學. !i.

(3) English Abstract In Taiwan, the trend of English learning and requirement of English proficiency test have prevailed these years. Twelve-year compulsory education requires the junior high school students’ to be equipped with good English reading ability. Therefore, school teachers make efforts to provide instructional assistance of reading comprehension to students. Reciprocal Teaching has been shown to facilitate students to solve different learning problems. Its positive effect has been widely examined in English-speaking and ESL contexts. In Taiwan, an EFL context, most studies focus on the average students. This study therefore aims to explore the impact of Reciprocal Teaching on EFL learners with mid and low proficiency. The study was conducted in a junior high school in Taoyuan City, adopting an action-research method. Seven eighth-graders participated in the reading course offered by the researcher. The implementation lasted for seven weeks, and picture books were adopted as the main reading materials. Students’ in-class performance was observed and audio-recorded and their strategy use was documented in the weekly worksheet. The documentation revealed students’ changes and progress during the intervention. Also, to better understand students’ perception of Reciprocal Teaching, a questionnaire was distributed and collected after the intervention. Interview was conducted to further understand how the students understand the stories and to explore their motivational change toward English learning with Reciprocal Teaching. The result showed that Reciprocal Teaching could facilitate students’ comprehension, and students attributed their improvement in comprehension to the support from the peers, interaction, and strategy use. However, some unexpected !ii.

(4) difficulties aroused during the implementation, including students’ off-task conversation and lack of engagement. In spite of this, most students reported their positive attitude toward Reciprocal Teaching and indicated that they would like to continue using the approach. Besides, most students’ motivation toward English learning increased with Reciprocal Teaching. Based on the result, this thesis provided suggestions on English reading instruction. Key words: Reciprocal Teaching, reading comprehension, motivation, gender, and strategy instruction. !iii.

(5) Acknowledgement For the completion of the thesis, I would like to owe the honor to my instructor, Dr. Chiou-lan Chern. I was so lucky to be instructed by her, an authority in reading instruction. She was always kind and generous with her assistance with my thesis. In every meeting, Dr. Chern provided great help and expert advice to me and I always felt enlightened by her thought and expertise. She could always find the blind spots and flaws in my thesis and then gave useful suggestion for improvement. She asked questions for me to digest and think; that was very helpful to my thesis. She always provided the instant and constructive assistance whenever I needed help. Dr. Chioulan Chern encouraged me throughout the instruction and spared no effort in instructing my thesis. She is not just an instructor but also a great support for me to carry on. She always told me with a smile on her face, “You are really a diligent student,” and that powered up my energy and lit up my enthusiasm and perseverance. From her, I learned not only how to conduct a study but also how to be kind and inspiring to my students. For me, she is a mentor that not only supplies academic assistance but also sets a good example of being an inspiring teacher. Besides her, I would like to thank my committee members, Mei-lan Lo and Hsiuchuan Chen, who gave me constructive suggestion and useful advice for my thesis. They found out my flaws and thus helped me with the refinement and completion of the thesis. I owe great gratitude to them for their suggestion and advice.. !iv.

(6) Table of Contents Chinese Abstract ………………………………………………………………………i English Abstract ………………………………………………………………………ii Acknowledgement…………………………………………………………………….iv Table of Contents………………………………………………………..…………….v List of tables…………………………………………………………………………viii Chapter One Introduction .……………………………………………………………1 Background and Motivation………………………………………………………….1 Research Question .………………………………………………………………… 5 Chapter Two Literature Review……………………………………………………… 6 Learning Strategy…………………………………………………………………….6 Reading Strategy……………………………………………………………………. 9 Reciprocal Teaching ……………………………………………………………… 11 Empirical Studies on Reciprocal Teaching………………………………………….20 Studies conducted in the English-Speaking context……………………………….20 Studies conducted in Taiwan………………………………………………………23 Summary.……………………………………………………………………………25 Chapter Three Research Method……………………………………………………..27 Setting……………………………………………………………………………….27 Participants………………………………………………………………………….28 Procedure ………………………………………………………………………….. 30 Implementation of Reciprocal Teaching…………………………………………. 30 Teaching Materials……………………………………………………………..….33 Data Sources……………………………………………………………………….34 !v.

(7) Open-ended Questionnaire……………………………………………………….. 35 Weekly Worksheets………………………………………………………………..35 Verbal Interaction Data ……………………………………..……………..……..37 Interview…………………………………………………………………………37 Observation notes……………………………………………………………..…38 Data Analysis…………………………………………..………………………….. 38 Chapter Four Results and Discussion……………………………………………..…41 Results………………………………………………………………………………41 Students’ perception toward Reciprocal Teaching……………………………….. 41 Overall perception and evaluation of Reciprocal Teaching…………………….41 Perception of individual strategy………………………..………….………….47 Future employment of Reciprocal Teaching…………………………….……..50 The effects of Reciprocal Teaching on students’ comprehension…………………51 Providing support for others………………….…………………………………51 Interaction………………………………………………………………………52 Strategy use………………………………………………………………….. . 54 Engagement in learning…………………………………………………………58 Motivation change toward English learning……………..…………………….….63 Other findings……………………………………………………….……………..66 Discussion…………………………………………………………………………..70 Students’ positive improvement in comprehension and motivation…………..…..70 Students’ positive attitudes toward Reciprocal Teaching………………………….73 Summary……………………………………………………………………………75 Chapter Five Conclusion …………………………………………………………….77 !vi.

(8) Summary of findings………………………………………………………………..77 Pedagogical implication…………………………………………………………….79 Limitation………………………………………………………………………..… 82 Suggestion for future research………………………………………………………83 Reference……………………………………………………………………………..86 Appendix One Students’ background information questionnaire (Chinese version…92 Appendix One Students’ background information questionnaire (English version)…94 Appendix Two Lesson plans…………………………………………………………96 Appendix Three Weekly worksheet (teacher-led stage)…………………………… 100 Appendix Three Weekly worksheet (student-led stage)…………………………….101 Appendix Four Perception questionnaire (Chinese version)……………………….102 Appendix Four Perception questionnaire (English version)………………………..103 Appendix Five Reading text………………………………………………………..104. !vii.

(9) List of tables Table 1 Information of the participants………………………………………………29 Table 2 Procedure of the study…………………………..………………………….. 33 Table 3 Level of the seven storybook………………………………..……………… 34. !viii.

(10) Chapter One Introduction Background and Motivation With the trend of globalization, the fervor of learning English in Taiwan has prevailed. Since the implementation of Nine Year Joint Curricular Plan in September 2001, English has officially become one of the required courses in elementary school curriculum. Recently, many universities even set a threshold that the students should pass the General English Proficiency Test (GEPT) as a graduation requirement. Since the trend of English learning has swept through the whole island, how to improve students’ English ability has undoubtedly become English teachers’ major concern. Among the four language skills, namely, speaking, listening, reading, and writing, reading has always been the focus of language instruction and received the greatest attention (Carrell, 1989). Reading is crucial to students’ learning, to their success in school, and ultimately to their success in life. Longitudinal research has shown that the score in reading comprehension is a good predictor for success in academic performance and even for success in professional careers (Meijnen, Lagerweij, & Jong, 2003). In a word, poor readers will be academically disadvantaged (Salinger, 2003). Reading can be regarded as a process involving both decoding and comprehending the text (Lewis & Wray, 2000; Tonjes, 1991; Wilson & Gambrell, 1988). For comprehension, it is conceptualized as “a constructive process whereby readers strive to build mental representation of text” (Lederer, 2000; Lewis & Wray, 2000). The importance of reading can be explained from three aspects: First, reading ability influences the academic achievements in school learning. Second, it’s through !1.

(11) extensive reading that a learner becomes an independent reader critically and analytically. Third, till now many studies have been conducted on the investigation of reading, ranging from bottom-up processing (Gough, 1972), top-down processing (Gregory, 1970), extensive reading ((Huckin & Coady, 1999), intensive reading (Carrell & Carson, 1997), the role of vocabulary in reading (Sidek & Rahim, 2015), reading strategies like skimming and scanning (Murad, 2014), reading comprehension (Tierney & Cunningham, 1980), to metacognitive awareness on reading comprehension (Garner, 1987). For decades, reading comprehension has been deemed as an active and dynamic process of interaction between the text and the reader. The emphasis of constructing meaning in the reading process, rather than the reading products, has directed the researchers to the readers’ cognitive process; that is, their reading strategies (Kozminsky & Kozminsky, 2001). The use of reading strategies is a cognitive action for readers to solve their problems in understanding textual information (within the text). The employment of comprehension monitoring strategies is an intentional action by which readers integrate, monitor, and control their own reading processes (beyond the text). In second language learning, reading ability is highly related to reading strategies or the strategy instruction. Studies have found readers who apply reading strategies to be successful learners (Carrell, 1989; Garner, 1982; O’Malley & Chamot, 1990). Oxford (1990) offers a classification system by categorizing various strategies into six sub-categories: cognitive strategies, memory strategies, compensation strategies, metacognitive strategies, affective strategies, and social strategies. Among the six strategies, metacognitive strategies involve the learners’ planning, monitoring, and !2.

(12) evaluation of their own learning. Since metacognition plays an important role in second language learning, many suggest that the use of metacognitive strategies helps students with their learning. Thus, it is essential for EFL instructors to emphasize the importance of strategy use in the reading process to the learners and lead them to apply useful strategies to facilitate comprehension. Due to the compulsory education policy, junior high school students in Taiwan are required to take “Comprehensive Assessment Program for Junior High School Students” to get into senior high schools. The English test in Comprehensive Assessment Program contain two parts—listening and reading, and the reading test puts great emphasis on comprehension of the reading materials. Therefore, junior high school students in Taiwan should be equipped with the ability to comprehend the passage and grasp the main ideas of articles read. The goal of English teaching is to prepare students to master four skills. Among the four skills, reading has always been the topic that draws attention in language instruction in Taiwan. Research indicates that reading ability plays an important role in academic achievement (Salinger, 2003). The students with better reading ability tend to perform better than those with insufficient reading ability. Therefore, it is essential for second language learners to be equipped with sufficient reading proficiency to survive in academic environments (Carrell, 1989). Many EFL teachers in Taiwan make efforts to improve the students’ reading ability but fail in the end. The problem is that most teachers emphasize too much on explaining the vocabulary, translating the whole text, and analyzing the structures. Due to the word-for-word translation, few EFL students could grasp the whole picture of a text in meaningful chunks. They could neither guess the meaning of words from !3.

(13) contexts nor discuss and think about how the reading process works. Students rarely have the chance to guess what the reading or the author tries to convey. Moreover, Anderson (2003) indicated that in many instructional programs teachers often put more emphasis and time on testing reading comprehension than on teaching readers how to comprehend the text. Chinese students often process texts in a bottom-up manner while metacognitive reading strategies are all top-down processing. Su (2007) suggested that EFL teachers can instruct students to apply more reading strategies to enhance students’ use of both top-down and bottom-up strategies in order to achieve full comprehension. Knowing what is understood and not understood and then applying the appropriate strategy to repair meaning are vital for comprehension to occur. Good readers apply a variety of strategies such as summarizing, questioning, predicting, and organizing throughout the reading process to support their construction of meaning. They monitor their comprehension while reading to see if what they read make sense, and then use strategies to repair the meaning when they can’t make sense out of the text. It is through the application of these strategies at various contexts in which meaning emerges. As a result, it is teachers’ job to help students think metacognitively about strategies, considering when and where to apply each strategy, how to use it, and the impact it can have. Reciprocal Teaching introduced by Brown and Palincsar (1984) has been proved helpful in students’ reading comprehension. Reciprocal Teaching is a teaching instruction as well as a learning method for reading comprehension. It contains four reading strategies both cognitively and metacognitively—summarizing, questioning,. !4.

(14) clarifying, and predicting. In Taiwan, English is often taught with a focus on grammar translation. Therefore, teachers rarely adopt authentic reading materials or teach reading strategies. Reading instruction mainly focuses on lexical decoding, grammar analysis, and sentence by sentence translation. Also, teachers are found to spend time asking students factual questions instead of giving reading comprehension instruction. In other words, language learning is usually teacher-centered and test-oriented and students are seldom encouraged to talk or discuss in class. Most less capable learners give up learning when they find it difficult to understand the lesson taught. Therefore, it is necessary to implement a different teaching method to improve students’ reading ability and enhance their reading comprehension. Reciprocal Teaching mainly focuses on the instruction of four reading strategies and it’s conducted in a dialogic way between the teacher and the learners. Thus, Reciprocal Teaching is likely to solve the problem of poor reading performance and reading comprehension of students in Taiwan. This study aims to explore the effect of Reciprocal Teaching on EFL junior high school students’ reading performance, their motivation to learn, and their perception of Reciprocal Teaching. The following research questions will be addressed: 1. What are the participants’ perception and attitude toward Reciprocal Teaching? 2. How does Reciprocal Teaching help students understand the text better? 3. Does Reciprocal Teaching affect students’ motivation on English learning?. !5.

(15) Chapter Two Literature Review In this chapter, literature of learning strategies and Reciprocal Teaching are explored and addressed in four aspects. To begin with, the researcher discussed the significance and different research dimensions of learning strategies. Second, the significance and strength of reading strategies are explored. Furthermore, the researcher reviewed the essence and spirits of Reciprocal Teaching. Finally, some empirical studies on the effect of Reciprocal Teaching in different learning context are reviewed. Learning strategies Strategies, as the name suggests, are methods used by learners to solve their learning difficulties. Students use strategies to solve problems or understand information. The issue of strategies was first studied to look for characteristics of good learners (Naimna et al., 1978; Rubin, 1975). Some of these early studies reported that good language learners utilized strategies that facilitated their learning, and these strategies were later identified and classified by researchers (O’Malley & Chamot, 1990). Until now, there have been rich and comprehensive studies about strategy use. The literature of learning strategies to date can be categorized into three types. The first is for the identification and classification of strategies (O’Malley & Chamot, 1990); the second is for the factor analysis of what may influence one’ strategy use (Yang, 2006); the third is for the examination of possible effect of strategy instruction on students’ learning (Yang, 2006). For the first category, classification of strategy use, many researchers have proposed their own categorization. For example, Rubin (1975) categorized strategies !6.

(16) into two types; the difference lay in whether the strategy had a direct or indirect influence on learning. The strategies that directly influence learning include clarification/verification, memorization, guessing/inductive inferencing, deductive reasoning, and practice; the processes that contribute indirectly to learning include creating opportunities for practice and production tricks. Another list by Naiman et al., (1975) addressed the affective aspect of language learning. They classified learning strategies into the following five categories: active task approach, realization of language as a system, realization of language as a means of communication and interaction, management of the affective demands, and monitoring of L2 performance. The most well-known work was probably by Oxford (1990), who compiled the earlier strategies under investigation into six sub-categories: cognitive strategies, memory strategies, compensation strategies, metacognitive strategies, affective strategies, and social strategies. This is also the most frequently cited version of strategy classification. According to Oxford, memory strategies included creating mental linkage, applying images and sounds, reviewing, and employing action. Cognitive strategies included practicing, receiving and sending messages, analyzing and reasoning, and creating structure for input and output. Compensation strategies included guessing intelligently, and overcoming difficulties in speaking and writing. Metacognitive strategies included creating one’s learning, arranging and planning one’s learning, and evaluating one’s learning. Affective strategies included lowering one’s anxiety, encouraging oneself, and attending to one’s emotions. Social strategies included asking questions, cooperating with others, and empathizing with others. For the factor that may influence one’s strategy use, many elements have been identified in association with strategy use. The factors include proficiency level !7.

(17) (Graham, 2004; Khaldieh, 2000), gender (O’Malley & Chamot, 1990; Phakiti, 2003), ethnicity (Wharton, 2000), motivation (Oxford & Nyikos, 1989; Schmidt & Watanabe, 2001), vocabulary size (Nacera, 2010), learner beliefs (Yang, 1999), years of English learning (Oxford & Nyikos, 1989), language learning style and preference (Ehrman & Oxford,1989), personality (Ehrman & Oxford, 1989), learners’ cultural background (Oxford, 1996), and contexts, namely ESL or EFL (Olivares-Cuhat, 2002). So far, some studies have examined different elements that are related to leaners’ use of strategy. All the above elements are indeed related to strategy use, but some are stronger than others. Of the different types of learning strategies, the use of cognitive and metacognitive strategies are the most affected by motivation. As for the third category, strategy instruction, many studies have verified the possible effect of strategy instruction which can be witnessed in learners of different needs and proficiency levels (Pearson & Duke,2002; Schunk & Swartz, 1993), and in many learning aspects, including listening (Thompson & Rubin, 1996), speaking (Chamot, 1993), reading (Pressley, 2000; Souvignier & Mokhlesgerami, 2006), writing (De La Paz & Graham, 2002), and vocabulary acquisition (O’Malley & Chamot, 1990). All the above studies verified the effect of strategy instruction in facilitating learning. Oxford (1994) also suggested that the strategy training must be relevant to instructional situations: identifying students’ current learning strategies through surveys, or interviews; helping individual students discern which strategies are most relevant to their learning styles, and goals; aiding students in developing well-organized strategy use rather than a scattered approach (p.4).. !8.

(18) Reading strategy Reading is a comprehension process which involves decoding and meaning construction from the written text. In the process, many factors may affect the reader’s comprehension of a text. Among these factors, reading strategy has been extensively discussed and findings show that strategy use affects reading comprehension or reading performance to a certain extent. With strategy use, learners learn how to comprehend a text under their planning, monitoring, and evaluation. With strategy use, leaners employ the strategies both cognitively and metacognitively to reach the goal of reading comprehension. Paris, Lipson, & Wixson (1983) stated that strategies are “deliberate actions” which enable learning to take place (p.295). Therefore, strategies can be introspected or consciously reported. In order for an action to be strategic, it must be selected by the learner from alternative actions and it must be utilized to achieve a specific goal. That is to say, strategies are skills under consideration, in accordance with that Voygotsky (1978) described as “defossilized” actions. These actions facilitate comprehension of the readers. Over the years, psychologists have given this type of awareness a variety of names including introspection, reasoning, problem solving, and metacognition. That is to say, strategy use is related to monitoring one’s learning. With the instruction of strategy use, learners can better achieve learning goals or become a strategic reader. In second language learning, reading achievement is highly related to the use of reading strategies. The fact that readers who are likely to apply reading strategies are more likely to be successful readers has been supported (Carrell 1989; O’Malley & Chamot 1990). Strategy use equips students with better comprehension and prepares them for the ultimate goal of being independent readers (Paris, Cross & Lipson, !9.

(19) 1984). Casanave (1988) stated that in classroom settings, inefficient readers who are aware of the nature of reading and of their own reading strategies will ultimately be better readers than those who are not (p.285). Such awareness lies in the foundation of effective instruction in comprehension monitoring: An essential aim [in reading instruction] is to make the reader aware of the active nature of reading and the importance of employing problem-solving, trouble-shooting routines to enhance understanding. If the reader can be made aware of (a) basic strategies for reading and remembering, (b) simple rules of text construction, (c) differing demands of a variety of tests to which his knowledge may be put, and (d) the importance of attempting to use any background knowledge he may have, he cannot help but become a more effective reader. Such self-awareness is prerequisite for selfregulation, the ability to monitor and check one’s own cognitive activities while reading (Baker & Brown, 1984, p.376). Alfassi (1999) suggested that self-monitoring instruction might show limited influence or effectiveness on older learners in high school remedial class. Therefore, it’s strongly recommended that strategy instruction start with learners at an early age. To start a strategy instruction earlier means that students can internalize and apply the strategies earlier so that they may become not only more expert-like but also more independent in learning. With strategy instruction, students might learn to organize their learning process and evaluate their learning outcomes so as to become independent learners. Paris and Meyer (1981) claimed that reading comprehension involves perceptual and cognitive skills, with the ability to monitor one’s level of understanding while reading as a major component. This is important because it is a measure of progress toward a reading goal and a signal for comprehension success or failure. It was also reported that poor readers engaged significantly less in monitoring than good readers during the whole reading process. It’s clear that the use of reading strategy helps !10.

(20) learners monitor their understanding during the reading process and build up their reading skills. Monitoring one’s own reading process leads to the success of reading comprehension. Reciprocal Teaching Developed by Palincsar and Brown (1984), Reciprocal Teaching is a teaching approach that incorporates cognitive and metacognitive instruction for reading comprehension. Reciprocal Teaching is composed of four main strategies— predicting, questioning, clarifying, and summarizing. For predicting, no matter students are to begin a new text or to proceed to a following paragraph, they rely on what they have learned previously from a text or their life experience to make a prediction about the following content. Making a guess or a prediction first enables students to be well-prepared to read the following texts. In questioning, students ask one another about text-related questions, ranging from main ideas to detailed points. Students are encouraged to pose a question with “who,” “what,” “when,” “where,” “why,” and “how.” They also learn different types of interrogative sentences. As for clarifying, as students read, they have to monitor their own reading and pause when they encounter confusion in reading a certain concept or passage. Their confusion may be triggered by unfamiliar words or grammar, or probably the writer’s unclear writing style. Then students need to solve the problem by finding answers to some words or concepts unfamiliar to them. For summarizing, when students read, they have to read for the big picture, finding out and distinguishing the main points from less important content. Later, after students grab the gist of a text, they will put all the crucial information to form a summary in a logical sequence. In composing a summary, they are encouraged and are supposed to use their own words rather than !11.

(21) just repeating the author’s words. The term “reciprocal” was chosen because the students respond and react to the teacher in a reciprocal or dialogic manner. The procedure employs a collaborative small-group discussion method with a leader in the group. In implementing Reciprocal Teaching, learners are divided into small groups. Each group will form a discussion group, applying the four strategies to achieve full understanding of a text. And in each group, there is usually one capable leader in charge of the reading discussion. As for the rest of the group members, they will receive the scaffolding from the leader who guides them to apply and utilize the four strategies to reading a text. Initially, the teacher takes the major responsibility for leading the discussion in the group, by thinking aloud and modeling what expert readers do when they try to understand a text. In doing so, the comprehension fostering and monitoring processes are made visible to the students. Usually in the initial stage, an expert or the teacher serves as a model for the other students. Therefore, in the initial stage of Reciprocal Teaching, it’s more teacher-centered and the more capable one takes the responsibility of modeling job to demonstrate the execution and application of the four strategies. Meanwhile, the less capable learners assume the role of observers and take their time witnessing the whole process. The less capable learners learn at their own pace and rate in the initial stage. After slower learners go through the training, they will initiate their participation and contribution in the dialogue.. However, their ideas and. comments in the early stage might still be unclear and immature. Group leaders can ask the slower group members to imitate their questions or feedback in the early stage (Palincsar & Brown, 1984). Later, when less capable learners are familiarized with the four strategies, they !12.

(22) will be able to produce clearer and more opinions. More capable learners at this time can pose more challenging questions. Gradually and eventually, through extensive and frequent guided practice, students will equip themselves with the four strategies and apply them to their reading and group discussion. At this stage, the students undertake more responsibilities and take turns leading the discussion for a segment of text while the teacher monitors and supports students’ participation by offering feedback and additional modeling or explanation. The teacher’s task is to ensure students’ successful participation by using such techniques as prompting, praising, altering the demand on the students or providing extra scaffolding when necessary (Palincsar, 1986). And teacher’s role will fade into a facilitator and an observer to offer assistance only when there is a need (Palincsar & Brown, 1984). Reciprocal Teaching has two features. One is strategy instruction and the other is interaction. For strategy instruction, it is used for comprehension monitoring and comprehension fostering. Interaction, such as guided practice, dialogic discussion, negotiation and clarification, has three functions. First, students’ ability is usually revealed in their generated questions and comments. Therefore, through interacting with students, the teacher can know a student’s current ability so as to offer some help suitable for individual’s need. Second, interaction embedded in an authentic conversation between experts and novices is the essence of apprenticeship. Many kinds of apprenticeship take place in a real context and thus many interactions are involved. Third, interaction allows students and teachers to work cooperatively. Traditionally, after teachers’ lectures and demonstrations, students are left to work independently. In Reciprocal Teaching, teachers or more capable students help those in need through constant interaction and exemplification. Thus, interaction in this !13.

(23) stage facilitates slow learners’ learning and helps them with better understanding of a text (Palincsar & Brown, 1984). Reciprocal Teaching recognizes that cognitive development occurs when concepts first learned through social interactions become internalized and made one’s own. Thus, Reciprocal Teaching provides an environment in which students, with the assistance of the teacher or more expert peers, become increasingly proficient at applying comprehension strategies while reading text passages. Carter (1997) defined Reciprocal Teaching as the following: Reciprocal Teaching parallels the new definition of reading that describes the process of reading as an interactive one, in which readers interact with the text as their prior experience is activated. Using prior experience as a channel, readers learn new information, main ideas and arguments. Most important, readers construct meaning from the text by relying on prior experience to parallel, contrast or affirm what the author suggests. All excellent readers do this construction. Otherwise, the content would be meaningless, alphabetic scribbles on the page. Without meaning construction, learning does not take place. Reciprocal Teaching is a model of constructivist learning (pp.65-66). Allen (2003) reported that Palincsar and Brown (1984) discussed important points in the process of Reciprocal Teaching: First, the acquisition of the strategies is a joint responsibility that is shared by the teacher and students. Second, although the teacher initially assumes the major responsibility for the instruction and modeling of strategies, responsibility is gradually transferred to the students. Third, all students are expected to participate in the discussion. The teacher enables all students to participate by providing scaffolds in the form of supporting statements and prompts or altering the demands on the student. Finally, students are continually reminded that the strategies are useful methods that will help to improve their comprehension of the text. By continually trying to construct meaning from the text, students come to realize that reading requires not only the ability to decode words but also metacognitive strategies that facilitate constructive and evaluative activities (Allen, 2003, p.324). Reciprocal Teaching now has two variant forms and both are introduced by Palincsar and Brown. In 1987, Reciprocal Teaching only (RTO) was refined and !14.

(24) extended to ET/RT (explicit Reciprocal Teaching before Reciprocal Teaching). The difference between the two overlapping but different approaches is the timing of the strategy instruction during the reading process. According to Palincsar and Brown (1984), Reciprocal Teaching Only (RTO) refers to a set of learning condition in which children “first experience a particular set of cognitive activities in the presence of experts, and gradually come to perform these functions by themselves” (p.123). At this time, strategies are incorporated into the teaching process. Therefore, as teachers interact with students, they implicitly employ the target strategy into their feedback and comments to students. That is, interaction and strategy instruction are combined and introduced simultaneously rather than separately. Students and the teacher actively participate in a dialogue based on the part of the text being read and take turns in leading the dialogue. During this dialogue, students learn to use the four strategies: predicting, questioning, clarifying, and summarizing, to foster and monitor their comprehension. The expert, or the teacher, initially takes on the major responsibility for the group activities. As described by Palincsar and Brown (1985): The teacher models and explains, relinquishing part of the task to novices only at the level each one is capable of negotiating at one time. Increasingly, as the novice becomes more competent, the teacher increases her demands, requiring participation at a slightly more challenging level (p.13). In addition to allowing active participation of the learners during the early stages of learning, RTO provides students with many opportunities to witness the success of the strategies in actual reading contexts, and provides the teacher “the opportunity to serve as on-line diagnostician for each child, providing him/her with appropriate instruction geared to the child’s individual needs” (Lonberger, 1988, p. 17). On the other hand, ET/RT is to teach strategies prior to the outset of dialogues. !15.

(25) Thus, strategies are presented earlier and explicitly for students’ familiarization. And the implementation is usually class-based, accompanied by many activities and worksheets to introduce each strategy step by step. Later with certain understanding of the four strategies, students will practice and apply the strategies to their reading process with the help of more capable peers and teachers (Rosenshine & Meister, 1994; Greenway, 2002). According to Palincsar and Brown (1984), the most important element in Reciprocal Teaching is probably scaffolding, which was derived from Vygotskian developmental theory (Vygostky, 1978). Scaffolding refers to the support given to a novice by an expert through the use of dialogue to model and explain cognitive process. Vygotsky’s (1978) zone of proximal development (ZPD) is “the distance between the actual development level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance, or in collaboration with more capable peers” (p.86). Scaffolded instruction begins with the selection of the learning task. The task is chosen for the purpose of teaching a skill that is emerging in the learner’s repertoire but is not yet mature. The amount of scaffolding provided for each learner (i.e., the novice) is varied to suit individual differences. As Brown and Palincsar (1984) noted “the teacher should model the desired comprehension activities, thereby, making underlying processes overt, explicit and concrete” (p.14). Scaffolding has been described as a “process that enables a child or a novice to solve a problem, carry out a task, or achieve a goal which would be beyond his unassisted efforts” (Wood, Bruner, & Ross, 1976, p. 90). In Reciprocal Teaching, scaffolding plays a role to help novices learn with the assistance and guidance from the experts so as to become independent !16.

(26) and resourceful readers. The second important element is the change of the expert’s role in modeling reading comprehension activities as the Reciprocal Teaching progresses. The decreasing support from experts has been proved to be an important element of successful strategy transfer (Borkowski, 1985). The teacher becomes a mediator who provides guidance and feedback tailored to the needs of the current dialogue leader and his or her respondents. It is through fading that learners take on more and more responsibility for their own learning. The fading of the teacher’s role helps students internalize the self-regulation function of the strategy. The teacher gradually diminishes the scaffolding as students move from what Vygotsky (1978) called the other-directed to the self-directed stage of understanding. Reciprocal Teaching is implemented through the dialogue between the teacher and the learners, and then learners take over the responsibility from the teacher gradually. Students then initiate and sustain the dialogue while the teacher fades the dominating role that guides the dialogue, using the modeling and corrective feedback specific to each student. In that case, the teacher is more like an observer and facilitator in the whole reading process. The learners then take the teacher’s role in turn and the less skilled learners learn from the more skilled peers. Through collaboration and turn-taking, learners learn not only the reading contents but also the reading strategies while they are implementing the strategies. The third theoretical element is active involvement in learning. More meaningful involvement in tasks increases performance and memory for information. The small group discussion provides a social setting that enables learners to negotiate understanding of the text. The learners share a responsibility for determining the !17.

(27) meaning from the text. This allows a novice learner to learn and gain knowledge from a more capable learner. In Reciprocal Teaching, the novice is placed in the situation of assuming a more active role, a role that substantially increases meaningful involvement in reading. It will be seen that the quality of the exchanges between the novice and the expert increases quite dramatically during the implementation of Reciprocal Teaching. When the novice tries to build meaning with their group members, he or she plays the role of a student and a teacher as well. With everyone’s involvement, the meaning of a text is constructed and the group members learn and gain knowledge from one another reciprocally. In short, Reciprocal Teaching demonstrates that through active involvement in real reading contexts, strategies can and do make a difference to learners’ comprehension. The fourth important element of Reciprocal Teaching is the provision of feedback to the learners on the efficiency of the strategy used, and perhaps more importantly, of the utility or value of using a strategy in the reading context. Research by Paris and his colleagues (Paris, Lipson & Wixson, 1983; Paris, Newman & McVey, 1982) provided the compelling evidence that strategy transfer and generalization is a function of knowing the utility of a particular strategy (i.e., when to employ it, how to employ it, and how to monitor its success). Palincsar’s (1984) research also indicated that the most successful training was in which the students first received corrective feedback concerning answers to questions by referring back to the text and then received strategy training. During this guided practice, the teacher invites students to initiate discussion and to react to other students’ statements. Rosenshine and Meister (1994) pointed out that students’ participation and feedback can include (a) elaborating or commenting on another student’s summary, (b) suggesting other !18.

(28) questions, (c) commenting on another’s predictions, (d) requesting clarification of material they did not understand, and (e) helping to resolve misunderstandings (p. 480). The emphasis of Reciprocal Teaching is cooperative effort by teacher and students to bring meaning to the ideas in the text, rather than merely restating the words. Giving each other feedback provides the learners with an opportunity to employ and familiarize the target strategies and helps them to make meaning out of the text collaboratively. The final important element of Reciprocal Teaching is the informed and selfcontrol training. The typical blind training procedure of strategy instruction is to instruct or encourage children to perform particular strategies but not to help them understand the significance of such activities. They are told what to do or led to do it by the experimenter, but they are not informed and when they should use certain strategies. Such limited and implicit instruction is sufficient for some children who can infer the significance of the strategy for themselves; however, for many children it is not enough. The lack of explicit, overt comprehension activity by readers may be one reason for poor readers having a general lack of understanding of comprehension processes (Moore & Kirby, 1981; Myers & Paris, 1978). In short, blind training procedures fail to result in maintenance (durability) and generalization (transfer) of the learning strategies. Paris et al. (1984) argued that the provision of information about the rationale underlying each component activity leads students to understand the significance of those activities. They become aware of the benefits of the strategies and this awareness is in part responsible for continued learning. With informed and self-control training, learners can emulate more closely the activity of the spontaneous use of the strategy—the trained students are taught to produce and !19.

(29) regulate the activity. As a result, learners monitor the reading process and control their learning. Apart from that, the maintenance and generalization of the learned strategies also support the learners for future learning. That’s why there is a refined form of Reciprocal Teaching as explicit teaching after Reciprocal Teaching. Before the dialogue/discussion takes place, the students learn each strategy explicitly and then later they would use the strategies in their group discussion. Empirical Studies on Reciprocal Teaching In this section, studies on Reciprocal Teaching are presented and are categorized based on the context, either in English-speaking or in EFL context. While there has been rich literature on both contexts, most of the studies in the English-speaking context were carried out among students with different learning problems. In contrast, most of the studies in Taiwan, an EFL context, were implemented on average students. Studies conducted in the English-speaking context In this section, five studies in English-speaking context were listed and summarized. In these studies, the participants with reading comprehension difficulties and those with low English proficiency were included. All the studies targeted on the effects of Reciprocal Teaching on reading comprehension and the measurements were standardized tests and researcher-designed reading tests. As one of the pioneer works, Palincsar and Brown (1984) implemented Reciprocal Teaching on thirty-seven seventh graders among which twenty-four were reported to be poor comprehenders with reading problems. They were, on average, two years below the expected grade performance. The thirty-seven students were randomly assigned to four treatment conditions. Only one group received the !20.

(30) instruction of Reciprocal Teaching; the other three served as control groups. Among the three groups, one was trained with the skill of information location which was long recognized in research and in classroom scenarios as useful remedial training. As for the other two groups, they were not given any instruction except for regular tests. The teaching materials were all expository stories corresponding to the difficulty level for seventh graders. The result indicated that students in the Reciprocal Teaching group performed better in both researcher-developed and standardized tests. The former was administered periodically during the intervention, while the latter was conducted as a delayed post-test three months after the treatment. In addition to the quantitative evidence, students with Reciprocal Teaching intervention also demonstrated great improvement in their classroom dialogues. They could generate more complete statements and summaries with their own words, and grab the main ideas of a text better than the students from control groups. In Lysynchuk, Pressley, and Vye’s study (1990), a total of a seventy-two grade four and grade seven students were sampled. All of them were English-speaking Canadians from different schools. Prior to the study, students were assigned to either control or experiment group based on their performance in the standardized Gates-MacGinitie Reading Test as the pre-test. The only difference between the control and experimental groups were the instruction of the four strategies in Reciprocal Teaching. Thus, while students in the experimental group were trained with Reciprocal Teaching, their counterparts received more traditional teacher-led instruction in which the instructor was the only one who offered any needed assistance. After thirteen training sessions, students from the experiment group outperformed their counterparts no matter in the daily assessments or in the two !21.

(31) standardized tests implemented and compared as pre-test and post-test. Alfassi (1998) conducted a study to investigate the effects of strategy instruction on reading comprehension. The objective of the strategy instruction is to foster comprehension monitoring. There were seventy-five first year high school participants in remedial reading classes, with fifty-three in experimental group and twenty-two in control group. They were recognized as adequate decoders but poor comprehenders. Her research was to testify whether Reciprocal Teaching was superior to the traditional instruction of skill acquisition when both were implemented as remedial instruction. After a twenty-day intervention, the results indicated that strategy instruction was superior to traditional reading methods in fostering reading comprehension measured by experimenter-designed reading tests. However, quite consistent with Brown’s research, no differences were found between the two groups on two standardized measures of reading tests. Klingner and Vaughn (1996) investigated the efficacy of two related interventions on the reading comprehension of seventh and eighth graders with learning disabilities who used English as a second language. Twenty-six students were randomly assigned into two groups—Reciprocal Teaching with cooperative grouping (n=13) or Reciprocal Teaching with cross-age tutoring (n=13). Though there were no statistically significant differences between groups on two measures of comprehension, students in both groups made significant progress in reading comprehension. Analyses in this study focused on understanding the performance of more successful and less successful students within groups. Findings revealed that initial reading ability and oral language proficiency seemed related to gains in comprehension. Besides, students in both groups continued to show improvement in !22.

(32) comprehension when provided with minimal expert/adult support. Fung, Wilkison, and Moore (2003) investigated the effects of L1-assisted Reciprocal Teaching on twelve year-seven and year-eight Taiwanese ESL students’ comprehension of English expository texts. The intervention comprised the alternate use of L1 (Mandarin) and L2 (English) Reciprocal Teaching procedures. After fifteen to twenty days of instruction, students learned how to foster and monitor their comprehension by using the cognitive and metacognitive strategies of Reciprocal Teaching. Students made gains on both researcher-developed and standardized tests of reading comprehension and showed evidence of qualitative changes in their comprehension processes when reading L1 and L2. The research was successful because it shows that students made gains in both researcher-designed tests and standardized tests. Studies conducted in Taiwan In this section, four studies were included and summarized. The participants were junior high school students. Three studies targeted on average students and one targeted on low achievers. Three studies examined the effects of Reciprocal Teaching on students’ reading comprehension and metacognitive awareness. One study examined low achievers’ reading comprehension and perceptions toward Reciprocal Teaching. In the field of second language reading, Lin (2007) conducted a study focusing on the effect of Reciprocal Teaching on the English reading comprehension and metacognition. In the research, 82 ninth graders from two classes (one control group, the other experimental group), received twelve weeks of Reciprocal Teaching instruction. The results were quite positive and the learners did improve on their !23.

(33) reading comprehension and metacognitive awareness. Overall, the students in the experimental group receiving Reciprocal Teaching had performed better in reading comprehension tests than the students with traditional reading instruction. In addition, their awareness of strategy use also increased, especially in summarizing and predicting. Further, after the strategy training, students became more confident in English reading and expressed the willingness to apply strategies for future reading. In Chou’s study (2008), in order to verify the possible effects of Reciprocal Teaching on EFL students, one class of junior high students received Reciprocal Teaching and the other class received traditional reading instruction. After the tenweek training, the results showed that while both groups had significant progress on a reading test which served as both pre-test and post-test, the improvement in the experimental group was much greater. Also, from students’ think-aloud protocols, it was found that while students in the experimental group applied the learned strategies during the reading process, the strategy use was not found in the control group. Meanwhile, most of the students in the experimental group held positive attitudes toward Reciprocal Teaching. Wu (2011) conducted a case study with the intervention of Reciprocal Teaching on remedial students. The research aimed to examine the effect of Reciprocal Teaching on students’ reading ability and interest in using the strategy in future learning. Four seventh-graders participated in the remedial course offered by the researcher. The implementation lasted for seven weeks, and the teaching materials were picture books/narrative stories. The result showed that Reciprocal Teaching could benefit students’ learning, and students’ progress was witnessed in the study, including building scaffolding, learning autonomy, strategy use, and improved English ability. !24.

(34) Also, most students reported their positive attitude toward Reciprocal Teaching and would like to continue using the approach. Sun (2013) also studied the effects of Reciprocal Teaching, as a means of strategy instruction in reading class, on EFL junior high students’ metacognitive awareness and English reading comprehension. The 164 eighth-grade participants came from four classes in a junior high school in Taiwan and were divided into experimental and control groups. Two English teachers were responsible for two classes, one experimental group with Reciprocal Teaching and the other control group with traditional reading methods. The results revealed that students with Reciprocal Teaching performed better than students who received traditional reading methods in both reading comprehension and metacognitive awareness. The reading comprehension was examined with GEPT reading tests, and the metacognitive awareness resulted from metacognitive awareness questionnaire. As for the strategies applied during reading, students reported that predicting and clarifying were two strategies that were used most frequently. The findings offered a strong suggestion that Reciprocal Teaching is a practical, useful strategy instruction that enables students to develop the awareness of strategy use and enhance English reading comprehension. So far, many studies have focused on the effect of Reciprocal Teaching on reading comprehension and students’ perception and attitude toward the strategy instruction. Some studies discussed the effect of Reciprocal Teaching on learners’ metacognitive awareness. The above studies all show positive and promising effect of Reciprocal Teaching while there are still some research gaps that need to be further probed into. In summary, the issue of strategy use was first noticed and researched in the !25.

(35) investigation of good learners’ characteristics. Until now, there has been rich literature on strategy use, which can be classified into three categories: the identification and classification of strategy use, the factors that influence strategy use, and the effects of strategy use instruction. Belonging to the third category, Reciprocal Teaching now has been widely examined and applied in the English-speaking contexts among students with different needs, even those with comprehension difficulties and learning disability. In contrast, while Reciprocal Teaching has received more and more attention in Taiwan, an EFL context, still few studies have probed into its possible effects on students with medium or low English proficiency students. Most studies centered on the average students (Chou 2008, Lin 2007, Sun 2013) works. To bridge the gap, I therefore propose the present study. I would like to implement Reciprocal Teaching in my course, in which most of the learners are from mid to low proficiency levels according to their performance in school. Most of them show low motivation in learning English and three of them are regarded as low achievers in schools. There are seven eighth-graders in this study, a small-scale one; therefore, this study would be an action research. I would like to examine how Reciprocal Teaching may assist students’ learning, particularly on reading comprehension, and explore students’ perception and motivational change with Reciprocal Teaching. The details of the study will be presented in the next chapter.. !26.

(36) Chapter Three Research Method This chapter explains the design of the study, including the setting and the background of the school population, the participants of the study, data collection procedure,data resources and data analysis. The setting of the study and the background information of the participants were provided first. Then the procedure and teaching materials were clearly introduced, followed by data resources and data collection and analysis. Setting This study was conducted in a junior high school in Taoyuan City, Taiwan. The school is a medium-size one, with twenty-four classes in each grade. The students were mostly from average social-economical family. Because the reading class was one of the club activities in the school, all the students had to choose their club activity by ranking their choices of the twenty-four clubs. Then, the students were randomly assigned to one specific club by the computer system. Most of the students did not put the reading class in high rankings. The students were mostly mid achievers and low achievers according to their performance on school exams. The low achievers had problems with learning English especially in vocabulary, grammar, and even reading. The mid achievers were better readers and were willing to respond to teachers in class. Due to the traditional teaching in Taiwan, not all students had chances to pose questions from a text, make summaries, or even clarify their ideas in class. They rarely had class discussion to construct meaning from texts. They hardly know how to monitor their own learning process in class. Originally, the students were supposed to attend the reading class every two weeks. However, based on the !27.

(37) school schedule, the students needed to attend the reading class two to three times each month, with ninety minutes per session. Participants The students were randomly assigned to this reading class (a club activity) by the computer system. They are seven eighth-graders, three males and four females. Because Reciprocal Teaching puts emphasis on dialogue and discussion among teachers and students, the students were divided into two groups with three and four people in each group. In the group, the students are mixed proficiency with mid and low achievers. The students learned English with Reciprocal Teaching, which focuses on the four strategies—predicting, questioning, clarifying, and summarizing. Most of the students approximately had five to six years of English learning experience from the third grade in elementary schools. Three of the students have learned English at an earlier age. Their English ability was mostly average or below average according to their English test scores in school exams. Three of the students went to cram schools, and all of them reported that they hardly spend extra time learning English or have English reading activity. They only spent time doing the school homework. Only one girl spent extra time reading English magazines, and two of them watched English movies and listened to English songs as extra English learning activities. They also reported that English learning is difficult and three of them were far behind their classmates in their original class and had to take the remedial tests every semester. Three of them held a passive attitude toward English learning. To fulfill the essence of scaffolding of Reciprocal Teaching, the seven participants were divided into two groups so that there were two mid proficient students in each group. The mid proficient students could provide support for the low proficient students. Group A !28.

(38) included Elaine, Eric, and Simon, and Group B included Ruby, Joy, Jane and John. They were listed with a pseudo name. The following table is the background information of the participants: Table 1 The information of the participants Pseudo Name. Gender Ranking of the class. Language School proficiency score. Group Remedial Cram tests school. Years of learning. Elaine. F. 1. Mid. 70-75. A. ✓. 5.5. Eric. M. 9. Mid. 75-85. A. ✓. 6.5. Simon. M. 23. Low. 20-25. A. Ruby. F. 9. Mid. 80-85. B. Joy. F. 13. Mid. 80-85. B. Jane. F. 21. Low. 20-35. B. ✓. 7.5. John. M. 20. Low. 10-20. B. ✓. 5.5. 5.5. ✓. 5.5 ✓. 7.5. As for the grouping, the participants, Eric and Elaine, are from the same class, and they work well together in the same group. According to their choice and the working atmosphere in the group, the researcher had them stay in the same group. For Group B, the mid proficiency students, Joy and Ruby, work well and discuss in a good harmony in group discussion though they didn't know each other before the class started and they were willing to lead the discussion and teach the low proficiency students. Before the intervention, the researcher had conducted some reading activities with the students as pilot studies. The books used then were of similar reading difficulty to the books used in the main study.. !29.

(39) Procedure The following section presents the implementation procedures of Reciprocal Teaching and the teaching materials used during the intervention. Implementation of Reciprocal Teaching The researcher was in charge of the reading class for the whole semester, from late March to June in 2016. The researcher introduced Reciprocal Teaching explicitly to the students in the reading class. The students attended the reading class for 90 minutes on Wednesday mornings. In total, eight sessions were included. Before the intervention started, the researcher had distributed a questionnaire (See Appendix One) to understand the students’ background and then divided them into two groups according to their performance on school exams. To follow the principle of scaffolding and ZPD in Reciprocal Teaching, the eightsession intervention was divided into two phases: teacher-led and student-led stages. In the teacher-led stage, the instructor assumed the dominant role, introducing and demonstrating the strategy use, while the students took their time, observing the teacher and witnessing the whole process. When involved in the group discussion led by the teacher, students were given chances to practice the strategy. In the student-led stage, when students gained some understanding on the target strategies, they then started to take more responsibility and further organized their own discussion, while the teacher faded the dominant role and shifted to a facilitating role, giving prompts and cues to remind students of the target strategies. Such a two-stage design fulfilled the scaffolding and teacher-fading principles of Reciprocal Teaching. In addition, whether the discussion was led by the teacher or the students, it fulfilled the constructivist essence of Reciprocal Teaching. !30.