1
CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION
This study aims to examine the effects of three different reading modes—silent reading, self-reading aloud and teacher’s reading aloud—on Taiwanese EFL senior high school students’ reading comprehension, including the comprehension of two different text types—narration and exposition, and the correctness in answering two different question types—main idea questions and detail questions. This chapter presents an overview of this study. It consists of three sections. Section 1.1 is the background and motivation of the study along with the intended research questions.
1.2 exhibits the significance of the study and 1.3 presents the organization of the thesis.
1.1 Motivation and Research Questions
Senior high school students in Taiwan mostly acquire English from their
textbooks and almost every lesson in the textbooks has a reading passage which leads the students to learn vocabulary, grammar and writing. Better comprehension of the text will help the students acquire the lesson more effectively. Different reading modes have been applied by English teachers to guide the students into the reading passages. Some teachers provide time for the students to read the texts silently; others require the students to read the texts aloud; still others introduce the texts by asking the students to listen to the tape or the teachers’ reading the texts aloud. There are usually some questions followed to check the students’ comprehension of the texts.
But which reading mode is the most beneficial to the students’ comprehension?
2
Reading researchers actually have different opinions on this issue: some researchers consider silent reading more effective (e.g. Bernhardt, 1987; Smith, 1971) while others favor oral reading, either self-reading aloud (Dechant, 1973; Griffin, 1992) or teachers’ reading aloud (e.g. Amer, 1997; May, 1986). Due to the controversy, Hsieh (1998, 2000) does two experiments comparing the effect of the three reading modes on Taiwanese EFL students, and the result of his second study shows that both oral reading modes are more beneficial to comprehension than silent reading. However, two imperfections are found in Hsieh’s study methods. The present study therefore adapts Hsieh’s second study with improved methods, intending to provide more reliable results.
Apart from adapting Hsieh’s study, the present study goes further to find out the most effective reading mode to the comprehension of different text types, for the reading passages in the textbooks are generally of various text types and most senior high school teachers apply the oral and silent reading modes randomly without considering whether the mode aids the comprehension of the text type. Among the various text types acknowledged by reading researchers (e.g. Brewer, 1980; Brooks and Warren, 1952), narration and exposition are used in this study because these two text types are involved more frequently in the textbooks as reading materials. Besides, Amer (1997) finds teacher’s reading narrative texts aloud beneficial to EFL learners’
comprehension and he suggests further investigation on other text types. Exposition would be a good try, for some empirical studies (e.g. Brazee 1976; Carroll and Drum, 1982) have provided evidence that exposition and narration have differential effects on readers’ comprehension. Therefore, the present study adapts both text types, intending to see whether the reading modes have different effects on the students’
comprehending the two text types. Similar to text types, the comprehension questions
3
following the reading passages in the textbooks are of various kinds. For example, Johnson (1994) mentions six question types: main idea questions, detail questions, organization questions, inference questions, style/tone questions and word-meaning questions. But no study has been done to find out the most effective reading mode for answering certain question type. The present study attempts to find out the most beneficial reading mode for answering main idea questions and detail questions. The two question types are applied because they have contrary qualities. Main idea questions are mostly designed to test the general comprehension of texts while detail questions are for the specific details of texts. With such apparent different qualities, it is possible that the reading modes have dissimilar effects on the students’ answering the two question types. In short, this study is conducted with the intention to find answers to the following questions:
1. Which reading mode is the most beneficial to the Chinese EFL students’
comprehension, silent reading, self-reading aloud, or teacher’s reading aloud?
2. Which reading mode is the most effective to the students in comprehending the two different text types, narration and exposition, respectively?
3. Which reading mode is the most effective to the students in answering the two different question types, main idea questions and detail questions, respectively?
1.2 Significance of the Study
Silent reading, self-reading aloud and teacher’s reading aloud are all common methods in the language classrooms. All the three modes can be easily applied without any equipment. Finding out which reading mode is the most beneficial to the students’ comprehension would make their learning more efficient and encouraging.
Moreover, knowing the most effective reading mode to a certain text type would make
4
students comprehend the text easilier and better. Knowing the most useful reading mode to a certain question type would enhance the students’ performance in
answering the questions and thus heighten their motivation for learning. This study could provide practical implications for senior high school English teachers and help them apply appropriate reading modes when their concern is on the students’
comprehension.
1.3 Organization of the Thesis
The organization of this work is as follows: Chapter 1 is the overview of the study, including the purpose, research questions, background, motivation, significance, and organization of this study. Chapter 2 is a literature review of the silent reading mode, the oral reading modes, text types and question types. Chapter 3 describes the
methodology adopted in the study. Chapter 4 presents the results of the study as well as the discussion of the results. Chapter 5, the concluding chapter, consists of the findings of the study, the conclusion, pedagogical implication, limitation of the study and suggestions for further research.
