AN INVESTIGATION OF THE READING STRATEGIES USED BY TESL UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS WHEN COMPREHENDING A LITERARY TEXT SITI SABARIAH BINTI ALI

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3 AN INVESTIGATION OF THE READING STRATEGIES USED BY TESL UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS WHEN COMPREHENDING A LITERARY TEXT SITI SABARIAH BINTI ALI Laporan Projek Ini Dikemukakan Sebagai Memenuhi Sebahagian Daripada Syarat Penganugerahan Ijazah Sarjana Muda Sains Serta Pendidikan (TESL) Fakulti Pendidikan Universiti Teknologi Malaysia 2003

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5 iii Specially Dedicated to My beloved parents Ali bin Mohamed & Jamilliah binti Ismail because your faith in me is never ending My better half Mohd. Fazli bin Hj. Salikan because knowing you is the best thing that ever happen in my life Myself for the high-spirit in successfully going through the challenging time

6 iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENT First of all, I would like to praise and thank Allah s.w.t for blessing and guiding me all the way in completing this thesis. I would like to express my heartiest gratitude and appreciation to my supervisor, Puan Zanariah bte Salleh for her patience, guidance and encouragement in helping me to complete this thesis. Without her helps this thesis might not have been completed. I would also like to thank my course mates for their support and advice. Most of all, I thank them for being ever-helpful and cooperative, especially during the interview session. I also appreciate them for being there as my good friends and listener during my hardest time. A special thanks to my parents, siblings and my better half who have always been there from the beginning until now. Thank you for being so caring and so understanding.

7 v ABSTRACT Reading strategies indicate how readers conceive a task, what textual cues they attend to, how they make sense of what they read and what they do when they do not understand when they read (Block 1986). In order to read effectively, one should have an appropriate reading strategy. These strategies can help the reader understand the text clearly. This research was done in order to investigate the reading strategies used by TESL (Teaching English as a Second Language) undergraduate students when comprehending a literary text. It also finds out on what problems students usually faced when reading a literary text. Besides that, this research tries to see the reading strategies used by good, average and poor readers. The subjects for this study involved six UTM TESL undergraduate students who were from a mixed language ability based on their SPM English paper results (A1 C6). The think-aloud technique and interview were used as the instruments for this study. The analysis of the data for this study was done by coding the subjects reading protocols; where each strategy was assigned to a category. The findings of this study show that different people use different strategies in their reading. Besides that, good readers used a lot of strategies but the occurrences of one strategy at a time is not as frequent as to the average and poor readers From this study, the problems usually faced by the students during reading a literary text have been identified, such as semantic problems.

8 vi ABSTRAK Strategi pembacaan menunjukkan proses pembaca memahami tugasan, tandatanda tekstual yg digunakan, bagaimana mereka memahami apa yang dibaca dan apa yang dilakukan apabila mereka tidak memahami apa yang dibaca. Sekiranya ingin membaca secara efektif, seseorang itu harus mempunyai strategi pembacaan yang sesuai. Strategi ini dapat membantu pembaca untuk memahami teks dengan jelas. Kajian ini dilaksanakan adalah untuk menyelidik strategi pembacaan yang digunakan oleh pelajar Sarjana Muda Sains serta Pendidikan (TESL) semasa memahami teks kesusateraan Bahasa Inggeris. Ia juga mengenal pasti masalah-masalah yang sering dihadapi oleh pelajar-pelajar semasa membaca teks kesusasteraan Bahasa Inggeris. Di samping itu, kajian ini cuba melihat perbezaan strategi pembacaan yang digunakan oleh pembaca baik, pembaca sederhana dan pembaca yang lemah. Subjek yang dipilih bagi kajian ini terdiri daripada 6 pelajar TESL, UTM yang mempunyai tahap kebolehan bahasa Inggeris yang pelbagai berdasarkan keputusan Bahasa Inggeris mereka dalam peperiksaan SPM (A1- C6). Teknik menterjemahkan pemikiran secara verbal dan temuramah digunakan sebagai instrumen kajian ini. Data yang diperolehi dianalisis dengan menulis protokol.pembacaan subjek; di mana setiap strategi diletakkan mengikut kategori. Dapatan kajian menunjukkan bahawa setiap orang mempunyai strategi pembacaan yang berbeza. Di samping itu, pembaca yang baik menggunakan pelbagai strategi tanpa berulang-kali berbanding dengan pembaca sederhana dan lemah. Melalui kajian ini juga, masalah-masalah yang sering dihadapi oleh pelajar ketika membaca teks kesusasteraan Bahasa Inggeris telah dikenalpasti.

9 vii TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER CONTENTS PAGE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ABSTRACT ABSTRAK TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES LIST OF APPENDICES iv v vi vii xi xii ONE INTRODUCTION 1.0 Introduction Background of The Study Statement of the Problem Purpose of the Study Research Questions Importance of The Study Scope of the Study 7

10 viii 1.7 Limitations of the Study Definitions of Terminology and 8 Abbreviation Used TWO LITERATURE REVIEW 2.0 The Nature of Reading Reading Strategies The Content Schemata or 15 Background Knowledge 2.3 The Thinking-Aloud Technique Research Related to the Study 17 THREE METHODOLOGY 3.0 Introduction Research Design Sample of Study Research Instrument Think Aloud Interview 24

11 ix 3.4 Procedures Analysis of Data 25 FOUR DATA ANALYSIS 4.0 Introduction The Reading-aloud Session The Reading Profile Background of the Subjects The Data Analysis of Each Subject 34 Based On The Reading Of The Literary Text Subject with A Subject with A Subject with C Subject with C Subject with C Subject with C The Analysis of Reading Strategies 44 Used Between A1 and A2, C3 and C4, C5 and C A1 and A2 subject C3 and C4 subject C5 and C6 subject The Comparison of All Subjects 50

12 x FIVE CONCLUSION, RECOMMENDATIONS AND TEACHING IMPLICATION 5.0 Introduction Conclusion Recommendations Limitations and Recommendation for 56 Further Studies in Reading Strategy of Literary Text. 5.4 Pedagogical Implication 57 REFERENCES 59 APPENDICES Reading Instruction to the Subjects 61 Reading Text 62 Reading Strategies with the Sample of Text 66

13 xi LIST OF TABLES TABLE NUMBER TITLE PAGE Table 1 Coding System of The Subject s 29 Reading Strategies Table Table of The Subject s Reading Profile 32 Table Subjects English Paper Grade for SPM (1997) 33 Table The Reading Strategies Used by A1 Subject 34 Table The Reading Strategies Used by A2 Subject 36 Table The Reading Strategies Used by C3 Subject 37 Table The Reading Strategies Used by C4 Subject 39 Table The Reading Strategies Used by C5 Subject 40 Table The Reading Strategies Used by C6 Subject 42 Table The Analysis of Reading Strategies Between 44 A1 and A2 Subject Table The Analysis of Reading Strategies Between 46 C3 and C4 Subject Table The Analysis of Reading Strategies Between 48 C5 and C6 Table 4.6 The Comparison of Reading Strategies of All 50 Subjects

14 xii LIST OF APPENDICES TITLE PAGE APPENDIX A READING INSTRUCTION TO 61 THE SUBJECTS APPENDIX B SAMPLE OF A READING TEXT 62 APPENDIX C READING STRATEGIES WITH THE 66 SAMPLES OF TEXT

15 CHAPTER Introduction Reading is considered the most important of the four language skills in a second language particularly in English as a second or foreign language (Carrell, 1988). For many students reading is the main reason why they learn the language. In academic setting, it is very important for university students to be able to read effectively as most academic materials are written in English. The need is even more for Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) students as they learn and use English during their course. In Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), the TESL course was first introduced in Most of the students who were accepted for this course obtained good grades for their English subject in their Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM). Students who take out this course need to take subjects such as The Structure Of English, The Fundamentals of English, Linguistics I and II, Sociolinguistics, Discourse Analysis, Methodology in TESL I and II and Micro Teaching. In addition, they also need to take two literature subjects: English Literature I (SHE 1212) and English Literature II (SHE1222). To be able to learn these two subjects the students need to understand the literary texts used in their course. However, most of the students had difficulties in understanding the literary texts used during the course. This is because literature is a new subject to them since they have very little exposure to such texts when they were at school. Thus, they had some difficulties when taking this course. Since these students need to teach literature in schools when they come out as a teacher, thus the ability to read and understand a literary text is highly required for the TESL students if they want to be able to teach literature effectively in school.

16 1.1 Background of The Study All TESL students who are following the four year programme in UTM will have to take two literature subjects and they are English Literature I (SHE 1212) and English Literature II (SHE1222). Both of these subjects were offered in the first and second semester of the first year of study. In learning these two subjects, the students have to learn the literature components and the elements in the literature. They have to look at short stories, poems, classic novels like Jane Eyre, journals, drama, and theatre. The possibility that they have not even read or heard of these literature components is very great. This is because literature was introduced in the English Programme (LEP) by the Ministry of Education in schools in Malaysia only in It was included in one of the period for English language subject and there was no assessment for it. In other words, English literature during that time in the school was taught on the surface not in a great depth. It was just recently in the year 2002 that the literature component was implemented seriously in school. Yet the exposure to the literature was still less. Having no or very little exposure to such literary text or reading genre can lead to difficulty in understanding the text because students do not have the content schemata to understand the unfamiliar words and terms found in the literary texts like what have been told by Carrell & Eisterhold (1983: 560).the appropriate schemata must exist and must be activated during text processing. According to Carrell (1988) schemata which is also known as background knowledge has a strong bond between culture and language. The culture and language had to be maintained for a non-native reader to have complete understanding of the meaning of a text. Furthermore Carrell (1988) also stated that, if the reader failed to relate the linguistic meaning of a reading passage to cultural factors, it would result in

17 less information than total comprehension.. This is true because when this problem occurs, this will affect the students motivation in learning literature subject. Thus, it is important for the TESL students to have the ability and the appropriate reading strategies in reading a literary text. This is because literature is considered as a new subject to most of the TESL students. For this reason, the students need to have good reading skills and strategies in comprehending the literary text so that it can help them to have a better understanding of literature. Furthermore, it is also necessary for TESL students to be able to read and understand the literary texts since they have to teach literature in school. 1.2 Statement of the Problem Johnson (1982) states that the characteristic of the text used in reading materials have a large impact on readers ability to comprehend it. The level of vocabulary difficulty, the familiarity of vocabulary used in the text and the cultural background of the topic may give some effects on the reading strategies. Ruth Liew (2002) in her article about The perks of reading aloud stated that, if you know the story well, you will naturally be able to read with expression. (The Star, May 22, 2002:23). However there are some ESL learners who face similar problems such as not able to read a literary text well and they cannot understand some of the words found in the text or the story line when they read a literary text. In other words, some of the problems encountered were because of the learners unfamiliarity with the content of the text as well as the vocabularies found in the text. This is because the text contains difficult level

18 of vocabulary, the vocabulary use in the text are not familiar to the readers and the readers do not have any background knowledge that can help them to get the idea on what they read. To overcome the difficulty in understanding the literary text, the ESL learners have to know the reading strategies to be used and how to approach the text effectively. As for the English teachers, before they can teach the students, the teacher him/herself must be a proficient reader of literary text. So, this is why it is important for the teacher trainees to master their reading of the literary text. 1.3 Purpose of the Study The purpose of this study is to find out the reading strategies used by Fourth Year TESL students when comprehending a literary text. This study is also conducted to find out the reasons for using these strategies. From this study, it is hoped that the researcher will be able to highlight the problems that the students are facing during their reading of literary text. Moreover, it is also hoped that from this study TESL students can improve their reading strategies in understanding a literary text. 1.4 Research Questions Based on the objectives of this research, there are several research questions that serve as the main focus of this research. The research questions are:

19 1. What are the problems students usually faced when reading a literary text? 2. What are the strategies used by TESL students when comprehending a literary text? 3. Why do they use these strategies? 4. Do the strategies used help them to understand the text?