Effects of Pre-Reading Activities on EFL Reading Comprehension by Moroccan College Students

Redouane Madaoui

Abstract


This study investigated the effects of two pre-reading activities (class discussion and vocabulary definitions) and a control condition on the reading comprehension of 57 Moroccan college freshmen. It also investigated the differential facilitative effect of the two pre-reading activities on the students’ comprehension. Each student read an expository text under one of the three conditions and immediately afterwards answered a 9-item short-answer test designed to measure comprehension of the text. A one-way ANOVA and a post-hoc comparison test were applied to the results. This revealed that the two pre-reading activities produced significantly higher comprehension scores than the control condition. Vocabulary definitions activity resulted in increased comprehension compared with the control condition, but was significantly less effective than the class discussion activity. Results of the study were interpreted in relation to the schema-theoretic view of the reading process, and to their implications for EFL reading instruction.

Key words: Pre-reading activities; Activating background knowledge; Reading comprehension


Keywords


Pre-reading activities; Activating background knowledge; Reading comprehension

Full Text:

PDF

References


Anderson, R. C., & Pearson, P. D. (1984). A Schema-Theoretic View of Basic Processes in Reading Comprehension. In P. D. Pearson (Ed.), Handbook of reading research (pp. 37-55). New York: Longman.

Anderson, R. C., Reynolds, R. E., Schallert, D. L., & Goetz, E. T. (1977). Frameworks for Comprehending Discourse. American Educational Research Journal, 14, 367-381.

Beck, I. L., Perfetti, C. A., & McKeown, M. G. (1982). Effects of Long-Term Vocabulary Instruction on Lexical Access and Reading Comprehension. Journal of Educational Psychology, 74, 506-21.

Bernhardt, E, B. (1984). Towards an Information Processing Perspective in Foreign Language Reading. Modern Lnaguage Journal, 68, 322-331

Bransford, J. D., & Johnson, M. K. (1972). Contextual Prerequisites for Understanding: some Investigations of Comprehension and Recall. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 11, 717-726.

Carlo, M., August, D., McLaughlin, B., Snow, C., Dressler, C., Lippman, D., Lively, T. J., & White, C. E. (2004). Closing the gap: Addressing the Vocabulary Needs of English-Language Learners in Bilingual and Mainstream Classrooms. Reading Research Quarterly, 39,188-215.

Carrell, P. L. (1983). Three Components of Background Knowledge in Reading Comprehension. Language Learning, 33, 183-207.

Carrell, P.L. (1984). Schema Theory and ESL Reading: Classroom Implications and Applications. The Modern Language Journal, 68, 332-343

Carrell, P. L. (1988). Interactive Text Processing: Implications for ESL/Second Language Reading Classroom. In P. L. Carrell, J. Devine, & D. Eskey (Eds.), Interactive approaches to second language reading (pp. 239-259). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Carrell, P. L., & Eisterhold, J. C. (1983). Schema Theory and ESL Reading Pedagogy. TESOL Quarterly, 17, 553-573.

Carrell, P.L., & Wallace, B. (1983). Background Knowledge: Context and Familiarity in Reading Comprehension. In M. A Clarke & J. Handscombe (Eds.), On TESOL’ 82 (pp. 295-308). Washinghton, DC: TESOL.

Colman, A. M. (1995). Introduction. In A. M. Colman (ed.), Psychological Research Methods and Statistics (pp. xi-xvi). London and New York: Longman.

Davis, Z. T. (1994). Effects of prereading story mapping on elementary readers’ comprehension. Journal of Educational Research, 87, 353-360.

Floyd, P., & Carrell, P. L. (1987). Effects on ESL Reading of Teaching Cultural Content Schemata. Language Learning, 37, 89-109.

Gebhard, J. G. (1987). Successful Comprehension: What Teachers Can do Before Students Read. English Teaching Forum, 25(4), 21-23.

Grabe, W. (1991). Current Development in Second Language Reading Research. TESOL Quarterly, 25, 375-406.

Graves, M. F., & Chen, H. (1995). Effects of Previewing and Providing Background Knowledge on Taiwanese College Students’ Comprehension of American Short Stories. TESOL Quarterly, 29, 663-686.

Graves, M. F., & Cooke, C. L. (1980). Effects of Previewing Difficult Short Stories for High School Students. Research on Reading in Secondary Schools, 6, 38-54.

Graves, M. F., Cooke, C. L., & LaBerge, M. J. (1983). Effects of previewing Difficult Short Stories on Low Ability Junior High School Students’ Comprehension, Recall, and Attitude. Reading Research Quarterly, 18, 262-276.

Graves, M. F., & Palmer, R. J. (1981). Validating Previewing as a Method of Improving Fifth and Sixth Grade Students’ Comprehension of Short Stories. Michigan Reading Journal, 15, 1-3.

Hammadou, J. A. (1991). Interrelationships Among Prior Knowledge Inference and Language Proficiency in Foreign Language Reading. Modern Language Journal, 75, 27-38.

Hudson, T. (1982). The Effects of Induced Schemata on the “Short-Circuit” in L2 Reading: Non-Decoding Factors In L2 Reading Performance. Language Learning, 32, 1-31.

Johnson, P. (1981). Effects on Reading Comprehension of Language Complexity and Cultural Background of a Text. TESOL Quarterly, 15, 169-181.

Johnson, P. (1982). Effects on Reading Comprehension of Building Background Knowledge. TESOL Quarterly, 16, 503-516.

Krashen, S. D. (1989). We Acquire Vocabulary and Spelling by Reading: Additional Evidence for the Input Hypothesis. Modern Language Journal, 73, 440-464.

Langer, A. J. (1984). Examining Background Knowledge and Text Comprehension. Reading Research Quarterly, xix, 468-481.

Maghsoudi, N. (2012). The Impact of Schema Activation on Reading Comprehension of Cultural Texts Among Iranian EFL Learners. Canadian Social Science, 8(5), 196-201.

Nation, I. S. P., & Coady, J. (1988). Vocabulary and Reading. In R. Carter & M. McCarthy (Eds.), Vocabulary and Language teaching (pp. 97-110). New York: Longman.

Paribakht, T. S., & Wesche, M. (1997). Vocabulary Enhancement Activities and Reading for Meaning in Language Vocabulary Acquisition. In J. Coady & T. Huckin (Eds.), Second language vocabulary acquisition (pp. 174-200). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Rumelhart, D. E. (1980). Schemata: the Building Blocks of Cognition. In R. Spiro, B. Bruce & W. Brewer (Eds.) Theoretical issues in reading comprehension (pp. 33-58). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Samuels, S. J. (1977). Introduction to Theoretical Models of Reading. In w. Otto, C. W. Peters, & N. Peters (Eds.), Reading problems: A multidisciplinary perspective (pp. 7-41). Reading, MA: Addison-Wesely.

Seliger, H. W., & Shohamy, E. (1989). Second language research methods. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Silberstein, S. (1994). Techniques and resources in teaching reading. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Stanovich, K. E. (1980). Toward an Interactive-Compensatory Model of Individual Differences in the Development of Reading Fluency. Reading Research Quarterly, 16, 32-71.

Steffensen, M, S., Joag-dev, C., & Anderson, R, C. (1979). A cross-Cultural Perspective on Reading Comprehension. Reading Research Quarterly, 15, 10-29.

Stevens, K. (1982). Can we Improve Reading by Teaching Background Information? Journal of Reading, 25, 326-329.

Taglieber, L. K., Johnson, L. L., & Yarbrough, D. B. (1988). Effects of Pre-Reading Activities on EFL Reading by Brazilian College Students. TESOL Quarterly, 22, 455-472.

Webb, S.A. (2009). The Effects of Pre-Learning Vocabulary on Reading Comprehension and Writing. The Canadian Modern Language Review, 65, 3, 441-470.

Widdowson, H. G. (1978). Teaching language as communication. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Yorio, C. A. (1972). Some Sources of Reading Problems for Foreign Language Learners. Language Learning, 21, 107-115.




DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3968/j.hess.1927024020130403.1132

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Copyright (c)



Share us to:   

Reminder

  • How to do online submission to another Journal?
  • If you have already registered in Journal A, then how can you submit another article to Journal B? It takes two steps to make it happen:

1. Register yourself in Journal B as an Author

  • Find the journal you want to submit to in CATEGORIES, click on “VIEW JOURNAL”, “Online Submissions”, “GO TO LOGIN” and “Edit My Profile”. Check “Author” on the “Edit Profile” page, then “Save”.

2. Submission

  • Go to “User Home”, and click on “Author” under the name of Journal B. You may start a New Submission by clicking on “CLICK HERE”.


We only use three mailboxes as follows to deal with issues about paper acceptance, payment and submission of electronic versions of our journals to databases:
caooc@hotmail.com; hess@cscanada.net; hess@cscanada.org

 Articles published in Higher Education of Social Science are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC-BY).

HIGHER EDUCATION OF SOCIAL SCIENCE Editorial Office

Address: 1055 Rue Lucien-L'Allier, Unit #772, Montreal, QC H3G 3C4, Canada.
Telephone: 1-514-558 6138 
Website: Http://www.cscanada.net Http://www.cscanada.org 
E-mail: caooc@hotmail.com; office@cscanada.net

Copyright © 2010 Canadian Research & Development Center of Sciences and Cultures