• Title/Summary/Keyword: English reading

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Issues and improvement plans for reading materials of high school English textbooks: From the communicative approach (고등학교 교과서 읽기 자료의 문제점과 개선 방안: 의사소통적 관점에서)

  • Lee, Jin-Kyong
    • English Language & Literature Teaching
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    • v.15 no.4
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    • pp.365-382
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    • 2009
  • This study aims to examine the reading materials of high school English textbooks to propose the integration of the literary texts into reading materials in the classroom for development of communicative competence. Five kinds of high school English textbooks were critically examined in terms of three factors -limited text types, deficit of emotional adjectives and non-authenticity- selected by the author as characteristics of non-communicative language teaching materials. With regard to text types, more than half of the reading materials were expository and simple narratives. This imbalance of text types led materials to the deficit of emotional vocabulary. These factors seem to be closely related to the issue of authenticity of reading materials. Compared to the authentic texts, fabricated texts are likely to make reading vapid and boring task. On the basis of these results, some pedagogical suggestions are made.

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A study on the English reading strategies of Korean secondary EFL learners by their personality types (한국 중.고등학교 영어 학습자들의 성격 유형에 따른 영어 독해전략 연구)

  • Mo, Seul-Ki;Kim, Young-Sook
    • English Language & Literature Teaching
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    • v.15 no.4
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    • pp.291-311
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    • 2009
  • The purpose of this study is to investigate the English reading strategies of Korean secondary EFL learners by their personality types. The study was conducted with 112 middle school students and 100 high school students in Korea. The instrument used for personality measurement was the MBTI test. A reading strategy questionnaire was used to see how frequently each reading strategy was used while students read passages in English. The collected data was analyzed using t-test and two-way ANOVA to see the differences between high school and middle school students in terms of personality types. The results of the study demonstrated that there were significant differences in strategies used by the two groups of students and high school students used more reading strategies than middle school students. It was also found that the students exhibited some differences in reading strategy use depending on their personality types, especially between the N(Intuition) and S(Sensing) types. For example, students with N(Intuition) types used more vocabulary-comprehension, guessing, and metacogntive strategies than S(Sensing) types. Pedagogical implications and suggestions for classroom English teachers are discussed based on the results of the current study.

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SOME PROSODIC FEATURES OBSERVED IN THE PASSAGE READING BY JAPANESE LEARNERS OF ENGLISH

  • Kanzaki, Kazuo
    • Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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    • 1996.10a
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    • pp.37-42
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    • 1996
  • This study aims to see some prosodic features of English spoken by Japanese learners of English. It focuses on speech rates, pauses, and intonation when the learners read an English passage. Three Japanese learners of English, who are all male university students, were asked to read the speech material, an English passage of 110 word length, at their normal reading speed. Then a native speaker of English, a male American English teacher. was asked to read the same passage. The Japanese speakers were also asked to read a Japanese passage of 286 letters (Japanese Kana) to compare the reading of English with that of japanese. Their speech was analyzed on a computerized system (KAY Computerized Speech Lab). Wave forms, spectrograms, and F0 contours were shown on the screen to measure the duration of pauses, phrases and sentences and to observe intonation contours. One finding of the experiment was that the movement of the low speakers' speech rates showed a similar tendency in their reading of the English passage. Reading of the Japanese passage by the three learners also had a similar tendency in the movement of speech rates. Another finding was that the frequency of pauses in the learners speech was greater than that in the speech of the native speaker, but that the ration of the total pause length to the whole utterance length was about tile same in both the learners' and the native speaker's speech. A similar tendency was observed about the learners' reading of the Japanese passage except that they used shorter pauses in the mid-sentence position. As to intonation contours, we found that the learners used a narrower pitch range than the native speaker in their reading of the English passage while they used a wider pitch range as they read the Japanese passage. It was found that the learners tended to use falling intonation before pauses whereas the native speaker used different intonation patterns. These findings are applicable to the teaching of English pronunciation at the passage level in the sense that they can show the learners. Japanese here, what their problems are and how they could be solved.

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Differences in Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategy Use in English Test-typed Text Reading between Gifted English Language Learners and General Middle School Learners (영어 평가 지문 읽기에서 영어 영재 학생과 일반 중학생의 메타인지 읽기전략 사용 차이에 대한 연구)

  • Bang, Jyun
    • The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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    • v.20 no.1
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    • pp.345-355
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    • 2020
  • The purpose of this study was to explore the differences of the metacognitive awareness of reading strategies which gifted English language learners (GELLs) and general middle school learners (GMSLs) used while reading English test-typed texts. 74 GELLs in a gifted program of C city and 90 GMSLs in the southern part of C city participated in this study. The MARSI questionnaire was administered to the GELLs and GMSLs at the end of the semester. Frequency and t-test were used to examine the differences in metacognitive awareness of reading strategy use between GELLs and GSMLs when reading the English test-typed texts. Based on the analysis, the study discovered that GELLs were likely to use metacognitive awareness of reading strategies more frequently than GMSLs. Also, GELLs tended to use more global and problem-solving strategies than GMSLs. However, there is no significant difference in support strategy use between the two groups. In conclusion, the study suggests pedagogical implications for GELLs and GMSLs' effective English reading.

Korean EFL Students' Reader Responses on an Expository Text and a Narrative Text

  • Lee, Jisun
    • English Language & Literature Teaching
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    • v.17 no.3
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    • pp.161-175
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    • 2011
  • This paper examines Korean EFL high school students' reader responses on an expository text and a narrative text with the same topic. The purpose of the study is to investigate whether they have different reading models depending on the two genres and whether there are any differences depending on the learners' proficiency levels. The analysis focuses on textual, critical, and aesthetic reading models in the reader responses written in English by science-gifted high school students (N=30). The results show that the participants have different reading models in reading an expository text and a narrative text. They tend to read the expository text in a more critical way while reading the narrative text in a more personal and emotional way. Moreover, regardless of the proficiency levels, they wrote longer responses on the narrative text than the expository text. However, the proficiency level of English does not support any significant differences in the types of reading models. The findings provide Korean EFL high school students' characteristics in L2 reading and suggest the pedagogical implication to pursue linguistic development as well as reading for pleasure.

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Investigating English reading processes of Korean college students through reciprocal reading strategy (상호작용 읽기전략을 통해서 본 한국 대학생들의 독해과정에 관한 연구)

  • Rha, Kyeong-Hee;Lee, Sun
    • English Language & Literature Teaching
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    • v.11 no.4
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    • pp.209-235
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    • 2005
  • The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effectiveness of reciprocal teaching procedure for improving Korean college students' reading comprehension of English text. In particular, this study sought to explore the qualitative features, if any, in students' use of reading comprehension strategies presented in the process of Reciprocal Reading Procedure (RRP). In order to accomplish the goal of the study, transcripts of the students' dialogues, open-ended questionnaires, and researchers' observation notes were examined. The results of the study showed that the participants used different four kinds of reading strategies in the process of RRP (questioning, clarifying, predicting, summarizing). The findings also suggested that the readers with limited knowledge of vocabulary had difficulty in moving on to the next level. Additionally, future research direction and some pedagogical implications are presented for the practical EFL classroom.

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Factors for Successful Implementation of Extensive Reading Program Using Online/Offline Blended English Library System in Schools

  • Kwon, Hyekyung;Chang, Kyungsuk;Kim, Yongwhan;Lee, Byeong-Cheon;Jeon, Young-Joo
    • International Journal of Contents
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    • v.13 no.4
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    • pp.63-69
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    • 2017
  • The objective of this study was to investigate factors that could bring about successful implementation of extensive reading using online/offline blended English library system called 'Reading Gate' in primary and secondary schools. Although there are a great number of studies on effects of various extensive reading on linguistic, cognitive, and affective development, few studies have investigated how extensive reading programs can be implemented at large scale, e.g., whole school level. After analyzing students' reading levels in 200 schools using the same online extensive reading program called Reading Gate, results showed that while some schools were successful, others were not. Five primary and 13 middle schools were selected as successful schools. Data on implementation of the program of schools was gathered. Eighteen teachers and seven headteachers took part in the interview. After analyzing these data on the implementation of the extensive reading program, results revealed that the following five factors for successful implementation of blended extensive reading programs: online level-up system, teacher intervention, integration with the curriculum, school-level support, and parents' awareness of literacy. This suggests that each factor might have contributed to the successful implementation of the extensive reading program at large scale. Implications and applications of this finding are discussed in this study.

EFL College Students' Learning Experiences during Film-based Reading Class: Focused on the Analysis of Students' Reflective Journals

  • Baek, Jiyeon
    • International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
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    • v.7 no.4
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    • pp.49-55
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    • 2019
  • In the age of information, newly produced knowledge is mostly written in English. Therefore, there has been a strong demand for English language learning in the EFL context. However, most EFL learners possess a lack of interest and motivation in the text-based reading class. In this educational context, film is one of the most widely used materials in English reading classes considering that modern learners are predominantly familiar with various audiovisual materials. The purpose of this study is to investigate how Korean EFL learners experienced in the film-based reading class. Specifically, this study aims to analyze the EFL students' perceptions about the class and learning strategies that they used during the class. In order to comprehensively interpret the EFL learners' experiences in the classroom, a coding system consisting of five categories was developed: report, emotion, reflection, evaluation, future plans. The results of data analysis showed that the use of movies in English reading classes had positive effects on reading comprehension and inference of word meaning. The most frequently used learning strategies were affective strategies which helped them control their emotion, attitude, motivations and values, whereas memorization strategies were rarely used. In this respect, this study suggests that the use of movies in the EFL reading classroom encourage students' attention and help them obtain and activate schema which is useful in gaining a better understanding of text-based reading materials.

Design and Implementation of Web based System for Improving of English Reading Ability (효과적인 영문 독해능력 향상을 위한 웹 기반 시스템 설계 및 구현)

  • 이원섭;이상희
    • Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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    • v.5 no.3
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    • pp.58-63
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    • 2000
  • Since some methodologies of using Internet on English reading have been appeared, most of them have just led students to find some articles on the Internet and translate them into their first language. However, these methodologies have been criticized in that they can not provide naturalistic environment for practical English reading. There are some problems in using Internet for practical English reading. First, the level of vocabularies and grammar of articles from the Internet has not been proved to be appropriate for students. Usually, their level is too high for most students. Second, it needs computer using ability as well as English proficiency if a student successfully finds an article which he or she wants to on the Internet in a limited time. Finally, a teacher should be trained to lead students to participate in a classroom discussion to get, appropriate gists of articles. With all these problems, it is difficult only to use articles from the Internet for successful English reading. Therefore, this study tries to find out some critical problems and solve them, and construct English reading courseware system on the Internet.

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A Comparison of Two English Reading Classes: With a Focus on Cooperative Learning

  • Suh, Jae-Suk
    • English Language & Literature Teaching
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    • v.12 no.3
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    • pp.79-98
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    • 2006
  • As one way of changing a teacher-fronted, grammar-based reading class into a meaningful, fun-creating one, this paper compared teacher- fronted reading with student-centered reading framed upon cooperative learning. In a study in which each type of reading method was conducted for college students in an EFL reading course for a period of one semester, data were gathered via questionnaires. The results showed that though each type of reading instruction came with its own strengths and weaknesses, student-centered reading instruction was preferred for various reasons. Most important, through an active participation in cooperative work, subjects were motivated and interested in L2 reading much, were exposed to various reading strategies and skills, and practiced them in a friendly, low-anxiety learning climate.

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