NAME : DWI RATNA INDRIANI
CLASS : TBI-6b
NIM : 3213103055
QUANTITATIVE RESEACRH
Title of the article: The Effect of Assisted RR on Fluency and
Comprehension in Chinese FL Classrooms
Name of the author (s): Huifen Chen and Ding Ying
Name of Journal: The Asian EFL Journal Quarterly December 2009 Volume
11, Issue 4
Background of the study
Though
there is no general consensus as to the definition of reading fluency, fluency
is often referred to as learners' ability to automatically recognize an
increasing number of words and phrases, which is a necessary step to
comprehension of texts (Grabe, 1991; Paran, 1996; Perfetti, Van Dyke, and Hart,
2001). As reading rate and automaticity of word recognition are two most important
components of reading fluency, we often use reading rate for reading fluency.
In
Chinese FL classrooms, that whenever they read, many learners would read word
for word slowly. As a result, they not only fail to achieve appropriate
comprehension but also fail to develop interest in reading in English.
Therefore,
more efficient ways of improving learners‘reading fluency need to be developed
in Chinese FL classroom. While Extensive Reading (ER) which is quite popular in
Chinese College English classrooms has long been thought to be a useful
approach to increasing L2/FL learners' reading fluency, assisted Repeated
Reading(RR) is rather a new instructional approach in FL reading contexts in
China. The main objective of the present study is to find out whether and how
an assisted repeated reading model enhances Chinese College English learners
‘reading fluency and consequently improve their reading comprehension.
Research Problem (s)
1. Is
RR effective for developing reading fluency of Chinese college students?
2. Is
RR also effective for improving reading comprehension of Chinese college
students?
3. Is
RR model more effective than the traditional ER model in developing reading
fluency and comprehension of Chinese college students?
4. Is
RR model as helpful to the weaker readers as to the stronger readers?
5. How
do Chinese college students perceive the effectiveness of RR?
Method
§ Research Design
The method of the research is experiment. The study
was aimed to revealing and describing the effectiveness of assisted RR on fluency and comprehension in Chinese FL
classrooms. The design of this research is a true experiment design with
pre-test and post-test procedure.
§ Participants
The
participants were 90 first-year Chinese students in Nanjing University of
Finance And Economics, who were from 3 classes from the school of Food Science
and Engineering. We called the 3 classes Group 1(G1), Group 2(G2) and Group
3(G3). As part of their academic program, they had four 45-minute English
lessons a week designed to improve reading, writing, speaking and listening,
and grammar. The participant ranged in age from 18-20 years old; in each group,
there are 18, 17, 15 females and 12, 13, 15 males.
§ Research instruments
Pretest and posttest
The pretest and the post-test respectively comprise
two sections, Section 1 and Section 2. Both Section 1s include: Reading
Comprehension, Vocabulary and Structure, and Cloze. And Section 2s comprise one
passage for fast reading as well as four passages for careful reading
comprehension.
§ Procedures
The
two programs were conducted from October, 2005 to the end of May, 2006, with one-month
interval of winter holidays between two semesters, totally twenty-five sessions.
As part of their academic program, the freshmen had four regularly scheduled periods
of English class a week (totally three hours). Every week, about one hour was spent
on the program for all the groups.
Before the RR and the ER treatments began, the
author introduced the program in details to the students, and some reading
skills and positive reading habits, especially for fast reading were also
introduced to the students of all groups. Both of the RR program and the ER
program were carried out by the same teacher in the hope that the procedures
are observed consistently.
§ Data Analysis
In this study, SPSS13.0 was
used to analyze the data statistically, including Independent-Samples T Test,
Paired-Samples T Test.
Research Finding
The experimental groups and the control
group were chosen based on the results of a pretest, which shows that G1 and G3
were comparable, because their mean scores on the pretest total were 55.32 and
56.35 respectively, while on the pretest reading subtest (the reading
comprehension parts of the test) were 56.53 and 56.80 and their WPM averages
147.29 and 159.82 respectively. To ensure that G1 and G3 participants were not
statistically different at the outset of the treatments, the
Independent-Samples T tests were applied to their scores on the pretest total,
pretest reading subtest, as well as to their pretest WPM averages.
There were no significant differences
between G1 and G3 on any of the measures at p = 0.665, 0.937, 0.288
>0.05. Therefore, we considered G1 as the experimental group, G3 the control
group. The results also indicate that G2 had lower scores than the other two
groups in the pretest, with the mean score of the pretest total being 51.13,
the pretest reading subtest 49.50 and the WPM average 130.94. A comparison of
the scores on the pretest total, pretest
reading subtest and the pretest WPM between G2 and G3, we found a significant
difference at p = 0.018, 0.016, 0.006 < 0.05. Therefore we regard G2 as
comparatively weaker readers.
Discussion
About the development of
reading fluency
It can be seen from table 2 and 3 that both RR groups‘ reading
speed on the initial reading of the last session (the 25th) and on the
post-test is significantly higher than on the initial reading of the first
session and on the pretest, which strongly supports the previous findings that
RR is effective in increasing fluency gains not only within each session but
also over the whole RR treatment.
Though the difference in
reading speed between G2 and G3 on the post-test is not significant, but if we
take their significant difference on the pretest into consideration, we feel
justified to believe that the two RR groups‘fluency gains over the RR treatment
are significantly greater than the control group over the ER treatment,which
does not conform with Taguchi, Takayasu-Maass & Gorsuch (2004)‘s finding
that RR is as effective as ER in developing reading fluency.
About the development of
reading comprehension
From the pretest to the post-test, the average comprehension
scores of G1 and G2 increased, and the comparison of their comprehension gains
on the pre-test with those on the post-test shows great significance, which
suggests that RR is effective in improving the reading comprehension of Chinese
college students.
However, as our study is more conclusive than Taguchi and
Gorsuch‘s concerning the RR groups‘ improvement in reading comprehension, at
least based on the results of within-group analysis, it is necessary for us to
look into some of the possible factors that might have led to the difference in
our findings.
RR for weaker readers
With the precondition that G2 got much lower scores on the pretest
WPM and comprehension than G3 did, while on the post-test the difference was
not statistically significant, the effects of improving reading fluency and
comprehension RR treatment has worked on the relatively weaker group is evident
About participants' view of
the effectiveness of the RR treatment
As for the effectiveness of repetition, most participants believe
that repetition enables them to read faster and comprehend better. Their
extemporaneous comments are that reading a familiar passage not only saves their
attention resources so that they can read faster within each session but also
facilitates and enhances their understanding of new linguistic forms and
unfamiliar content so that they are better equipped for the next session, and
consequently they feel more and more motivated and confident to read.
In terms of the effectiveness of timing, the RR
participants‘attitude is very contradictory.
As for the input, most participants think the materials used for reading
passages over the sessions deal with a variety of topics and are fit for their
English level and background knowledge.
Conclusion
Based on the results of the present
experiment, it can be concluded that an RR model can play an effective role in
developing learners ‘reading fluency and comprehension in Chinese FL
classrooms. Furthermore, we tend to believe that the degree of the effectiveness
of RR may be influenced by the elements involved in the RR model such as the
times of repetition and transfer to new passages, the kind of input and the number
of sessions.
Firstly, the appropriate times of
repetition and transfer may be responsible for the possibility that adequate
transfers may help the readers to adapt to new passages faster and better while
too many repetitions may cause the readers to feel bored. Secondly, reading is
an interaction between readers and texts, so text factors such as language,
rhetorical devices, text types and culture will affect readers ‘comprehension.
Suggestion
The present study is not mature enough in that the significant difference
of the fluency and comprehension gains between the experimental groups and the
control group might not entirely result from the application of different
treatments; there may be other factors that we are unaware of. Besides, we do
not have other efficient way to record the WPM for each reading.
In all, this study has revealed to us that the Assisted RR model
is an efficient solution to our concern that many Chinese College English
students cannot read fluently mainly due to poor word recognition. In addition,
the RR treatment is applicable because it is convenient for the teachers to
design and operate in class. And we suggest that RR treatment is best suitable
for first-year College English students, who often complain about their reading
speed and tend to follow teachers‘direction strictly in the treatment, which is
important for the effectiveness of the training.
Comment.
