PERCEIVED READING STRATEGIES USED BY THAI PRE-ENGINEERING STUDENTS
Well, Good morning ladies and gentlemen. My mane is Thianthip Srangphoe I study at Nakhon Si Thammarat Rajabhat University Faculty of Education English Major. today I’m going to present a research on PERCEIVED READING STRATEGIES USED BY THAI PRE-ENGINEERING STUDENTS by Dr. Pornpun Oranpattannachai. I have divided my presentation into 4 parts. In the first part, I will talk about the introduction. Next, I will talk about Methodology, Results and conclusion will be the last part of my presentation. Now, let us turn to part one.
introduction
In Thailand where English is used as a foreign language, reading skill is an important skill to master. It Plays a vital role for Thai students in their academic context. For example, Thai engineering students are required to read the engineering textbooks in English although the medium of instruction is in Thai is because most of the engineering knowledge comes from sources such as articles published in the international journals, magazines, and the Internet. In addition, it is the skill that the students have high potentials to use even after they have graduated. Most of the new academic knowledge they need to acquire for improving their professional lives is mostly accessible in English. However, several reading researches conducted with Thai students at both the university and high school levels reveal that Thai students have difficulties in reading in English
Purposes of the research
To help students to handle their difficulties of reading in English, at present reading researchers and educators pay their attention to their reading process rather than reading product. Knowing the students’ reading process or what reading strategy they use and how they use it when they encounter their reading difficulties can help teachers to know how to assist students to improve their abilities in reading.
Research questions
The research question for the present study is: Do the high and the low proficiency reader differ in their perceived reading strategy use?
The second part, I will talk about the research methodology.
The participants were 90 third-year per-engineering students from a college of Industrial Technology in Thailand. They were divided into two groups: high reading proficiency group and low reading proficiency group according to their English grader in their second year and reading proficiency scores. Forty-five students who received the grades ranging from As to C+s and their reading proficiency scores ranging from 25-38 out of 50 are classified as high reading proficiency group. The other forty-five students who received the grades ranging from Cs to Ds and their reading proficiency scores ranging from 0-24 are classified as low reading proficiency group.
Research instruments
questionnaire. The first part of the questionnair dealt with the paraticipants’ background information.
The second part dealt with information about the participants’ perceived use of reading strategies while reading.
The third part the questionnaire consisted of twenty-nine items.
The participants answered the questionnaire by rating the degree of frequency they think they usually employ while reading in English on a 5-point Liker type scale from ‘very often’ to ‘never’.
All reading strategies contained in the questionnaire are drawn from the study of Oranpattanachai (2004) was conducted to investigate reading process of Thai engineering students at the tertiary level using think-aloud protocols as a major method.
All There reading strategies are divided into 2 categories: bottom-up and top-down strategies. Bottom-up strategies refer to strategies where reader decode the linguistic features to comprehend the text, while top-down strategies refer to strategies where readers make use of their previous knowledge and their operational knowledge about how to approach texts to construct the meaning from the texts.
This metacognitive reading strategies questionnaire consisted of eight bottom-up strategies and twenty-one top-down strategies. Table I below shows top-down and bottom-up strategies.
The reading proficiency test was a multiple-choice test, consisted of 40 items, all of which were taken from the TOEIC test on the part of reading. The total reading proficiency scores is 40 marks, one mark for each item.
The bottom-up and Top-down Strategies Contained in the Questionnaire
Bottom-up Strategies Top-down Strategies
1. Skip word or parts I don’t understand 1. Try to get the main idea
2. Work out meanings of words from understand the parts of the words 2. Recognize when I don’t understand something.
3. Make use of grammatical structure to get at meaning 3. Go back the a prior part that I understand to help me work out the bit I can’t understand.
4. Look up the unknown words in a dictionary 4. Predict what will come next.
5. Pronounce the words aloud. 5. Slow down when I have difficulty in reading
6. Use a finger to point while reading 6. Use my general knowledge to work out the meaning
7. Write down the meaning of unknown words that appear in the dictionary in the text read 7. Ask myself questions about what words or phrases mean.
Bottom-up Strategies Top-down Strategies
8. Need to understand meaning of every vocabulary in the text. 8. re-read what I don’t understand.
9. Guess the meaning of the unknown words from the context.
10. Work out a fact that is not mentioned cirectly in the to understand what the text implies.
11. Have feelings and reactions emotionally to the text.
12. Go back and correct what I understood earlier.
13. Continue reading even though I don’t understand.
14. Link the present information to the other pieces of the text.
Bottom-up Strategies Top-down Strategies
15. From a mental picture of what is read.
16. Question the information in the text.
17. Correct misunderstanding made in reading the text.
18. Assess the degree of understanding made in reading the text.
19. Confirm the understanding or the text.
20. Make a survey of the text before reading it such as looking at the pictures and the length of the text, skimming it, etc.
21. Link what is read to my word knowledge
Next, I will talk about Results
Answer the research questions
The results sowed that the high and the low proficiency readers shared both differences and similarities in their reading processes. The differences in their reading processes were divided into 2 aspects: the frequency of perceived strategy use and the frequency of perceived top-down strategy use. The similarities in their reading processes were divided into two aspects: the rank ordering of perceived strategy use and the style of text processing.
the last part of my presentation. In Conclusion
Take into consideration all the findings and recommendations of the present study earlier discussed, it can be concluded that English reading syllabus at the pre-engineering level at the college where the present study conducted should include strategy training together with an extensive reading program.
Researchers and teachers recognize that strategy training is an effective way of improving reading and that good readers are strategic readers. As the present study revealed that the perceived use of low proficiency was less than the high proficiency readers, teachers should therefore play a role by training them to use various reading strategies. Also, teachers should train them when, where, why, and how to use strategies appropriately so that the strategies they use are productive in their reading, which in turn, will help them to be more proficient reader.
In addition, regarding the acquisition of vocabulary and syntactic structures in English, teacher should assign students to do extensive reading outside the class because reading provides abundant samples of L2 input, which is need to improve reading. Extensive reading can also develop automaticity in word and syntactic structures recognition, rapid and accurate reading, which are fundamental requirement for fluent reading
Finally, sine the present study looks at the differences and similarities in reading processes of high and low proficiency readers at pre-engineering level in Thailand, a replication of this study with different participants at high-school or university levels in Thailand or other countries learning English as a foreign language may be interesting.
