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http://eflt.nus.edu.sg/ Electronic Journal of Foreign Language Teaching 2007, Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 108–121 © Centre for Language Studies National University of Singapore Collaborative Action Research for Reading Strategy Instruction: A Case in Taiwan MingYueh Shen (myshen@nfu.edu.tw) National Formosa University, Taiwan R.O.C. YuehKuey Huang (ykhuang@mail.tku.edu.tw) Tamkang University, Taiwan R.O.C. Abstract EFL learners’ low engagement in reading class and poor reading proficiency has been a longlasting and widespread problem challenging English teachers in Taiwan. This report of a collaborative action research project involving a teacherresearcher, a teaching assistant, and fortysix students, focused on how action research helps the teacherresearcher to seek solutions to the problem and on how the approach facilitates the learning of reading strategies by students. The general design of this study was based on the concepts of indi vidual differences, the action research process – posing a question, planning, taking action, observing, and reflecting – as well as diagnostic teaching. Data were collected through a number of instruments: pre and postassessment of reading comprehension and strategies, classroom observation field notes written by the assistant, reflective learning journal entries, and semistructured interviews. Data analysis involved three stages: organizing the data, coding the data, and analyzing and interpreting the data. Results reveal the learn ers’ development in their use of reading strategies, better selfimages, and more positive attitudes toward learning. This study suggests that collaborative action research can bring about change in the classroom by giving teachers a greater breadth and depth in understanding their own pedagogical practice and can lead to a more meaningful learning environment for learners. However, given certain limitations and difficulties in effecting change in teaching and learning, teachers and students should moderate any expectations of achiev ing rapid success. 1 Introduction Low selfesteem and engagement in learning has been a longlasting and widespread problem among students in Taiwan, particularly among those in technical universities1. One of the chal lenges facing teachers is how to motivate students to become involved in the learning process. In an attempt to solve the problem in a traditional largesize class, the teacherresearcher decided to implement a methodological approach in class which would be more engaging and more effective in getting students to participate in their reading class. The course was designed in line with the teacher researcher’s belief that students need to take a strategic approach to reading, should par ticipate actively in class, and should keep themselves informed about what and how they are learning. This shift in her teaching attitudes and beliefs opens the door for a new approach to her Collaborative Action Research for Reading Strategy Instruction: A Case in Taiwan 109 reading class: reading strategy instruction in a collaborative way. Researchers of second/foreign language reading have long recognized the importance of read ing strategies (Brantmeier, 2002; Carrell, 1985, 1989; Janzen, 1996; Slataci & Akyel, 2002; Song, 1998). They contend that strategy use is different in more and less proficient readers, who use the strategies in different ways (Carrell, 1989; Janzen, 1996). Moreover, it has been acknowledged that reading strategies can be taught and that reading strategy instruction can benefit all students (Carol, 2002; Carrell, 1989; Janzen, 1996). This body of literature on reading research provides the theo retical framework for this study. However, although a vast number of the studies in reading strategy training have suggested a wide variety of reading strategies to be taught, few of them have been conducted with classes with a large size and students of diverse abilities. Classes in schools in Asian countries may have fifty or more students of different proficiency levels. There are some problems connected with working with students of different levels of ability in a large class. One of the problems is that the class room teacher might design courses at the expense of particular groups of learners, e.g. the higher or lower achievers. It is also difficult to cover teaching materials at a rate that is appropriate to the more competent students without neglecting the less capable ones. A growing body of research suggests that one way to improve teaching and learning in schools is to involve teachers in doing research in their own classrooms (DarlingHammond & McLaugh lin, 1995; Herndon, 1994; Lieberman, 1995). The regular classroom teacher as the provider of in struction helps to explore more thoroughly how reading strategies can be integrated into the regu lar reading class. The teacherresearcher can gain an emic (‘insider’) view of classrooms (Freeman, 1998) in addition to the etic (‘outsider’) perceptions that a researcher usually takes. Teachers, may, as Cohen (1998) proposes, assume the roles of diagnostician, learners, coachers, coordinators, lan guage learners and researchers. The investigation into classroom teaching helps teachers to exam ine what they do as teacherresearchers, how the work is structured and how they carry it out on a daily basis, why something works or does not work for the learners, and how in large and small ways the work can be done differently or better (Freeman, 1998). Diagnostic teaching represents one means of dealing with the problems described, arising from the practical teaching situation, by helping learners identify the strengths and weaknesses and thus facilitating their learning. Further to diagnostic teaching, Walker (2003) suggests that an effective teacher makes instructional decisions before, during, and after the reading event. In the role of a diagnostic teacher, the teacher researcher uses assessment and instruction at the same time to es tablish the instructional conditions that enhance learning. In doing so, the teacher needs to be sen sitive to individual differences, ascertained through preteaching assessment, and to identify learn ers’ problems, adjust the instruction, and monitor the improvement in both teaching and learning (Walker, 2003). This article also presents the key concept of collaborative teaching because teaching itself can be very isolated and the teaching job has become increasingly demanding and complex with the teacher encountering problems such as physical constraints, the inability to devote sufficient indi vidual attention to students’ needs, and achieving learning effectiveness. Working with others can be a superb way to initiate, manage, and sustain one’s teaching commitment because it encourages collaborative reflection, as CaroBruce (2000) suggests. This article will describe an action research project for reading strategy instruction that was developed based on some of the principles of diagnostic teaching as well as collaborative teaching and learning. It also gives an account of how the teacherresearcher reflected on her teaching and modified her teaching methods based on her assistant’s field notes, followed by a description of the changes in students’ reading strategy use and their attitudes toward learning. 2 Collaborative action research for reading strategy instruction 2.1 The student participants The participants were fortysix firstyear students in the night program of a technical university 110 MingYueh Shen and Yueh Kuey Huang in Taiwan enrolled in the reading class in the second semester of academic year 2006. By technical university learners, I refer to those students in the Taiwanese technological and vocational educa tion system, who are generally considered to be relatively inadequate in terms of vocabulary size, grammar knowledge, and strategy use (Joe, 1995; Lin, 1995; Ou, 1997). They have a relatively low learning motivation, and are less proficient and weaker in academic performance, when com pared to the learners in general universities (Joe, 1995). The students in the night program are parttime students who generally have a lower selfesteem and poorer language proficiency, com pared to those at the day program. Most of them entered university for the purpose of obtaining a diploma. 2.2 The teacherresearcher’s experiences in the EFL reading class During reading classes in the first semester, the teacherresearcher (also the class instructor) had been annoyed by the moans and groans of students when reading assignments were given. She was astonished to find that students laboriously looked up every difficult word in the dictionary and were unable to draw inference or to guess the meaning of unknown words. The teacherresearcher noted that her students were quite unprepared to deal with longer reading texts, without the ability to understand the main idea or knowledge of other reading strategies. In response to the abovementioned problems, the teacherresearcher was determined to change the situation in the second semester. The general design of this project is based on the key concept of collaborative action research, which involves working together with another teaching practitio ner, her assistant. On the basis of the assistant’s regular class observations, the teacherresearch discussed, reflected, and made modifications to the course, with the aim of creating a more pro ductive and pleasant reading class. 2.3 Instructional program This section outlines how the teacherresearcher attempted to deal with her students with lowesteem and diverse proficiency levels in her reading class. This project was conducted in seven phases, as shown in Figure 1. The goal was to provide a collaborative classroom environment in which teacher and students, as well as students and students, can work together and support each another, while remaining aware of their individual differences. The flow chart in Figure 1 presents and summarizes the reading strategy instruction program, adapted from Lin’s (2003) action research process. Collaborative Action Research for Reading Strategy Instruction: A Case in Taiwan 111 Fig. 1: Concept flowchart for collaborative action research project · Preassessment/diagnosing The first phase of this research was diagnosis. Traditional strategy instruction emphasizes what strategies to teach, and how and when to use these strategies (Winograd & Hare, 1988). In the current study, an understanding of the learners’ backgrounds and needs formed the prerequisite for the followup teaching. All the learners were required to write their first journal describing their learning backgrounds, beliefs towards reading and their learning difficulties. Moreover, a Diagnostic Reading Assessment2 (Yang, 2004) was used to diagnose the students’ abilities in reading skills and to identify their strengths and weak nesses in reading. · Recognizing the problems & raising the questions The teacherresearcher and her assistant analyzed the students’ preassessment and reflec tive learning journal entries. They discussed the data, identified the students’ needs and learning difficulties, and then provided evidence of the critical components of student learning for each student. In class, the results of the preassessment (diagnostic test) were given to the students, and the teacherresearcher explained what each item meant. Using this individual assessment report (Appendix I), each student was made aware of his/her own weaknesses and strengths in the use of reading strategies. Accordingly, he/she became clearer about the learning goals he/she needs to pursue, i.e. which specific strategies he/she needs/doesn’t need to pay more attention to. Another class data sheet (Appendix II) was used to trace learner’s growth and provided valuable information for the teacherresearcher. · Action planning – selecting strategies for instruction The lesson plans were carefully designed according to the results of the preassessment (i.e. the Diagnostic Reading Assessment and the preteaching journals) (Appendix III). They were developed through collaborative discussions between the teacherresearcher and her assistant. The teacherresearcher considered ways of solving the learners’ problems and de veloped more learning opportunities for them. 112 MingYueh Shen and Yueh Kuey Huang · Reflecting Using the teaching checklist (Appendix IV), results of quizzes, followup discussions with the observer (the assistant), and individual interviews with low achievers, the teacher selfevaluated the teaching process and the course arrangement by examining whether the outcome is positive and if the course meets the learners’ needs. Constant reflection was conducted after Action Planning, during the process of evaluating and modifying. Addi tionally, the students were required to keep reflective learning journals at the beginning and at the end of the semester. By writing the learning journals, the students had opportunities to recall what strategies they had learned and how well they had learned them. · Modifying The instructional skills were modified and adjusted based on an analysis of the midassessment data (i.e. quizzes, observations) in order to maximize student learning. Based on the analysis, the teacherresearcher and researcher assistant also held discussions with each student in a teacherstudent conference concerning the learning problems and possible ways to achieve more effective learning. · Evaluating The final phase was devoted to the description of the final assessment and the analysis of the data. An analysis of the ongoing observations, reflective journal entries as well as re sponses in interviews and to a strategy questionnaire provided the basis of the results. The data analysis also included the analysis of the postassessment using the Diagnostic Read ing Assessment. The practice of collaborative teaching and learning challenged teachers in two ways. One of the challenges arises from the fact that expectations had to be different for different individuals within the class. In addition, the lesson content and the pace of de livery may have to be adjusted. The style of teaching may need adjustments as well. One way to look at assessment on an individual basis is to measure progress (Appendix II) rather than cumulative knowledge. A useful tool here was the use of the preassessment to help determine a starting point. Using the diagnostic preassessment (Appendix I) as a base, achievement was monitored and progress was traced. Another assessment tool was the stu dents’ selfassessment. When students are involved in the assessment process, they can come to see their own progress and themselves as competent learners. · Final reflection & reporting the outcome The teacherresearcher reflected on how the implementation of the action research affected students’ learning and sought to investigate how the results could be generalized to similar populations. She made conclusions about the action research with regard to students’ over all academic growth and reflected on how these conclusions would impact the planning and instruction for the following year. 3 Findings 3.1 Teacher’s changes in instructional approach In the following is a description of the action planning, reflections and modifications that took place in the course of the collaborative action research project for reading strategy instruction. 3.1.1 Recognizing the problems & action planning After the diagnostic preassessment, the teacherresearcher discussed with her teaching assis tant and decided what strategies should be emphasized. Taking into account the results of the preassessment (as shown in Table 1), they decided to pay more attention to such strategies as paraphrasing, solving vocabulary problems, connecting text to background knowledge, posing questions, syntactic analysis, internal consistency, and prepositional cohesiveness. These strategies were identified because the percentage of correct responses for these strategies was below 60 per Collaborative Action Research for Reading Strategy Instruction: A Case in Taiwan 113 cent of the total participants, indicating that students had weaknesses in the use of these strategies. Other important reading strategies, such as predicting, skimming for main idea, scanning, and summarizing were also introduced. 3.1.2 Modifying The first observation note showed that the teacherresearcher was trying to avoid a gram martranslation approach by attempting to introduce the strategy of prediction in reading an article about the history of keeping time. However, she felt frustrated to find her students did not respond to the strategy of prediction as quickly as she had hoped. The students were unfamiliar with the class. They thus remained quiet and seldom gave a response. Using the field notes and after a followup discussion with the teaching assistant, the teacherresearcher modified her teaching method. To facilitate the learning of the prediction strat egy, she modeled the use of the prediction strategy with the help of a powerpoint presentation. She also chose an article about finding a ‘Mr./Ms. Right’ to stimulate students’ learning motiva tion. To develop the students’ reading fluency, scanning was taught following the prediction strategy. The teacherresearcher modeled how one can quickly scan a text instead of reading every single word. Then, the students were asked to practice reading paragraphs in their textbook using this strategy. As the second observation note reveals, The atmosphere of today’s class is quite interactive because of the dailylife issue. The students were highly interested in this class. However, the teacherresearcher was alarmed by the interviews with some less capable stu dents who found it difficult to break their old habits based on a traditional reading approach, i.e. reading wordbyword and looking up every difficult word. They felt the scanning strategy was useful but were annoyed at having to find the main ideas within a paragraph. During the following class period, the teacherresearcher achieved some success by employing a “new” method. The teacher presented the main ideas within a paragraph using a guided approach. The use of multi plechoice and fillintheblanks items made the task easier to understand. Judging by the ongoing quizzes before the midterm evaluation, the teacherresearcher was concerned that the test results would adversely affect the students’ learning motivation. Believing that the feeling of success will propel students to learn further, the teacherresearcher asked her assistant to help them review what was covered, including vocabulary and the reading strategies. She also slowed down a little for the remainder of the semester and tried to reinforce the strategies already introduced through further activities and exercises. Subsequently, she introduced the com prehension monitoring strategy, which was apparently a difficult strategy for the students, as shown in Table 1. To help students to think about their reading process, the teacher modeled the strategy of pos ing questions through a thinkaloud process. After a guided practice, some students were invited to ask questions, while others answered them. The exchange between the teacher and the students, and between students and students, made the class more interactive. As the last observation note indicates, … The atmosphere of the classroom interaction is warm and fun. The students were wellbehaved and cooperative in the learning process. 114 MingYueh Shen and Yueh Kuey Huang 3.2 Changes in learners’ class performance 3.2.1 Overall improvement in reading strategy use Table 1 indicates the students’ overall performance for each reading strategy in the pre and postassessments. The percentage of correctness had been low for such strategies as paraphrasing, solving word problems, connecting text with prior knowledge, posing questions, and syntactic analysis, providing an indication that they had weaknesses in using these strategies to comprehend the reading passages. Through the emphasis given by the teacherresearcher and the assistant on these strategies, the students achieved progress in most of the identified categories, although the percentage increases were not tremendous. As shown in Table 1, the percentage of correctness in creased from 54% to 58% for paraphrasing, from 51% to 58% for solving vocabulary problems, and from 51% to 60% for using prior knowledge. An increase was also established for posing questions and syntactic analysis, resulting probably from the emphasis on these two strategies after the preassessment. However, the analysis did not find progress in the use of the strategies of in ternal consistency and propositional cohesiveness. The students showed less progress for monitor ing comprehension, compared with most other strategies. I. Local strategies: dealing with Percentage of correctness – Percentage of correct basic linguistic units preassessment ness – Postassessment Paraphrasing 54% 58% Rereading 82% 80% Solving the vocabulary problem 51% 58% Recognizing text structure 73% 75% Interpreting information 72% 72% Connecting text with prior knowl 51% 60% edge II. Comprehension monitoring Monitoring comprehension 62% 64% Posing questions 41% 49% III. Discourse level Syntactic analysis 41% 50% Internal consistency 58% 56% Propositional cohesiveness 59% 58% 73% 75% Structural cohesiveness (thematic compatibility) Note: Percentage of correctness is defined as the proportion of correct answers to the total number of partici pants. The percentage of correctness is 54% for paraphrasing because 25 out of 46 students gave correct re sponses for the item for this strategy. Table 1: Comparison of overall percentages of correctness for various types of reading strategies in the pre and postassessment 3.2.2 Less skilled learners’ individual development in reading strategy use To examine whether the diagnosis and collaborative teaching helped the less skilled learners in the class, this study looked at students’ individual performances in the preassessment. They were defined as “less skilled” if they obtained a reading score below 50% (i.e. 10 correct out of 20 items) in the preassessment. Table 2 presents the six less proficient learners’ scores for both pre and postassessment. Most of these students showed an improvement in reading comprehension, although the increase was slight. The results seem to indicate that the higher the proficiency of the Collaborative Action Research for Reading Strategy Instruction: A Case in Taiwan 115 students was, the more amenable they were to the instruction. Those who performed better in the preassessment, i.e. students C, D, and E, also had higher scores in the postassessment. Students Preassessment Postassessment A 5 (25%) 8 (40%) B 5 (25%) 6 (30%) C 6 (30%) 10 (50%) D 6 (30%) 8 (40%) E 7 (35%) 10 (50%) F 5 (25%) 6 (30%) Note. The full score for reading comprehension is 20. The six students (A~F) were defined as less skilled based on their preassessment scores that were far below 50% correct. Table 2: Six lessskilled learners’ performance on reading comprehension Further analysis of the reflective journal entries from the six lessskilled students indicates several positive responses. In spite of the slight progress made between the pre and postassessments, most of them reported development in identifying main ideas (recognizing text structures), guessing word meaning from context (solving word problems), and seeing the rela tionship between lines and beyond lines (internal consistency & propositional cohesiveness). I appreciate for my teacher’s instruction. She understands what we need to learn more. I became less panic than before. I know where the main point is and read faster. (Student A) I learned how to find the main idea and what a paragraph is. I also learned a great deal of synonyms which help me to find the cohesive relationship among sentences. (Student C) My teacher taught me to look into the relation between sentences. Thus, it helps me guess word meaning from the previous/or the following sentences. I can read more fluently and have more confi dence than before. (Student D) I learned to identify main idea, and supporting details. It’s interesting to guess word meaning from its previous / following sentences. (Student E) 3.2.3 Student’s attitudes toward the instructional program Five students with the most progress (S1S5, Group A) and five students with little or no pro gress in the postassessment (S6S10, Group B) were selected for indepth individual interviews. The results are presented according to the subcategories: (1) attitudes toward learning, and (2) attitudes toward the instructional program. While most of the responses were positive, a slight dis crepancy between the two groups was found and described as follows. Overall, the students with better performance responded with more positive attitudes toward their learning. They were also keen to share their opinions about the instructional program, instead of responding with “no idea,” or keeping silence, compared with their lessskilled counterparts. (1) Attitudes toward learning: When asked how they felt about the diagnostic approach in reading class, most of the students in Group B did not consider the repeated practice of unfamiliar strategies to be highly beneficial to them. They confessed to paying little attention to class even though they understood the teacherresearcher’s dedication in helping them. I didn’t sense any difference to me. Well ... I just listened to class with less care about how much I understand. (S6) My mind went completely blank in class. Well … I don’t know how to say … I know my teacher was hard working, but I did not concentrate on learning. (S7) I feel that my teacher tried in great effort to help us. But, I feel learners’ learning attitude is the most important factor. (S9) 116 MingYueh Shen and Yueh Kuey Huang When asked what they had learned from the reading class, most of the students reported that they benefited from using reading strategies, such as rereading, scanning, inferring word meaning from context, skimming for the main idea, and the intra/intersentence coherence etc. I learned to skim over the text to get a general idea. Then I read the questions and went back to scan the answers from the text. Before this class, I read wordbyword. My reading speed was very slow. (S1) I found the transitional words very helpful to me. I learned to guess word meaning from the clues around the unknown word. I used to look up the words in the dictionary; but now I can read faster. (S2) I think so. I used to look up every single word because I didn’t know how to find main idea within paragraph. (S4) What made me different from this course was that I feel less threatened by the unknown words after learning wordsolving strategies. I learned to read the first and the last paragraph very carefully. (S6) I greatly benefited from learning how to find main idea. I didn’t have also helped me infer word meaning. (S3) I used to read wordbyword; but I learned how to find main idea within paragraph now. That’s great! (S8) After learning reading strategies, I always located the general idea instead of grabbing my electronic dictionary as I did before. (S9) However, S5 and S7 in the two different groups still found it difficult to change their old habits of reading. As S5 stated, “I read slightly in a way different from before; however, I sometime could not help returning to the dictionary for immediate help.” Another student, S7, responded, “I felt I was not a hardworking student, paying little attention to what strategies were taught. I still read wordbyby word as I did before. No big difference to me.” (2) Attitudes toward the instructional program: All five students in Group A realized that the teacher repeated several strategies in class for some lessskilled students and they did not devalue the repeated practice. Instead, they found it helpful to review what they learned several times. I didn’t feel loathsome with the repeated some strategies I already knew because I can use them better. (S1) I usually reviewed the reading text before class. When the teacher repeated the strategies, I under stood the use of strategies better and had a better understanding of what I read. (S2) I’ve never learned strategies in my senior high school. Although some strategies are quite easy to use, I still enjoyed a lot. (S3) While all the students in Group A provided suggestions for a better class in the future, the less capable students in Group B apparently had a comparatively lower selfesteem and contributed the failure to their poor attitudes to learning, without giving any suggestions. I hope to read more about the current news and then I can apply the strategies to the reallife reading. (S2) I feel we need to learn as many strategies as we can because they must be important for any language tests, i.e. GEPT and TOIEC. (S5) I have no suggestions. I’m happy as long as the quizzes will not be difficult. I feel lazy in reading. (S6) Collaborative Action Research for Reading Strategy Instruction: A Case in Taiwan 117 4 Discussion This research project indicates how collaborative action research provides opportunities for teachers to work within a team. The teacherresearcher, the assistant, and the students can share their common problems in teaching/learning and then work cooperatively to solve the problems. Besides, the teacherresearcher can obtain support and help from other team members. In this study, the assistant regularly provided the teacherresearcher with class observations and fieldnotes, and discussed different approaches to improving teaching. As Burns (1999) contends, the advantages of collaborative perspectives on action research are broader than in individual action research. Reporting or sharing the results of the collaborative action project with peers and colleagues is an important part of the process and serves to strengthen the professional support system developed as a part of the project. Richards (2003) also suggests that taking action with careful plans makes essential changes to the researcher’s teaching practice. Strategy training for ESL/EFL readers is worthwhile; however, teachers, especially EFL teach ers, should modify any expectations of achieving rapid success (Farrell (2001). As shown in the findings of this study, the teacherresearcher realized that she should not expect immediate success, after a process of trial and error. She also realized that reading strategy instruction takes time and that one semester is not enough to successfully change all of her students’ old habits of reading and to improve their reading proficiency. In spite of the small amount of progress achieved, a promis ing change took place: most of the students became more aware of their reading process and of reading strategies. Some characteristics of a meaningful collaborative instruction can be addressed as follows: · Based on the diagnostic test results, the class teacher can identify an individual’s profile of strengths and weaknesses. This profile will provide direction for remedial and compensa tory strategies leading individuals with learning difficulties to academic success. · Reflection serves as a meaningful complement to reading strategy instruction. Keeping ob servation notes and reflective learning journals provided the teacherresearcher and the students with a means for reflection on what happened during the learning processes. The regular observations and reflections captured the dynamics of the instructional procedures. As Cohen (1998) emphasizes, ongoing evaluation and revision of the training program is necessary to ensure a successful program. Students’ reflective journals and the regular ob servation notes helped the teachers reflect on and modify the course design. · Selecting interesting and relevant materials motivates learners to learn reading strategies. The observation notes reveal that the reading an interesting topic motivated the students to learn reading strategies. In this study, the topic of finding a ‘Mr./Ms. Right’ was quite rele vant to the students’ (young adults’) experiences. Thus, with a higher level of interest in the reading texts, the students were apparently more involved in learning, when the ‘skimming for main ideas’ and ‘scanning’ strategies were introduced with that topic. · The teacher serves in multiple roles of a guider, facilitator, and affective supporter. The re sults from the observation notes, the interviews and reflective journal entries confirmed the teacherresearcher’s roles as a guider, facilitator, and affective supporter. There is no doubt that the effects of instruction may be subject to the individual’s motivation to learn (Wenden, 1998) and the importance of the learners’ motivation to learn in the EFL context cannot be overemphasized. However, the results of this study reemphasize the teacher’s roles in affecting changes in student learning. Knowing the difficulties attached to reading strategy instruction, the teacherresearcher in this study kept reminding her students of the relevance of the strategies for academic success. A teacher’s commitment and encourage ment can be the best motivational influence that inspires and supports the learning proc esses. As Dornyei (2001) writes, the teacher¬researcher acts as programmer organizer, classroom manager, and affective supporter who exerts a direct and systematic motivational influence on students’ learning. 118 MingYueh Shen and Yueh Kuey Huang 5 Conclusion and implications This article details a teacherresearcher’s experience in working together with her assistant and her students in a reading class. The objective of this paper was to address the potential in develop ing and implementing modifications to teaching for low achievers in a reading class and illustrate how these changes can improve students’ motivation to learn. The creation of a collaborative learning environment helped actualize the potential. Although being frustrated at the beginning of the semester, the teacherresearcher managed to modify and improve her teaching methods. To wards the end of the semester, she began to achieve some success in making her students more aware of their reading processes as well as the reading strategies taught. Moving towards changes in teaching and learning is not an impossible task if we bring together the efforts of teachers and students in the classroom setting. Teachers should develop, implement, and demonstrate proficiency and enthusiasm to create a caring and encouraging learning climate in their classrooms. Although the findings indicate both changes to the teacher’s teaching and the students’ learning resulted from collaborative action research, we should remain cautious about generalizing these results, as change may often be difficult due to the presence of factors such as the lack in skills for collaboration, the inability to share roles and goals between experts and learners, difficulties in classroom management, and motivation. Further research is needed to investigate the possible fac tors contributing to success or failure in collaborative action research. Notes 1 Technical University learners have a relatively low learning motivation, and are less proficient and weaker in their academic performance, when compared to those in the general universities, (Joe, 1995; Lin, 1995; Ou, 1997). 2 Yang’s Diagnostic Reading Assessment includes a sixlevel, multiedition, reading comprehension tests and vocabulary tests, covering the content in the English courses from junior high to senior high schools in Tai wan. This tool measures (1) the learners’ reading competence in various reading strategies (as shown in Ap pendix I) and (2) vocabulary size and knowledge. The reading comprehension test consists of 20 multi plechoice items. References Brantmeier, C. (2002). Second language reading strategy research at the secondary and university levels: variations, disparities, and generalizability. The Reading Matrix, 2(3), 1–14. Bruce, C. (2000). Action research facilitator’s handbook. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED472452) Burns, A. (1999). 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Metacognitive knowledge and language learning. Applied Linguistics, 19(4), 515–537. Yang, YF. (2004). The pilot study of diagnostic reading assessment. In The Proceedings of the 21st Interna tional Conference on English Teaching and Learning in R.O.C. (pp. 241–254). Taichung: Chaoyang Uni versity of Technology. Appendices Appendix 1: Sample of individual assessment report Name： No： Class： Reading Skills (Level 5) Types of Reading Strategies and the Item Distribution Strategies Simple Description Item Numbers Local Strategies: Dealing with the basic linguistic units Paraphrasing The reader restates the content with dif Preassessment: □4 ferent words. Postassessment: □19 Rereading The reader rereads a part of the reading Preassessment: □2, □4, □9, □10 passage. Postassessment: □4, □8 Solving the The reader tries to understand a particular Preassessment: □12, □18 vocabulary word within the context, a synonym or Postassessment: □14, □17 problem some other cues in the content. General Strategies: Dealing with highlevel reading comprehension Recognizing The reader tries to find out the main ideas, Preassessment: □5 text structure the supporting points or the purposes of Postassessment: □10 the text. Integrating The reader integrates the old information Preassessment: □13, □19 information printed in the passage with the new com Postassessment: □3, □9 ing information. Interpreting The reader draws a possible inference, Preassessment: □3, □7, □8 the text reasonable conclusion, or logical hypothe Postassessment: □3 □9, □20 sis about the content. Utilizing The reader (a) explains, extends, and clari Preassessment: □15, □20, 120 MingYueh Shen and Yueh Kuey Huang general fies content; (b) react to the text with Postassessment:□14, □18 knowledge his/her general knowledge and daily ex and associa periences. tions Types and Standards of Comprehension Monitoring and the Item Distribution Item Numbers Types Simple Description Posing questions The reader questions the cor rectness of the text. The reader evaluates or assesses his/her understanding of the content. Preassessment: □15, □16 Postassessment: □2, □13 Monitoring comprehension Preassessment: □1, □6, □11, □16, □17 Postassessment: □1, □5, □6, □7, □11, □12, Lexical standard The reader checks whether the Preassessment: □3, □9 meaning of each word is under Postassessment: □5, □8 stood. Syntactic standard The reader evaluates the gram Preassessment: □7, □11□13 maticality of a sentence or Postassessment:□2, phrase. □13,□16 Internal consistency The reader examines if the ideas Preassessment: □13, □19 expressed in the text are logi Postassessment: □7, □15 cally consistent with one another. Propositional cohesiveness The reader checks the cohesive Preassessment: □16, □17 relationship among propositions Postassessment: □1, □6 sharing a local context. Informational completeness The reader reviews whether the Preassessment: □16 text provides all of the informa Postassessment: □5 tion necessary for full under standing. Structural cohesiveness The reader examines the the Preassessment: □1, □6, matic compatibility of the ideas Postassessment: □16, □17 in a paragraph or text. · Teacher’s Comment: · Researcher Assistant’s Comment: Appendix 2: Class data sheet (excerpt) Student# PreAssessment Signif. Growth Target #1 #2 (continues ...) Adjusted Final Ass. Overall Growth Tar Growth get Meet Target (Yes/No) Collaborative Action Research for Reading Strategy Instruction: A Case in Taiwan 121 Appendix 3: Sample lesson plan Lesson Plan 7 Date: Dec. 12th , 2005 1. Student number: 41 2. Subject: Reading 3. Course description: The main purpose of this course is to help students develop their ability in reading fluency, comprehension and vocabulary skills. 4. Course Text: (1) ACTIVE: Skills for Reading, Book 3, Boston: Thomson, Heinle (2) Supplementary handouts 5. Collaborators: Regular English teacher: XXX Research Assistant: XXX 6. Class procedures: Regular instruction Topic Reading skill Reading ac tivities Remedial instruction Reading Chapter 7: Fashion and Style Skimming for the main ideas: Internal consistency: (It’s been taught last two weeks.) The reader examines if the ideas expressed in the text are logically consistent with one another. Syntactic standard: The reader evaluates the grammati cality of a sentence. On page 74 of the textbook, students While doing the activities on page are asked to skim the passages 76, the teacher asks students to quickly to find the main idea of each check their partners’ answers based passage. on internal consistency and syntac tic standard. While doing the activities on page 77, students are asked to circle the word to complete the sentences based on the skills of internal con sistency. Appendix 4: Sample teaching checklist (excerpt) Strategies Simple Description Remark Have Students’ Reac been Local Strategies: Dealing with the basic linguistic units tion: taught? Paraphrasing The reader restates the content with different Not yet words. Yes Rereading The reader rereads a part of the reading passage. Solving the The reader tries to understand a particular word Yes vocabulary within the context, a synonym or some other cues problem in the content. (continues ...)
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