Using visual aids as a scaffolding for teaching efl 10th graders’ reading comprehension luận văn thạc sĩ theory and method of english language teaching

Using visual aids as a scaffolding for teaching efl 10th graders’ reading comprehension luận văn thạc sĩ theory and method of english language teachingUsing visual aids as a scaffolding for teaching efl 10th graders’ reading comprehension luận văn thạc sĩ theory and method of english language teachingUsing visual aids as a scaffolding for teaching efl 10th graders’ reading comprehension luận văn thạc sĩ theory and method of english language teachingUsing visual aids as a scaffolding for teaching efl 10th graders’ reading comprehension luận văn thạc sĩ theory and method of english language teachingUsing visual aids as a scaffolding for teaching efl 10th graders’ reading comprehension luận văn thạc sĩ theory and method of english language teachingUsing visual aids as a scaffolding for teaching efl 10th graders’ reading comprehension luận văn thạc sĩ theory and method of english language teachingUsing visual aids as a scaffolding for teaching efl 10th graders’ reading comprehension luận văn thạc sĩ theory and method of english language teachingUsing visual aids as a scaffolding for teaching efl 10th graders’ reading comprehension luận văn thạc sĩ theory and method of english language teaching

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

VINH UNIVERSITY,

NGUYEN THI HOA

USING VISUAL SCAFFOLDING STRATEGY IN TEACHING READING

TO EFL 10 GRADERS MASTER'S THESIS IN TESOL

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

VINH UNIVERSITY

NGUYEN THI HOA

USING VISUAL SCAFFOLDING STRATEGY IN TEACHING READING

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP The study titles “Using visual aids as a scaffolding for teaching EFL 10" graders?

reading comprehension” which was carried out under the guidance of Dr Tran Ba

Tien, Vinh U

versity T swear that the data presented in this study are my own research and work, and that other theoretical information is cited from clearly

documented sources, used with permission,

Nghe An, October 2022

Nguyen Thi Hoa

ABSTRACT

This study is an attempt to investigate the effect of using visual aids as a scaffolding for teaching EFL 10" graders” reading comprehension This study was carried out at

a high school in Tay Ninh, Vietnam with two groups

To achieve the aims of the study, a ten- week experiment was conducted using pretest-posttest design One group was selected as the experimental group that was taught reading comprehension using scaffolding strategies and other group was selected as the control group that was taught according to the conventional method

ie without using visual aids as a scaffolding The data were collected from pre-test

effective than the presentation teaching or the Lecture Method teaching

AL the same time, the researcher also conducted pre-experimental questionnaires to

both groups to determine the attitudes of all students towards reading skill learning After the experiment, students of both groups continued to answer the same questions, but the experimental group was asked a few more questions about the visual scaffolding method, The results show that students in the experimental group have a clear change before and after the study in reading comprehension skills Hence, it is recommended that teachers should use visual aids as a scaffolding in teaching reading

in class for the purpose of improving students’ reading comprehension,

Next, | would like to express my sincere thanks to the administers, teachers, and

students of Quang Trung High School for helping me to complete the research,

especially my sincere thanks to the two homeroom teachers and the two-class students

I collected information for my study

Finally, 1 would like to thank my husband, my family and my friends, who always cared, created favorable conditions and timely encouraged me to overcome difficulties in the process of studying and completing my research

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Table of Contents STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1, The reading process

2.1.1 Definition of reading

2.1.2 The nature of reading comprehension

2.1.3 Levels of reading comprehension

2.1.4, What makes reading comprehension difficult?

2.1.5, The reading process :

2.2 Teaching the reading skill

2.2.1 Factors affecting EFL learners’ reading ability

2.2.2 Difficulties EFL learners have when learning reading

2.3, Assessing reading ability

2.4, Visual aids

2.4.1 The definition of using visual aids

2.4.2 The effect of using visual aids

3.3.1 The general proficiency test

3.3.2 Pre-test and post-test

4.1.1 General English proficiency test results

4.1.2 The effects of using visual aids as a scaffolding on students” reading

LIST OF TABLES

Table 3 1 Topics in English 10 (Adapted from English 10) 3

‘Table 4 1 The detailed results of general English proficiency test in the two groups : the experimental group and the control group 138 Table 4 2 The general English proficiency test scores of two groups 40

Table 4 3 The mean and standard deviations of general English proficiency test of the experimental group (group A) and the control group (group B) 41 Table 4 4 The detailed results of pre-test in the two groups : the experimental

Table 4 6 The mean and standard deviations of reading comprehension scores

Table 4 7 The detailed results of post-test in the two groups : the experimental

Table 4 8 The mean and standard deviations of reading comprehen:

Table 4 9 Independent samples z-test on the post-test for both groups 50

‘Table 4 10 The detailed results about reading comprehension of pre-test and

post-test in the two groups : the experimental group and the control group 50

Table 4 11 Comparison reading comprehension scores between the two groups

on pre-test and post-test cccscssssestininnsististiatutatituenenmaasieiteenins 52

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LIST OF FIGURES Figure 4 1 Chart of the general English proficiency test scores of the

experimental group (group A) and the control group (group B) 41 Figure 4 2 Results of score ranges in reading comprehension on Pre-test by

Figure 4, 3 Results of score ranges in reading comprehension on Post-test by

Figure 4 4 Column chart of the results before and after the experiment 53 Figure 4,5 Attitudes of experimental group students towards visual aids as a

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Figure 4, 6 Attitudes of experimental group students towards visual aids as a

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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION This chapter includes five different parts : rational, aims of the study, research questions, scope of the study and design of thesis This chapter offers an overview of

the study

1.1, Rationale

First of all, we all know that the four language skills : listening, speaking, reading, and writing should be mastered by language learners to communicate effectively However, reading is regarded as the most vital one for students in the classroom

context and extracurricular environment (Grabe & Stoller, 2002) It becomes a way

to communicate among human being Humans are able to get a lot of knowledge from

reading Reading gets our mind working across different areas Reading is a neurobiological process that works out our brain muscles When we read a lot, we undoubtedly learn a lot Having a diverse set of knowledge will make us a more engaging conversationalist The knowledge from reading also helps us to speak to

of reading Reading is also a skill of how an author or a writers tries to communicate

or delivers some messages to the readers through a written text Mastering reading skill is a must for all of the students who are studying English as a foreign language

(Johnson, 2008) Comprehension processes occur in the mind; thus, making it more

difficult to offer guidance, support and practice because it is not easy to see the reader's thought Even though this is the case, research has suggested that

comprehension strategies/skills can be taught, and when taught, can develop better

processing systems that increase comprehension (e.g., Reiser, 2004; Walqui, 2006)

These comprehension skills are taught and reinforced in a number of ways When approaching a text, teachers guide students to think of the title and build ideas about

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what the text will say Teachers help their students master the habit of evoking their

ual aids or visual organizers have been widely applied

as the “scaffoldings” (Dixon-Krauss, 1996, p 19) in the classrooms as well as in the textbooks in order to stimulate the foreign language learners to further interests and attention and, at the most, to enhance the understanding and comprehension of the foreign language knowledge, its language and its culture, However, some teach:

Last but not least, the students like using technology all the time, if possible Keeping

and grasp new information and technology In Vietnam, although English is taught

as a foreign language from grade 3 to grade 12, I find that most students have

difficulty understanding English texts, T always struggle to push myself to look for a

way to help my students comprehend English texts more easily based on their vocabulary and grammar foundation With the concerns and reasons mentioned above, I hope the research will make a contribution to improving teaching and

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learning reading comprehension skill as a foreign language in my school in particular and in Vietnam in general,

1.2, Aims of study :

~ Itis hoped that the findings of this study will contribute to further understanding of

the role of using visual aids as scaffolding instruction in improving reading

comprehension If the use of scaffolding proves its effectiveness in improving English language learning, English teachers will have additional instructional techniques that can be used to support students’ learning with understanding,

- Teachers may also help their students to find their way to a more interesting and meaningful learning, and teachers may have a clearer view of their role in the classroom,

1.3 Research questions

Based on these above assumptions, the present research is an attempt to investigate the effect of using visual aids as scaffolding instruction on the achievement of Vietnamese EFL 10" graders in reading comprehension More specifically, the study attempts to answer the two following questions :

1 How does the use of visual aids as a scaffolding help students to improve 10 graders’ reading comprehension ?

2 What are the students’ attitudes towards the use of visual aids as a scaffolding? 1.4 Scope of the study

This study only focused on using experimental and control group to find more suitable ways in guiding students how to lear reading comprehension skill more effective at a high school in Tay Ninh province This study was set to investigate the

effect of using visual aids as scaffolding instruction on the achievement of

tnamese EFL 10" graders in reading comprehension

1.5 Design of thesis :

My thesis is divided into five chapters as follow

Chapter 1 : The introduction of the thesis including rational, aims of study, research

questions, scope of the study, research method and organization of the study

Chapter 2 : Review of the literature and discussing the literature related to visual scaffolding

Chapter 3: The presentation of the background information of the participants, instruments and procedure of my study

Chapter 4 : The presentation and analyzation of the data and findings

Chapter 5 : Containing the implications and suggestions of the study as well as the

limitations of the study

CHAPTER 2 : LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter will present an overview of previous research on topics relevant to this

study such as : reading process, reading comprehension, reading strategies, reading skills, teaching the reading skill, assessing reading ability, scaffolding, visual

scaffolding, and visual scaffolding strategies

2.1 The reading process

and making sense of them Each student can read on their own to expand vocabulary

and understanding, thereby helping learners speak, listen and write better Reading is therefore a highly valuable skill Any English learner should try to read and understand as many English texts as possible When reading, learners use their eyes

to pick up written symbols such as letters, punctuation and spaces At the same time,

leamers use their brains to convert them into words, sentenc

of reading comprehension According

to Harris and Hodges (1982: 266) reading comprehension is "the linguistic process

of reconstructing the intended message of a text by translating its lexical and

grammatical information into meaningful units that can be integrated with the reader's knowledge and cognitive structures.” Mastropicri and Scruggs (1997 cited

in Hoffimann.2010:18) support the idea of the importance of reading comprehension

as an academic skill which includes phonemic awareness, phonies, fluency, vocabulary, and finally comprehension Comprehension is “reading with complete understanding of the text It involves knowledge of vocabulary, understanding, of sentence structure and syntax, and ability to interpret the intentions of the writer” (Flowers,2013:online)

Another definition is given by Richards and Schmidt (2002:443) as "perceiving a written text in order to understand its contents" This understanding is called reading comprehension Reading comprehension can also be defined as the “process of simultaneously extracting and constructing meaning through interaction and involvement with written language” (RAND Study Group 2002, cited in Moore, 2005: 3) Operationally, reading comprehension is defined as the

teractive process that occurs before, during and after a person reads a particular piece of writing Chen( 2007: 7) defines reading in a foreign language as "any discomfort or fear accompanied by reading foreign language texts whether in reading proces

ing or testing” Reading is also an anxiety-provoking skill It has a great influence on both

readers’ reading comprehension performance and on strategy-use awareness

Furthermore, Phan (2006:43) states that reading is not merely a receptive process of picking up ideas from a page but the third complex skill that involves rapid, purposeful, and comprehending, as well as flexible and gradually developing interaction Reading in a foreign language is a complex skill that provokes anxiety (Zhao, 2009: 67)

Rivers (1993: 259), reading skill plays an important role in learning foreign language

It enables learners to enhance their knowledge in all fields, and not only as a means

of information and pleasurable activity Goodman ( 1967: 129 -36 ) states that reading isa psycholinguistic process in which the reader guided by the knowledge being read, reconstructs an encoded message by selecting syntactic and semantic cues as he proceeds The ability to predict or select tentatively the cues is necessary for the

ms (1985:1) argues that reading is a complex skill that consists of the

identification of letters, recognition of words, discrimination and thereby sampling of ideas, prediction of the forthcoming content, and the intention of the meaning of the text, Sikiotis, (1981:300) asserts that reading comprehension is an essential step for EFL learners

it allows learners to be in contact with the living language; besides,

has an important role in determining whether a person will succeed in mastering a foreign language or not For Brown (2001:306), reading efficiency in English as a foreign language includes two main aspects, reading speed and reading

comprehension for most second language learners who are already literate in a

language, reading comprehension is primarily a matter of developing appropriate,

information out of the written text in an efficient way depends on the understanding

of that text Chall and Stahl (2004: Int.) conceive reading as an “activity characterized

by the translation of symbols or letters into words and sentences that have meaning

to the individual” The ultimate goal of this activity is to acquire the ability of understanding written material, evaluating it, and using it for one’s own needs Most

of the definitions of reading fall into two categories The first one restricts it to the

decoding of written words into sounds and this is certainly in the carly stage of

Nunan (1991: 43) says that reading is usually conceived as a solidarity activity in which the reader interacts with the text in isolation Then, Nuttal (1996) also defines

reading is an activity to understand the message that us sent by the writer In order to

achieve that purpose, it also explained that in teaching reading, the teacher should be emphasized on the skill to help the students’ motivation, various kinds of English text

to help the students, develop their ability in reading

In summary, all the above definitions of reading comprehension cannot cover all the characteristics of reading comprehension All definitions state each linguist’s view of reading comprehension The general idea is that we cannot understand reading passages solely through the author’s words In addition, we can easily see the

relationship between reading and comprehet

ion, As foreign language teachers we

need to comprehend the nature of reading to help students learn this skill effectively

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he nature of reading comprehension

Reading and comprehension are stror ly connected; the main aim of all instructional

question by stating that comprehension is the “ability to construct meaning from a

text through decoding the writer's words and using previous knowledge about the target text to expand and modify one’s understanding and knowledge” Cripe (2011:3) states that comprehension is a skill that is significant to create a love of reading and it is usually the basis for every reading task

Comprehension is defined as the ability to understand something or gaining meaning from a text On the other hand, reading comprehension is defined by Wigfield and Lutz (2005:45) as "the process involved in deriving or constructing meaning from a text" Reading comprehension primarily involves cognitive processes Phongsatha (2008:18) considers reading comprehension as a holistic process of grasping meaning

from written text through the interaction of 1) the reader's knowledge, 2) the reader's

ability to explain the written text, and 3) the situation in which the text is read

2.1.3 Levels of reading comprehension

Levels of reading comprehension is a skill that requires readers to use their mental process which means that the reader extracts the meaning through what he reads and gets the main idea at different levels of comprehension

Smith (1969) in Reid (1981:457) divide comprehension into four levels of skills: literal, interpretative, critical and creative These four levels correlate with the classes

of cognitive (intellectual) behaviors identified Bloom (196

“analysis” and “evaluation” to the critical level; and “synthesis” to the creative level

According to Heilman et.al (1981:246) identifies the following comprehension skill

levels: 1) Literal Level This level is the simplest level It means that what the reader needs to do is to reproduce the fact as they are related by the writer At this level, Questions are factual and detailed, The skills needed for this level are nothing factual

data, sequence, chronology, and enumeration Sample phrases or questions for thi

level are as follows

various relationships such as cause effect and relation of the part to the whole, to

make comparison, to draw conclusion and inference and to make generalizations

~ What you can conclude

The abilities which refers to the interpretive level are: - Reasoning with the information presented to understand the writer's tone, purpose and attitude - Inferring

factual information, main ideas, comparison, cause-effect relationships not explicitly

stated in the text 3) Critical Level At this level, the students learn to evaluate and judge the information and the writer’s use of language for guiding the reader's interpretation; noting evidence of the writer’s bias, his qualifications, his point of view, intent and truthfulness Sample phrases or questions for critical evel are as follows:

~ Judge

~ What would be the result of

- How would you describe

The abilities which refers to the critical level are: - Reacting to information in a text indicating its meaning to the reader - Analyzing and evaluating the quality of written nformation in terms of some standards 4) Creative Level This level requires the

reader’s involvement with the information presented as he uses it to formulate or rethink ideas of his own Question at this level might consist of open-ended queries which require the reader to include his own knowledge, view, and value, Sample

phrases or questions for this level are as follows :

~ What would you đo iF

~ Make up

~ What does the text tell you about

The abilities that refer to the creative level are: - Knowledge of emotional response

of literary techniques - Knowledge of response of forms, style and structures In short,

Although it is evident that reading comprehension includes many different operations

and that difficulty in reading comprehension can be an outcome of various

weaknesses, it is not quite explicit where these difficulties may originate from There may be various reasons resulting in deficient reading comprehension Kaschak ct al., (2009:22) attribute the cause of reading comprehension difficulties to individual differences among learners in comprehension skills; for example, how quickly they

learn to read, how readily they comprehend what they read and how easy it is for them to hunt the information, Difficulties with reading comprehension have also been attributed to a range of clinical disorders such as early-onset "hydrocephalus" which

is a common human neurological abnormality and causes a problem with the flow of the fluid that surrounds the brain leading to change in memory or the ability to reason

or think

Dehn (2008:38) states that there is a “relationship between reading comprehension and working memory Reading comprehension and learning through reading depends both on working memory and on long-term memory These require different structures of memory which can affect reading comprehension in different ways The

working memory affects the ability to preserve information in the mind at a given moment and subsequently activates long-term memory during reading, Problems with the working memory hinder essentially the processing of long sentence

constructions and, through that, their understanding Problems and deficits in long-

handling of information and plays a significant role in complex cognition such as

language comprehension, learning, and reasoning”

2.1.5 The reading process :

Reading is a process that includes three phases: before reading, during reading and

after reading, In the before-reading phase, the reader establishes in his or her mind a

purpose and a plan for reading Then, the reader begins to read the written text—the

during-reading phase While he or she reads, the reader will think about the purpose

for reading and about his or her prior knowledge This may occur during short pauses taken while reading Finally, the after-reading phase of the process occurs when the reader finishes reading the written text The reader takes time to think about what he

or she knew before the reading and what he or she learned or connected with during

the reading, and then he or she links this information together to build new knowledge Throughout the reading process, but specifically in the during-reading phase, reading strategies can be useful to improve comprehension

‘The chart below gives some examples of specific activities that may help a reader

during the three phases of the reading process

what you knew before -Why are you read this | ¢ Pause and think about % reading, what you learned

$ Make a plan

-How will you read this

text (independently, with

-Use active reading knowledge by combining

you leamed -Reread

-Do T understand? opinions

@ Visualize

2.2 Teaching the reading skill

2.2.1 Factors affecting EFL learners’ reading ability

Reading is an essential skill that every English learner should master Learners read reading passages for various purposes from find information to enjoyment It assists

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EFL leamers to be familiar with the subjects of their majors and improve their language knowledge as well as their knowledge Lightbown & Spada (1999) stated that “Many of us believe that learners have certain characteristics which lead to more

or less successful language learning”, The subjective factors and the objective ones can affect EFL learners Nunan (1998) suggested learners’ factors as: background knowledge, attitude and motivation, learning strategies, reading materials and teaching strategies

a The subjective factors

* Background knowledge:

Background knowledge plays an important role in reading ability Students make great effort to apprehend a text and they depend on their background knowledge to link what they have already known to the meaning of the text they are reading The influential role of background knowledge on reading ability is actually unveiled as early as children’s beginning years Bauer and Fivush (1992, p 549) determine that even very young children develop schematic representation for repeated events in their lives such as having dinner at home, celebrating anniverasies at home or at a restaurant, celebrating birthday, making cakes, ete Such knowledge enables them to

draw inferences from bedtime stories relying on information accumulated in their schemata Therefore, the more abundant the knowledge a child acquires form outside world through experiences and from stories or newspapers, the larger his schematic knowledge tends to be, and the more successful will be his processing of text when

he reads

* Attitude and motivation:

Attitude and motivation factors play a vital role in EFL learner's reading ability

Gardner and Lambert (1972) indicate that affective factors, including attitude and

motivation, have statistically independent and significant relationship with foreign language learning achievement, Attitude and motivation have a close relationship, “A leamer’s attitudes affect the development of motivation” (Spolsky, 1989, p 23)

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Before understanding about the learners’ motivation, the attitude should be made clear

According to Richards, Platt and Platt (1993, p.199), “Learners” attitude may have great an effect on foreign language learning The measurement of language attitudes

opinion about the reference” In practical term, an attitude is a construct derived from

a subject’s answers to a number of questions about an object Its establishment is subject to all the normal worries of the validity of the instrument used and the

subject’s answers to the questions

Attitudes do not have direct influence on learning but they lead to motivation which

refers the combination of effort plus desire to achieve the goal of leaning language Students motivation “refers to a student's willingnes need, desire and compulsion

to participate in, and be successful in, the learning process” (Bomia et al., 1997)

The definition of student’s motivation is developed by Skinner and Belmont (1991)

that “select tasks at the border their competences, initiate action when given the opportunity, and exert intense effort and concentration in the implementation of learning tasks; they show generally positive emotions during ongoing action, including enthusiasm, optimism, and interest”,

Students

motivation is very important in developing good reading If students find the material monotonous, they will have a lot of problems in concentrating on their comprehension, no matter how good teacher, curriculum or school is, EFL teacher

should motivate their students through providing interesting materials during their class time,

* Learning strategie

Successful FL learners are usually people who know how to manipulate strategy

levels in their day-to-day encounters with the language

Learning strategies, according to Spolsky (1998, p 108), are term to describe identifiable individual approaches to learning situation

Specially, Kneefe (qld in Spolsky, 1998, p 108) defines learning strategies as

“cognitive and physiological traits that are relatively stable indications of how

learners perceive, interact with, and response to the learning environment”

William & Burden (1997, p 145) add “A learning s

Metacognitive strategies: involve planning for learning, thinking about learning and how to make it effective, self-monitoring during learning and evaluation of how successful leaning has been,

Communication strategies: when learners use gesture, mine, synonym, paraphrases, and cognate words from their first language to make themselves understood and or to maintain conversation, despite the gaps in the knowledge of the second language, they are using communication strategies

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Socio-affective strategies: provides the leamers with the opportunities for practice

b The objective factors

knowledge which plays an essential role in reading comprehension They effort to

apprehend a text and they depend on their background knowledge to link what they have already known to the meaning of the text they are reading The influential role

of background knowledge on reading comprehension is actually unveiled as early as

children’s beginning years Bauer and Fivush (1992: in Pressley, 2000, p 549)

determine that even very young children develop schematic representation for repeated events in their lives such as having dinner at home or at a restaurant, celebrating birthday, making cakes, ete Such knowledge enables them to draw inferences from bedtime stories relying on information accumulated in their schemata, Therefore, the more abundant the knowledge a child acquires form outside

world through experiences and from stories or newspapers, the larger his schematic

in the classroom, presenting work in an interesting and motivating way, providing

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conditions so students understand the work, making clear what people are to do and

ficulties,

achieve, judging what can be expected of a student, helping students with

encouraging students to raise their expectations of themselves, developing personal, mature relationship with students, demonstrating personal talents or knowledge, Mahon (1996, p 98-99) states that the teacher is the most important element in a reading class, for her attitude influences on students and their performance As Nuttal (2000, p 32-33) lists that the teacher plays a numerous roles such as choosing a

reading texts, desig

Anderson.2003 and Hedge.2003 cited in To et al., (2006:153154) also point out that g tasks, facilitating reading process and monitoring process the teacher is responsible for exploiting student’s knowledge; building a strong

‘The first difficulty is about vocabulary- word decoding inefficiently Decoding skill can place a constraint on reading comprehension A specific form of this hypothesis was proposed by Perfetti (1985) who claimed that when decoding is slow and effortful, resources are dedicate to word- level processing By contrast, when

decoding is automatic, resources are available for the task of comprehension In line with Perfetti’s “verbal efficiency” hypothesis, evidence demonstrates that reading comprehension is comprised when decoding is poor The relationship between decoding efficiency and reading comprehension is maintained overtime, and measurements of non-word reading taken in early childhood predict later variations

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in reading comprehension measured in secondary school years and adult (Bruck,

1990; Perfetti, 1985) In fact, decoding word is poor the comprehension process will be inefficient, That was one of the most out- standing difficulties for learners when they lear reading comprehension As their vocabulary was not rich, thus, the decoding process was low

‘The second difficulty is the lack of lingui

ic knowledge According to Yorio (1971,

p 108), reading problems of foreign language learners are due largely to imperfect knowledge of the target language and to mother tongue interference in the reading process, In his view, reading involves four factors: knowledge of the language, ability

to predict or guess in order to make the correct choice, ability to remember the previous cues, and the ability to make the necessary associations between the

ed

different cues that have been selected Therefore, the leaers with the

knowledge of the target language might have a considerable di

in the target language Clarke (1980) and Alderson (1984) share this view They iculty when reading acknowledge that a lack of appropriate linguistic knowledge constrains the transfer

of reading skills and strategies from L1 to L2

Apart from word decoding inefficiently and linguistic knowledge problems, cultural background knowledge also affects EFL learners’ reading ability as culture plays

central role for many topics And that comprehension of culturally unfamiliar text is

more difficult than comprehension of a culturally familiar text, because readers, facing up with unfamiliar cultural context, may mistranslate or misinterpret the text according to their own cultural experience

For the text structure, the impact of culture is less outwardly evident but apparently still present They will greatly affect the reader’s comprehension Sometimes, the implicit cultural knowledge presupposed by a text or from different assumption about meaning and comprehension held by the writer also causes the difficulty to the readers,

In conclusion, reading difficulties may be caused by a number of other factors Whatever kind of problems are, they are various in the reading process in a foreign

language and great efforts must be made to overcome them

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23 Assessing reading

Grabe, (2004b); Harris & Hodges, (1995); Kuhn & Stahl, (2003); LaBerge & Samuels, (1974b); Rasinski, et al., (2006); Richards, (2000); Tompkins, (2003); Worthy & Broadus, (2001-2002) reached the well-known agreement that

the other hand, involves not only automatic word identification but also the

application of appropriate prosodic features (rhythm, intonation, and phrasing) at the phrase, sentence, and text levels Wood, Flowers, and Grigorenko (2001) emphasize that fluency also involves anticipation of what will come next in the text and that speeded practice alone is not sufficient, Anticipation facilitates reaction time and is paniculady important — for comprehension

As EFL teachers, we are aware that the primary objective of reading is comprehension-being able to find meaning in what is read Thus, we give our students reading assessments in order to test their reading abilities When we are

preparing these assessments, we may go through some of the following:

-We make sure that the language used in the text is suitably pitched to our

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selecting one out of a number of choices Alderson (2000) also said that this technique

enables test constructors to check the selection of probable responds to

comprehension questions and in some degree to check the test taker's thinking step

when they answer Multiple choice questions technique is a well known procedure

for assessing reader”s text processing abilities To answer multiple choice question

technique, students can only make resource (o their past experience, knowledge and

Additionally, the cloze procedure was widely used during the 1970’s as an assessment tool of both language and reading abilities According to Aitken (1977), cloze tes

assessing technique as a test in which content words are removed from the passage and test takers have to find the correct word for every gap

Alderson (2000, p 215) notes that matching technique can be defined as a test

in which “two sets of stimuli” have to be paired against each other He exemplifies this technique with “matching headings for paragraphs to their corresponding

paragraph and titles of books against extracts from each book” In this type of tests, students are required to match a number of items that combines well with s me others, For instance, they are required to link titles or main ideas with their relevant

paragraph Specially, more items than needed for the matching activity to make sure

that learner’ choices are made afier alternative processing (Alderson, 2000, p 219) Alderson (2000) explained that “ordering task is a mixed group of words,

sentences, paragraphs or passages is provided to the test takers and these words or

phrases, etc are placed into the correct order by the test takers Comprehending text

completely is significant to order the items correctly” He points out that even if ordering tasks are charming in the aspect of tester because of accessing the ability to find cohesion, complete passage, or grammar Ordering task is one of the hardest tests

to design and establish,

‘Truc/ false question is considered as a test in which the test takers are given with

an explanation which is relevant with a target passage and they have to show

test to create True/ false questions technique involves students in selecting one item

out of two to provide answers to questions This method is criticized for its high

probability of providing right answers only by guessing at them,

Another assessment of reading ability is short answer test Short answer test is

det

ed by Alderson (2000) that “a test in which the students are clearly asked a question which enforces a short answer including a few words” Weir (2005) states that this technique generally necessitates the test takers to write down responds and these responds should be written with a limited number of words This technique allows for the construction of how well readers have comprehended script better than multiple choice questions technique do The favorable way to finish this is obviously

to pilot them before the actual use.

2.4 Visual aids

2.4.1 The definition of using visual aids

Using visual aids such as pictures, posters, posteards, word calendars, charts, graphic organizers, picture books, television, videos from iTunes, and computers can help students easily understand and realize the main points that they have learned in the classroom For each visual aid, students have different responses and expressions

because of their different educational and cultural background Using visual aids can

help students understand the deep meaning of a topic and realize similarities and differences between cach topic

In second language learning, using visual aids is an essential teaching strategy in the

English as Second Language classroom and English as Foreign Language classroom

Most foreign language research has recognized that memorizing language forms and words is a very ineffective strategy for learning a target language In the EFL classroom, using visual aids can help students to strengthen and reinforce what they

have learned The reason may be that they allow students to absorb the information

through an additional sensory perception

2.4.2 The effect of using visual aids

I believe that if teachers use visual aids regularly, students will expect to learn the

next language topic by using visual aids, because each visual aid for them is an interesting learning tool Facilitating an interesting learning environment can enhance students’ English abilities and this is a major goal for EFL teachers EFL teachers

should be aware of various language strategies they can use to teach students, as well

str

as how to apply effective and varie ion in class In order to achieve this goal, the author believes that using various visual aids should be applied in the EFL classroom to improve students’ English ability Using visual aids can not only stimulate students’ learning interest, but students can also interact with these visual aids, and can relate them to their past experience or their daily life experience

Moreover, using visual aids can not only develop students’ literacy abilities, but also can develop their oral ability Visual aids allow students to have a chance to brainstorm and present their ideas or thoughts They can create their own stories in which there are no right or wrong answers Furthermore, they also can participate in

group work such as paired reading or small group activity They will have the

opportunities to create their own stories that depend on their background experience

In group work, they can discuss the similarities and the differences between each person’s interpretations of a picture, Using visual aids makes the materials more “user

friendly”

Visual aids help teachers’ presentations and objectives by placing emphasis on whatever is being taught Clear visual aids multiply the learners’ level of understanding of the material presented, and they can send clear messages and clarify points from teachers Moreover, visual aids can involve the audience by providing a

change from one activity to another, and from hearing to seeing In addition, learners

are more fascinated by gestures and movement in the classroom Additionally, visual

a

is because each student has a different cultural background and past experience

Therefore, one picture can be presented and internalized by different people in different ways Furthermore, using visual aids can increase the learners’ understanding and retention level ESL learners can benefit when teachers give them opportunities to move beyond their stylistic comfort zone through the use of visual aids However, they may feel uncomfortable initially Whereas, visual learners can benefit from visual stimuli such as pictures, books, videos, charts, posters, and so on

because they benefit from being shown rather than told, while analytic learners can

benefit from these activities that involve understanding and improve their accuracy

z4

Scaffolding

2.5.1 The definition of scaffolding

As everyone knows, scaffolding is placed around the outside of buildings by builders

so that builders can access the part of the building to be built, When the building can

stand on its own, the builders will remove the scaffolding From that fact, linguists have used metaphors to mention scaffolding as teaching strategies Teachers should provide the necessary support when students need to explore new understanding, new concepts, and new abilities, As students gain skills which the teacher wants to teach, similar to the builders, teachers will withdraw that support Such scaffolding support

is then provided by the teacher for tasks, understanding, and concepts that are new or need to be expanded

While the metaphor has some obvious limitations, scaffolding is a term that resonates

with teachers, Over the years, it has been used with great enthusiasm although

sometimes used loosely to refer to different things Its popularity suggests that it

captures something that teachers say is at the heart of effective teaching Another way

to interpret the metaphor is that the temporary scaffolding structure helps people to

do work they would not be able to do without that support structure Mercer (1994)

suggests that teachers find the concept of scaffolding appealing because it resonates

with their intuitive conceptions of what it means to intervene successfully in students? learning

Scaffolding can be defined as “the process that enables a child or novice to solve a problem, carry out a task, or achieve a goal which would be beyond his unassisted efforts” (Wood, Bruner, $ Ross, 1976, p.90) In terms of this definition to implement the scaffolding, the teachers divided the task into manageable chunks and directed the leamer’s attention to the relevant and necessary features In addition, these teachers demonstrated and modeled successful implementation, while keeping the task at an appropriate level of difficulty In this way, the teacher assisted through an

intervention that was tailored to the requirements of the task and determined by the

learner's ability to complete at task

Scaffolding has also been defined as a strategy which involves supporting learners by limiting the complexities of the learning content In her paper (Dabbagh, 2003) cites definitions of scaffolding provided in (Young, 1993) — “Scaffolding involves supporting novice learners by limiting the complexities of the learning context and gradually removing those limits (a concept known as fading) as leamers gain the knowledge, skills and confidence to cope with the full complexity of the context”;

achieve a goal which would be beyond his unassisted efforts” (p.90)

2.5.2 The types of scaffolding

According to Walqui (2006), there are six main types of scaffolding in teaching English: (1) Modeling where the teacher uses verbal explanations and body language

as he/she elaborates and demonstrates the new material; (2) bridging where students activate prior knowledge This helps create a personal link between the student and the subject matter; (3) contextualizing which can be offered in various forms; (4) schema building that can be defined as clusters of meaning that are organized and interconnected; (5) representing the text can be one of the ways to encourage students

to start the appropriation of new language; and (6) developing metacognition that

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refers to learners’ awareness of their own knowledge and their ability to understand, control and monitor their level of understanding and manage their thinking process

in order to decide when it is adequate

(Wood et al., 1976) [as cited in (Stone, 1998)] identified six types of assistance that

an adult tutor could provide to scaffold learning: (a) recruitment of children’s interest,

(b) reduction in degrees of freedom, (c) maintaining goal orientation, (d) highlighting

critical task features, (ec) controlling frustration, and (f) demonstrating idealized

to note that this list includes (a) perceptual components (e.g highlighting critical task

features), (b) cognitive components (e.g reduction in degrees of freedom), and (c)

affective components (.g, controlling frustration).”

2.5.3 Origins of seaffolding metaphor

The origins of the scaffolding metaphor lic in the social constructivist theoretical

tradition Scaffolding has clear connections with Vygotsky's idea of Zone of Proximal Development According to (Bull et al., 1999), “When in the zone of proximal development for a particular skill or a piece of information, a learner is ready to learn but lacks certain prerequisites Scaffolding is an interactive process in

which a teacher or facilitator assists such a learner to build a ‘structure’ to contain

and frame the new information” (p 240) (Stone, 1998) has pointed out that

“Although the initial use of the scaffolding metaphor was largely pragmatic and a theoretical, in subsequent discussion it was increasingly linked with Vygotsky's

(1962, 1978) developmental theory The implicit link between Vygotsky’s ZPD

and the scaffolding metaphor was first made explicit by Cazden (1979)” (p 345)

2.5.4 Scaffolding and Cognitive Theory

Cognitive theory looks at understanding as b

ing determined by the previous

experiences of the leamer, his past knowledge and the ways in which this information

le how new information will be

has been stored (memory structures determi

assimilated or represented), (Bull et al., 1999) have related understanding with

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scaffolding as such “To be able to learn from particular information, a learner must have sufficient background knowledge to be able, with help, to start to process the

new information into personal knowledg

-When scaffolding is necessary, the

teacher should try to minit

ize the cognitive load by setting the environment conditions so that the student can both recall and use information that he/she already knows to perform most of the task (tie the new material to the old) Therefore the

student has only to lear a limited amount of new information to be successful” (p 242)

2.6 Visual seaffolding

2.6.1 The introduction of visual scaffolding

Much research has been done on the role of pictures in text Pictures can help learning

by establishing a setting, cont ›uting to text's coherence and reinforcing the text

tudent learning from text by making

it text more concentrated, compact/concise, concrete, coherent, comprehensible, correspondent, and codable

(Cuevas, Fiore, & Oser, 2002) have studied how instructional strategies (such as use

of diagrams in instruction) in complex task training environments can be used to seaffold learners’ cognitive and metacognitive processes, especially for low ability learners Their findings suggest that incorporating diagrams into training facilitated performance on measures of integrative knowledge (they found no significant effect

on measures of declarative knowledge) They write “Diagrams additionally facilitated the development of accurate mental models and significantly improved the instructional efficiency of the training Finally diagrams effectively scaffold

participants’ metacognition, improving their meta comprehension accuracy (ie their ability to actually monitor their comprehension)” (p 433) “There are several theories that elucidate why inclusion of illustrations, such as pictures and diagrams leads to

better understanding of the presented material and improved retention

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and application of its concepts, One theory suggests that diagrams repeat the information in the text Another interpretation of pos

ve effects of diagrams attributes improved learning to dual coding of the information in memory Paivio (1971) proposed that verbal and nonverbal (i.e., visual/ spatial) information are processed in separate, functionally distinct, although interconnected, long term

ted” (p 434)

retrieval from memory should be faci

According to (Cuevas et al., 2002) diagrams increase the efficiency of the learner’s

information processing by decreasing the cognitive load, “Well-designed

instructional programs would be expected to increase the efficiency of the learner's

information processing, so that fewer cognitive resources are required for task

performance after training (Paas & Van Merrienboer, 1993) Within the context of

the mental model approach we propose that diagrams may reduce the cognitive load

on working memory and attention associated with complex tasks by making structural

relations clearer and more transparent (Marcus et al., 1996) Thus, incorporating

diagrams into the training would be expected to result in higher instructional efficiency (Le., higher performance will be achieved with less mental effort exerted.)” (p 437)

(Cuevas et al., 2002) have suggested the Metal model theory as a theory for why diagrams are so effective in instruction In the Metal model theory thinking is considered equivalent to manipulating internal representations stored in the mind

According to (Cuevas et al., 2002), diagrams may serve to scaffold the development,

of mental models.

2.6.3 Visual scaffolding strategi

Tn her paper (Butler, 1998) describes how the scaffolding metaphor is used in

Strategic Content Learning, an instructional approach that promote strategic learning

in students with learning disabilities She writes, “The scaffolding metaphor has made

significant contributions to our understanding of the characteristics of effective instruction, Those contributions include an emphasis on important instructional characteristics: (a) support should be flexibly calibrated to meet students’ needs; (b) support should be either increased or faded depending on how independently students regulate their learning; (c) support should be provided in the context of a meaningful task; (d) support is best provided by means of interactive dialogues conducted during, collaborative problem solving; and (e) rather than breaking tasks into subskills, support should be provided for subskills as they occur in the context of meaningful tasks

(Hannafin, Hannafin, Land, & Oliver, 1997) have proposed a model of scaffolding in open-ended learning environments They delineate four categories of scaffolds: (a) Conceptual scaffolding (helps s

judents determine what to consider when solving a problem), (b) Metacognitive scaffolding (supports the underlying processes associated with individual learning management) (¢) Procedural scaffolding (helps

learners by providing hints on how to utilize available resources and tools), and (đ)

Strategic scaffolding (provides support for how to utilize strategi

Based on the 1976 article by (Wood et al., 1976), (Pea & Mills, 2004) has de:

the processes by which scaffolding is “functioned” for the learner: “1, Channeling

ibed and focusing: Reducing the degrees of freedom for the task at hand by providing

constraints that inerease the likelihood of the learner’ effective action; recruiting and focusing attention of the learner by marking relevant task features (in what is otherwise a complex stimulus field), with the result of maintaining direetedness of the learer’s activity toward task achievement, 2 Modeling: Modeling more advanced solutions to the task.” (pg 432)

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