Effects of Explicit Reading Strategy Instruction on EFL Learners’ Instruction on EFL Learners’ Reading Anxiety Reading Anxiety Researcher: 李秋美 Advisor: 鍾榮富 教授 Reporter: 哀宛君 Judy Ai (NA2C0013)

Introduction Background and Motivation Purposes of the Study Research Questions Limitations of the Study Definition of Terms Significance of the Study

Background and Motivation-1 Reading is supposed to be a very pleasant leisure activity; however, some students reported experiencing anxiety and fear while they were left to confront lengthy articles and required to answer relevant reading questions. Grammar-translation approach is still a dominant teaching method in the English learning settings of Taiwan ( Chen, 2005). There is little time for the teaching of reading strategies to enhance students’ reading comprehension. As Krashen (1982) proposed in his affective filter hypothesis, the learners’ emotional state is the main factor which would form an affective filter to block away input data. Moreover, he suggested that mental block and uneasy feelings could disturb a second language acquisition process.

Background and Motivation-2 Among the four skills, listening and speaking are most associated with foreign language anxiety; however, reading is the most important skill that students should master due to the test-oriented English learning context of Taiwan. It is a pity that no recent research with a focus on reading anxiety took senior high school students as participants. Therefore, much room is left for further investigation into reading anxiety of EFL senior high students. (niche ) With respect to making reading less stressful, strategy- oriented approach to reading is among one of the techniques proposed by Horwitz (1986) to help “allay students’ anxiety” (p.35). Kern (1988) also suggested incorporating explicit strategy instruction into FL learning.

Background and Motivation-3 Tierney, Readence and Dishner (1995) described, through the explicit teaching of reading comprehension, students could develop their reading comprehension skills and strategies that could be applied to other reading situations without teacher support. In Taiwan, several studies were conducted to explore the effects of reading strategy instruction at all school levels. However, none of the above studies aimed to investigate how students’ reading anxiety was influenced or reduced by explicit comprehension instruction. (niche ) The researcher feels motivated to explore the factors affecting students’ reading anxiety, and the practicability and effectiveness of incorporating explicit comprehension instruction into the regular English class.

Purposes of the Study To investigate the causes of EFL senior high school first-graders’ reading anxiety To examine the effects of the explicit instruction of reading strategies on their reading anxiety and reading comprehension To find out whether the strategy instruction is effective in improving students’ ability to answer different patterns of multi- choice reading questions To explore students’ acquisition and adoption of those reading strategies and their responses to the reading strategy training

Research Questions What are the major causes of EFL senior high school students’ reading anxiety? Does the explicit strategy instruction reduce EFL senior high school students’ reading anxiety? Does the explicit strategy instruction facilitate EFL senior high school students’ reading ability, including identifying main ideas, searching for detailed information, drawing logical inferences and deriving contextual meanings of unfamiliar words? What are EFL senior high school students’ responses to the explicit strategy instruction?

Significance of the Study-for teachers They may have a deeper understanding of students’ reading anxiety and problems, and therefore feel motivated to make a change or an adjustment in their reading instruction. They may consider the possibility of incorporating the explicit instruction of reading strategies in the their reading instruction programs to help students read with less anxiety and more efficiency. They can examine whether students are able to apply their acquired strategies to reading comprehension tests. They can gain a clear understanding of students’ responses to the strategy training and students’ attitudes toward English reading after the intervention.

Significance of the Study-for students The instruction can inform them of the existence and application of reading strategies. The instruction can encourage them to independently make flexible use of the acquired strategies in reading tests or real reading situations. ~ especially for those who have long been struggling with unpleasant English reading experience ~

Limitations of the Study Since the subjects involved in this study are only 84 male freshman students at a senior high school in southern Taiwan, the generalization of this study is limited. Due to the short period of training time, students’ retentive use of the instructed strategies in their reading processes over a longer period of time is not further explored. Consequently, the long-term effectiveness cannot be determined. Only five reading strategies are chosen for the experiment due to the time limit of 15 weeks. Therefore, students’ knowledge and application of other reading strategies are not investigated. The assessments of students’ reading proficiency are restricted to multiple-choice questions. Thus, students’ overall reading comprehension can not be tested with multiple instruments.

Definition of Terms-1 Foreign language anxiety Horrwitz et al. (1986) defined foreign language anxiety as “a distinct complex of self-perception, belief, feelings, and behaviors related to classroom language learning arising from the uniqueness of the language learning process” Foreign language reading anxiety It is defined as any discomfort or fear accompanied by reading foreign texts during reading process or in a testing condition.

Definition of Terms-2 Explicit comprehension instruction It refers to the instruction of reading strategies in an explicit: (Beckman, 2002) Describing the strategy and its purpose Modeling its use and explaining to the students how to perform it Providing ample assisted practice time － monitoring, providing clues, and giving feedback Promoting student self-monitoring and evaluation of personal strategy use Encouraging continued use and generalization of the strategy in independent learning situations

Definition of Terms-3 Top-down processing In top-down processing, readers use background knowledge to make predictions, and then search the text to confirm or reject the predictions that were made. They begin with meaning and then move down to words (Ko, 2004) Bottom-up processing The bottom-up processing consists of lower-level reading processes － letters, letter clusters, words, phrases, sentences, longer text, and finally meaning. (Anderson, 2003) Interactive processing The readers continually shifted from one focus to another in the process of reading, adopting a top-down approach to predict the probable meaning, then moving to the bottom-up approach to verify whether the prediction was what the writer meant.

Literature Review Affective Variables in Foreign Language Learning Foreign Language Reading Anxiety Reading Strategies Explicit Comprehension Instruction

Affective Variables in Foreign Language Learning-1 Affective Filter Hypothesis (Krashen,1982) According to Krashen, emotions act as a filter that controls whether language is allowed to flow into the language-learning system in the brain. The best acquisition would occur in contexts where the affective filter was low. When the learner was anxious and lacked self-confidence, the filter was up and the acquisition or comprehension would be reduced. However, he commented, “There is something called facilitative anxiety. My hypothesis is that facilitative anxiety has a positive effect on language learning.

Affective Variables in Foreign Language Learning-2 Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (Horwita,1986) Horwitz developed FLCAS in an effort to identify and measure the concept of foreign language. There are three major components of foreign language anxiety in the scale. Communication apprehension A type of shyness characterized by fear of or anxiety about communicating with people negative evaluation test anxiety The worry about others’ evaluation, the tendency to avoid evaluative situations, and the expected feelings of others’ negative evaluation A type of performance anxiety stemming from a fear of failure and it is concerned with apprehension over academic evaluation

Affective Variables in Foreign Language Learning-3 Foreign Language Anxiety in 3-stage Model of Learning (Tobias,1979) Input Processing Output Anxiety acts like a filter preventing some information from getting into the cognitive processing system. Anxiety acts as a distraction, disabling students to learn new words, phrases, grammar, and so on. Anxiety can influence the quality of second language communication. The effect can be observed when speaking or writing.

Foreign Language Reading Anxiety-1 Saito, Garza and Horwitz (1999) introduced the construct of foreign language reading anxiety. The conducted a study to investigate foreign language reading anxiety among foreign language students. ◎ Participants － 383 university students who enrolled in first semester course of French, Japanese and Russian ◎ Instruments － Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) (Horwitz,1986) Foreign Language Reading Anxiety Scale (FLRAS) (Saito,1999) The study found that reading in FL can be anxiety provoking to some students. They also provided the existence of foreign language reading anxiety as a phenomenon related to but distinguished from general foreign language anxiety.

Foreign Language Reading Anxiety-2 Sources of Foreign Language Reading Anxiety Unfamiliar Linguistic FeaturesUnfamiliar Cultural Materials Lack of Sufficient Prior Knowledge Limited Reading Proficiency Low Self-EfficacyMisconceptions about Reading

Foreign Language Reading Anxiety-3  Unfamiliar Linguistic Features － Linguistic features, including foreign writing systems, vocabulary and syntactic knowledge, arouse immediate reading anxiety.  Unfamiliar Cultural Materials － Anxiety is also anticipated when a reader realizes that the words he or she decoded do not constitute a comprehensible or logical message entity because of incomplete knowledge of the cultural materials underlying the text.  Lack of Sufficient Prior Knowledge － Readers comprehend something new by relating it to the past experience, background knowledge, or more technically － schemata.  Limited Reading Proficiency － Frustration and uneasiness are associated with anxiety; accordingly, it is anticipated that anxiety may occur when readers try to make meanings out of the passage but failed.  Low Self-Efficacy － Self-efficacy can be generally defined as pesonal beliefs in one’s capabilities. Much of the language learners’ anxiety comes from the threat to the learners’ self-concept of competence.

Foreign Language Reading Anxiety-4  Misconceptions about Reading － Lee (1999) hypothesized that misconceptions about reading can lead to learner anxiety. Successful reading equals answering comprehension questions. Reading is a private act that takes place outside the classroom by an isolated reader. Reading is a linear process that begins with the first word on the page and proceeds directly to the last word on the page. Comprehension is an absolute.