Korean Middle School Students’ Learning Experiences of an English Reading Program Focusing on Summarization

EFL;reading comprehension;summarization;free written recall;qualitative inquiry;instruction;407

사범대학 외국어교육과 ;

University:서울대학교 대학원

关键词: EFL;    reading comprehension;    summarization;    free written recall;    qualitative inquiry;    instruction;    407;   

Others  :  http://s-space.snu.ac.kr/bitstream/10371/142035/1/000000150354.pdf

美国|英语

来源: Seoul National University Open Repository

【 摘 要 】

This study introduces an English reading program in an effort to enrich Korean middle school English learners’ reading experiences in classroom and eventually nurture them to be independent, proficient L2 readers. The main task of the reading instruction is summarization. The task of summarizing is partly incorporated with collaborative learning and uses full-length news reports that have narrative features. The purpose of the study is to describe the participants’ learning experiences during the program in terms of their achievement in reading comprehension assessment and their reading experiences in terms of their reading behaviors during the summarization task and their perceptions on the reading passages used in the program. The participants are thirteen middle school students at a local middle school. The English reading program was organized into 10 sessions. In the first and last session, the L1 free written recall test was given to measure the students’ reading ability. During the middle eight intervention sessions, the students read eight news reports and performed a series of classroom activities that constitute the summarization task. The information on the students’ reading experiences during the program was collected via survey and interview at the end of the program along with the teacher’s log during the program. The students’ recall protocols were descriptively and statistically analyzed in terms of the total number of the idea units and the degree of the importance of the recalled idea units. On the other hand, the data from the survey, interview and the teacher’s log were qualitatively analyzed.The results on the pre- and post-recall test demonstrate that the achievement varies among the individuals in terms of the recall test score calculated by the total number of the recalled idea units. On the other hand, the reading program yielded a modest enhancement in the ability of distinguishing relative degrees of importance among textual information. This quantitative finding is discussed as the enhanced metacognitive reading behaviors based on the students’ accounts on their reading behaviors. The qualitative inquiry on the students’ reading experiences provides response as to how the reading program contributed to the development of reading ability and why the program did not improve some students’ reading ability. The summarization task pushed the students into independent reading and made them focus on the main idea comprehension and read interactively with peers. With respect to the passages, the narrative discourse pertaining to the given passages was appreciated due to the easiness. Also, the relatively longer length was conducive to writing summaries. However, the incongruence between the readability of the passages and students’ reading ability was the main attributor to the low achievement shown by some students. The insight from this qualitative inquiry suggests some pedagogical implications. Limitations and future studies are suggested subsequently.