0 rag afi nt 2 20 oo ‘Teaching Reading Strategies: ‘It Takes Time!? ‘Thomas § C Farrell NIE, Nanyang Technological University Singapore ‘Str mnt hy nee eel pee ne peo in Ress mesg tesa ne wt Irplement srceyisrction ni lvoe Tic pet cies ese stay af ow en ‘Str sed onc slay canyon Engi wing cs emige seat oatey is uctidan tye aed pobeg ee ‘cpt cat ore pn Eins des wl wie nce Te che at ‘Tippee troet oes scar ya ov Sl en pea ome ‘SE ay co ge maren on hor tpl sy tag mee oa INTRODUCTION Research in sesondforcign language (L2) reading suggests tha etfecive reading siategis canbe aught and Ut students Benefit from such instruction. Strategy training a if relates to L2 reading means that sucessful reading mainly depends ‘on appropriate steategy uve and that learners can improve their reading Comprehension by being tained to use effective strategies. Strategy intuction ‘lvelops student knowledge about the reading process, introduces students 10 Spee satgies, and provides them with opportunities 10 discus and practise ‘trategies while reading (Janzen and Stolle, 1998). Although there are many ‘Suggestion in the erate on L2 reading as to bow strategy insructon showkl ‘ake place (eg Janzen and Stolle, 1998, Winograd and Hare, 1988), few sues ‘have been conducted on how teachers, i eat, implement trate instuction i ther classooms This paper outlines case sty of how ove teacher atemped 10 incomport satay taining in his secondary school English reading clases, READING STRATEGY TRAINING Learner strategies are tools that enable learners take on responsibility fr their ‘ven language learning (Wenden, 1985) The main objective of language Famers ting specifi let strategies efor hem to solve learning problems and thus become autonomous language Ire. Wenden and Rubin (1987), among others, have suggested tht learner strategy training consists of first isting descriptions of statis of sucessful language lamers inthe form of typologies nd then raining ae Sep inseam ne cae ci2 tanguage students in how to vs strategies that have en identified as festive Its assumed tat once the sttegies used by good langage learers have identified and listed they canbe taught oles sasessul language leans 80 they can lear more effectively (Hosenfeld, 197). These ideas for strategy taining ‘have also Been incorporated into the teaching of second language (L2) reading. Research on how L2 reader step to comprehend text has suggested ha because ‘beginning readers depend so much onthe txt itself they may rly on word fo word ealng and ansltion strategy, atleast in the early stages earning how ta ‘ead inte second language (Kern, 1989), Many L2 readers are nt abe tous ny ‘ther reading strategies and thus may stay at this eel even afer years of yng to ‘ead sucessfully in second language. Consequently, may be necessary teach ‘C2 reading students more effective methods oF states so tht they may be able ‘o read and lara more effectively (Oxford apd Caen, 1992), Reading stategies indicate how readers conceive a task, what textual cues they attend to, how they make sense of what they ead nd what they do when they 0 ‘ot understnd a particular text (Block, 1986). These strategies range fom easy fixup sirteges such as simply re-reading difficult sezments and guessing the ‘meaning ofan unknown word from context, o more comprehensive eatepes sch 1s summarizing and relating what is being read tothe reader's background, Knowledge (Janzen, 1996) Reseach on the realing strategies of native English language speakers has found tat good readers are better at monitoring thee comprehension than poor readers, they are more aware of the sratepes they wse than are poor readers. and they use strategies more Nib and efficiently thn inefficient readers do (Pressley and Aferach, 1995) For instance, good readers Astingush erween important information and detail as they read a are abet tse cles i the text 0 amipue information andlor relate new information t0 information already stated. They are also able ro notice inconsistencies in txt tnd employ statepes to make these inconsistencies understandable (Baker snd Brown, 1984), However, Kern (1997 has remarked that no stateayisinereatly 2 good’ or bad? strategy an that wha works fr one eader doesnot noceserly work for anther, Aditionally Carell (1998) has argued tat the diference betwen good and bad ‘eading strategies is whetberthestategis ar used consciously oe no. Foreffetive ‘reading strategy training, Carel (198) has args forthe involvement of two key metacognitive fates (1) knowledge of cogeition, and (2) regulation of cognition The fist involves readers being aware of what tateyes they are currently using 2 they read, an the second involves readers choosing appropiate oc more effective strategies that wll enable them to socessully comprehend a text Carell (1998) tas suggested that both canbe incoepeated succesfully in 1 reading strategy ‘lang elgg So: 1s Ta” os ‘Sategy training comes from the assumption that succes in earning mainly depends ‘on appropiate strate ase and that unsuccesfllearers can nprove tei leaing by being waned to use eocive strategies. Research in L2 reading has shown not only that reading stategies canbe aught o students, bt that these strategic belp limprove studem performance on ets of comprehension and reall (Carel, 1985, Hamp-Lyons, 1988; Carell, Phar. and Liber, 1999; Brown and Panesar, 1989), Hamp-Lyons (1985) and Kern (1989) found tht group of students who had strtegy training did beste inceading than group that did ot have strategy raining. Carrel, Pars, and Libero (1989) discovered that specific strategy Uaining in semantic mapping and experience-text relationship (ETR) improved students” reading ‘comprehension. However, Rees Miller (1993) hss cautioned tht strategy training by itself may not be enough for sucessful reading comprehension, Winogra and Hare (1988) have idatfed ve prerequisites that eachers should incorporate for successful strategy ining. For each laming Strategy teachers shoul (1) describe the strategy the stdents are going to learn (2) explain why the strategy is important and remind students abou the Benes fof strategy use. (IF teachers teach L? learners statgies without direct ‘explanation and explicit teacher modelling for a shoe period itis unlikely v9 Ihave a long-term effect on stidents and therefore tis unikly to help them develop as static readers) (6) demonstrate how 1 use the strategy effectively, for example by modeling it (Janzen and Stoler (1998) maintain that stategy instrcton involves the teacher reading and thinking out loud, and also modelling statepe reading ‘ehavioue) (4) point ou wo the students when and where a suategy should be used (6) teach students how they can evaluate their succesful (or unsvcessul) use of the strategy. ‘The literature on 12 reading srtegy traning reviewed in his apes, has outlined ‘esearch on L2 reading conducted mostly ina controled envionment. However, few studies have been conducted on how teachers actually stent strategy instruction nthe casseooms. The case stay epoted inthis paper ams to redress the alace,Ttexamines how one EFL teacher tried ointrxduce strategy instruction ‘ois students of reading in English ‘Stuies onthe realty of English reading lessons in Singapore secondary school Schools have indicated that English language teachers have not ulizedstategy ‘alning, and furbemore, sat students are not familiar with state Waning.os Tne 5 [English reading lessons daring secondary school years comsist mainly of reading loud, Statepy waining is seldom, if eve. used (Gupa& Saravana 1998; Farell 2‘ Saravanan, 1998). Gupta and Saravanan (1995:380-351 discovered that reading lessons consisted of reading aloud, “ollowe by discussion ofthe conte andthe ‘tex of comprehension, There is no mention of skills o steps ‘THE STUDY Coxmexr ‘The study took place in Singapore. Singapore has a multilingual population of slighty more than thre milion people with English used asa fist language with ‘arying degrees of proficiency from ative speaker level to English a a foeign language, For the vast majority of Singaporeans, English snot ter mother tongue tut represets only one languagein the speaker's mollingual epetire. The teacher in thicase stody is male Singaporeat of Chinese decent and a uot speaker of English. The teacher had invited this researcher to observe him teach his English reading clases as be sad that he wanted feedback om bis stems to introduce ‘rategy training in his English classes. The teacher had heen a stent ofthe Fesearcher two years previously atthe National site of Baucation in Singapore, ‘Atthat ime the researcher tage the Reading Methods Module tothe teacher 38 art of his waining o be an English teacher One major focus ofthe module was Strategy training in reading methods. English is the medium of iastuction in all schools in Singapore. It is ot easy, however, to clasiy the typeof English usd in the schoo system because there ae ‘many in Singapore who use English as fis, second and foreign language, and ‘ew (usally fom the older generation) who donot do pt know any English (Gupta, 1998). The school the teacher was teaching in Was a goverament funded school and the student population were from the middle to lower middle classes, The ‘Stents the teacher was sponsible Tor eacing in the stay were considered (by the teacher o be using English a a foreign language as they ad consistently ‘Scored below average results in school administered English lnguage tests, The ‘Stents were rom varied LI backgrounds that included Maly, Tail snd Chinese ‘Asthe medium of instruction inthe school sytem in Singapore is English iis not possible to make assumptions shout what strategies or methods students have heen {ugh to use when reading in their first lnguage Mesnonotocy ‘Qualitative esearch procedures were we in the collection at analysis ofthe data (Bogdan and Biklea, 1982; Glesne and Peskin, 1992). With this sppeoach the ‘emphasis in collection and analysis of data was on understanding and interpretation. For interpretation, I consulted the teacher who authenticated my interpretations, ‘The study used qualitative methods because as Kuomic (1993:16) hs pointed ou eng Retin Sie: keine os “quantitative esearch designs hae ended to foes on groups of teachers nd this can have some harmful consequences for undersianding what specific teachers da” ‘The fl period of data collection was one semester (thee months) of elassogm sbservatons. Data were collected by means of classroom observations (i hous), siscussions after observation, two open-ended interviews (ne the begining of the semester and one a the end ofthe semester), and this researcher's writen log. A procedure of data redaction, and confirming Findings was sed to analye the data (Linco and Gob, 1985). The teacher ead and authenticated the ndings and interpretations of ths report Frxomes First th teacher's belief obine in an interview before he hegan teaching is second semester) about teaching English reading ae outlined. 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