Enhancing Reading Comprehension through Metacognitive ... · This paper falls within the realm of LLS (l anguage learning strategies ). It attempts at ... English for General Business

University of Oran

The English Doctoral School

EDALPCBS

Enhancing Reading Comprehension through

Metacognitive Reading Strategies for Business English

Learners The Case of First Year LMD, Economic Sciences, Management & Commercial

Sciences Students, at the University of Hassiba Ben-Bouali in Chlef.

Submitted by: BELHADIA Amar

A Dissertation Submitted in Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Magister in Business English

Chairperson : Pr. YACINE Rachia University of Oran

Supervisor: Dr. BENHATTAB Abdelkader Lotfi University of Oran

Examiner : Dr. SEBANE Zoubida University of Oran

Faculty of Letters, Languages and Arts

Department of Anglo-Saxon Languages

Section of English

2013-2014

Board of Examiners Soutenue le 25 Mai 2014

Dedication

I

This work is dedicated to...

My parents for being mine...

My inspiring partner ‘Ilhem’, and our angels ‘Iyad’ and

‘Nizar’...

And

Every single teacher I attended his or her class, for their

contribution to making of me what I am....

Acknowledgements

II

Acknowledgements

For all the honour it offers to the researcher, the way of research is not that easy to

walk. I could not have taken it without the valuable support of those special people who

worked hard for our success.

For this, my most special thanks go first to Pr. Yassine.R for her true care,

encouragement and support for us.

I remain tremendously indebted of gratitude to my supervisor Dr. Benhattab A.L, who

has been very patient and supportive with me. Without his smart guiding I would not have

completed this work.

And so I remain for the examiner of my work, Dr Sebane.Z who devoted her precious

time and attention to the analysis of this humble work.

As I owe special thanks to that caring team of teachers, who devotedly prioritized our

success and boosted our pride of being their students. So, my thanks to everyone of you : Dr.

Zitouni, Dr. Djaileb, Dr. Dani, Dr Boukriris, Dr Bensafi, Dr. Bouhadiba,L and Dr Zaghar.

Abstract

III

Abstract

This paper falls within the realm of LLS (language learning strategies). It attempts at

shedding light on metacognitive reading strategies and their effectiveness in the enhancement

of Business English students’ ability to comprehend reading materials.

The participants are 1st year LMD, Economic Sciences, Management and Commercial

Sciences’ students, who are concerned with a course in EGBP (English for General Business

Purposes) as part of the curriculum.

Participants, being randomly chosen, were, again randomly, divided into two groups. The first

was assigned as the experimental group, while the second as the control one. The course was

designed as an EGBP learning-centred one that targets mainly the reading skill. For the sake

of this research, the course content was conceived in two versions; one that implies a

metacognitive reading strategies training built on the CALLA model (Chamot & O’Malley,

1994), and a second which does not imply any addition content. Participants in the

experimental group undertook the version of the course that implies the training, while those

in the control group undertook the version that does not imply the training.

Just before the course started, participants of both groups had taken a pretest that aimed at

checking the homogeneity of their profiles in terms of reading comprehension ability. Soon

after, they had been involved into an oral discussion about language learning strategies, in

order to ensure that none of them had undertaken any strategy instruction beforehand. Just

after that, those of the experimental group had been asked to fill in a reading strategies

questionnaire that aimed at assessing the reading strategies they already use.

At the course’ exit, participants of the experimental group were asked to fill in a reading

strategies questionnaire, similar to the one given to them in the pre-course phase, so as to

check improvement in terms of the use of the target strategies. Soon after, participants of both

groups took a posttest, as the achievement test. The latter aimed at evaluating participants’

ability to comprehend reading materials after having completed the course.

Eventually, the data gathered throughout the process described above were submitted to

analysis and study so as to answer the three questions of this research.

Keywords: English for General Business Purposes, Language learning Strategies,

Metacognitive reading strategies, Instructional model.

Abstract

IV

Résumé

Cette étude s'inscrit dans le domaine des stratégies d'apprentissage des langues. Le chercheur,

et à travers, tente de montrer l’efficacité des stratégies métacognitives de lecture dans l'amélioration

de la capacité de apprenants de l’anglais des affaires à comprendre des textes de lecture.

Les participants sont des étudiants de 1ère année LMD, sciences économiques, gestion et sciences

commerciales, qui sont concernés par un cours de’ Anglais des Affaires pour de Buts Spécifiques

(ESBP) dans le cadre du programme d'études.

Les participants, étant choisis au hasard, ont été divisés, toujours au hasard, en deux groupes. Le

premier a été nommé ‘groupe expérimental’, tandis que le second a été nommé ‘group de control’. Le

cours a été conçu comme ‘cours d’anglais des affaires pour des buts spécifiques (EGBP)’, ciblant

principalement la compétence de le la lecture. Aussi, il a été conçu en deux versions : l'une qui

implique une instruction en stratégies métacognitives de lecture, suivant le modèle CALLA suggéré

par Chamot & O’Malley (1994), et une deuxième version sans l’instruction des stratégies.

Les participants du groupe expérimental ont entrepris la version du cours qui implique l’instruction,

tandis que ceux du groupe de contrôle ont entrepris la version qui n'implique pas l’instruction.

Juste avant de commencer le cours, les participants des deux groupes avaient pris un pretest qui vise la

vérification de l'homogénéité de leurs profils en termes de capacité de compréhension des textes de

lecture. Peu de temps après, ils avaient été impliqués dans une discussion orale sur les stratégies

d'apprentissage des langues, à fin de s’assurer qu'aucun d'entre eux avait entrepris une instruction en

stratégie d’apprentissage des langues au préalable.

Juste après cela, les participants du group expérimental ont été invités à remplir un questionnaire de

stratégies métacognitives de la lecture, dans le but d’évaluer les stratégies de la lecture qu'ils utilisent

déjà.

À la sortie du cours, les participants du groupe expérimental on été invités, encore une fois, pour

remplir un questionnaire sur les stratégies de lecture, semblable à celui reçu juste avant le cours, à fin

d’évaluer l’évolution réalisée en termes d’usage des stratégies ciblées à travers l’instruction.

Peu de temps après, les participants des deux groupes ont passé un posttest, étant un test de rendement.

Celui-ci vise l’évaluation la capacité des participants à comprendre les textes de lecture après avoir

terminé le cours.

Eventuellement, les données recueillies ont été soumises aux études et analyses à fin de répondre au

trois questions de recherche posées.

Abstract

V

ملخص

يحاول الباحث من خاللها أن يلقي الضوء على . تصب هذه الدراسة في مجال استراتيجيات تعلم اللغات

و فاعليتها في تعزيز قدرة طلبة اللغة اإلنجليزية لألعمال على فهم النصوص ' إستراتيجيات القراءة الما وراء إدراكية'

. المقروءة

السنة األولى علوم اقتصادية، تسيير و علوم تجارية، إلى تكوين في في إطار هذه الدراسة خضع المشاركون، و هم طلبة

.اللغة اإلنجليزية لألعمال

قبيل الشروع في التكوين خضع الطلبة المشاركون لفحص تشخيصي كان يهدف إلى تفقد تجانس مالمحهم على مستوى

اللغات، و ذلك بغرض التأكد من عدم بعد ذلك أُدمجوا في نقاش حول إستراتيجيات تعلم. القدرة على فهم النصوص

بعد ذلك، استلم المشاركون استطالعا إلستراتيجيات القراءة، و ذلك بهدف . خضوعهم إلى أي تكوين سابق في ذات المجال

.تقييم إستراتيجيات القراءة التي يستعملونها قبل التكوين

كما ُصمم في طبعتين مختلفتين، حيث اشتركت كال . تميز التكوين الذي خضع له المشاركون بتركيزه على مهارة القراءة

و بعد أن . الطبعتين في المحتوى الُمدرس، في حين انفردت إحداهما بتدريب على إستراتيجيات القراءة الماوراء إدراكية

المشتملة قُسم المشاركون عشوائيا إلى مجموعتين، ضابطة و تجريبية، أُخضعت المجموعة التجريبية إلى التكوين في طبعته

.على التدريب، في حين أُخضعت المجموعة الضابطة إلى التكوين في طبعته التي تخلو من التدريب

في نهاية التكوين استلم مشاركو المجموعة التجريبية استطالع إستراتيجيات القراءة ثانية و ذلك بغرض قياس التقدم المحقق

مباشرة بعد ذلك أُخضع مشاركو المجموعتين إلى فحص تحصيلي، . وينفي استعمال اإلستراتيجيات التي اُستهدفت في التك

.الهدف منه قياس تقدم المشاركين في القدرة على فهم النصوص المقروءة بعد إتمامهم للتكوين

. وفي النهاية، أُخضعت المعطيات المحصلة إلى التحليل و الدراسة وصوال إلى استنتاجات تجيب عن أسئلة البحث الثالث

List of Abbreviations and Acronyms

VI

Key to Abbreviations and Acronyms

BE Business English

CALLA Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach

EAP English for Academic Purposes

EGBP English for General Business Purposes

EGAP English for General Academic Purposes

ESAP English for Specific Academic Purposes

ESBP English for Specific Business Purposes

ESP English for Specific Purposes

FLT Foreign Language Teaching

GE General English

L1 Mother Tongue

L2 Second Language

LLS Language Learning Strategies

LMD Licence, Master, Doctorate

NNS Non-native Speakers

NS Native Speakers

TESOL Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages

TL Target Language

List of Tables

VII

List of Tables

Table1: A Comparison of similar teaching strategies and learning strategies 44

(Chamot et al. In: http//www.nclrc.com)

Table2: Learning strategies classification (O’Malley &Chamot 1990:4) 50

Table3: Metacognitive model of strategic learning (Chamot et al, 1999:15- 17) 7 1

Table4: Teaching learning strategies checklist (Chamot et al, 1999:137) 95

Table5: Pre-training learning strategies questionnaires results 99

Table6: Post-training learning strategies questionnaire results 104

Table7: Pretest and Posttest results of both groups 111

List of Figures

VIII

List of Figures

Figure 1: Rhetorical Process Chart (Hutchinson & Waters, 1987: 11) 16

Figure 2: Needs Analysis Using CNP (ibid: 55) 17

Figure 3: The Tree of ELT (ibid: 17) 21

Figure 4: Factors Affecting ESP Course Design (ibid: 22) 26

Figure 5: A Language-centred approach to ESP course Design (ibid: 66) 29

Figure 6: A skills-centred Approach to ESP Course Design (ibid: 71) 31

Figure 7: A Comparison of Approaches to ES Course Design (ibid: 73) 33

Figure 8: A Learning-centred Approach to ESP course design (ibid: 74) 34

Figure 9: CALLA Instruction Sequence (Chamot et al, 1999: 45) 67

List of Graphs

IX

List of Graphs

Graph 1: Reading Strategies 1-4 Participants Always Use 108




X

Table of Contents

Dedication i

Acknowledgements ii

Abstract iii

Key to Abbreviations and Acronyms vi

List of Tables vii

List of Figures viii

List of graph ix

Table of Contents x

General Introduction 01

Chapter One: Preliminaries

1.0 Introduction 07

1.1 ESP and Business English 07

1.1.1 ESP 07

1.1.1.1 What is ESP? 07

1.1.1.2 The origins of ESP 10

1.1.1.3 The development of ES 12

1.1.1.4 Types of ESP 18

1.1.2 Business English 20

1.1.2.1 What is Business English? 22

1.1.2.2 Teaching Business English 22

1.1.2.3 English for General Business Purposes (EGBP) and English for Specific 23

Business Purposes (ESBP)

1.2 ESP Course Design 24

1.2.1 An overview on ESP Course Design 24

1.2.2 Approaches to ESP Course Design 28

1.2.2.1 The Language-centred Approach to Course Design 28

1.2.2.2 The Skills-centred Approach to Course Design 30

1.2.2.3 The Learning-centred Approach to Course Design 32

1.2.3 Syllabus Design

1.2.3.1 What is a Syllabus? 35

1.2.3.2 Types of Syllabuses 35

Conclusion 35

XII

Chapter Two: Review of the Literature

2.0 Introduction 38

2.1 The reading Skill 38

2.1.1 The Reading Process 38

2.1.2 Approaches to the Reading Process 39

2.1.2.1 The bottom-up View of Reading 39

2.1.2.2 The Top-down View of Reading 40

2.1.2.3 Schema Theory 41

2.1.2.4 The Interactive View of Reading 43

2.2 Language Learning Strategies 43

2.2.1 An Overview on Learning Strategies 43

2.2.1.1 Defining Language Learning Strategies 44

2.2.1.2 Insights from Language Learning Strategies Research 46

2.2.1.3 Intervention Studies of Language Learning Strategies 46

2.2.1.4 Learning Strategies Classification 47

2.2.1.4.1 Cognitive Strategies 47

2.2.1.4.2 Metacognitive Strategies 48

2.2.1.4.3 Social/Affective Strategies 48

2.2.1.4.4 The Concept of Strategic Competence 49

2.2.2 Learning Strategies as Applied to Reading 51

2.2.2.1 Metacognition in the Reading Skill 53

2.2.2.1.1 Metacognition and Metacognitive Strategies 53

2.2.2.1.2 Metacognitive Reading Strategies 54

2.2.2.1.2.1 Planning/ Pre-reading Strategies 56

2.2.2.1.2.2 Monitoring/While-reading Strategies 56

2.2.2.1.2.3 Evaluating/ Post-reading Strategies 57

2.2.3 Strategy Training 57

2.2.3.1 The Need for Strategy training 57

2.2.3.2 Implication of Strategy Training 58

2.2.3.3 When to Introduce the Strategies 59

2.2.3.4 The language of Strategies’ Instruction 60

2.2.3.5 Types of Strategy Training 60

2.2.3.5.1 Awareness Training 60

XII

2.2.3.5.1 One-time Strategy training 61

2.2.3.5.2 Long-term Strategy training 61

2.2.3.6 Models of Strategy Training 61

2.2.3.6.1 Vigotsky’s Model 62

2.2.3.6.2 Oxford’s Model 62

2.2.3.6.3 The CALLA model 66

Conclusion 75

Chapter Three

Research Design, Methodology and Data Analysis

3.0 Introduction 79

3.1 Methodology 79

3.1.1 Research design 79

3.1.2 The Participants 80

3.1.3 Instruments for Data Collection 80

3.1.3.1 Classroom Discussion 81

3.1.3.2 The Pretest/ The Diagnostic Test 81

3.1.3.3 The Reading Strategies Questionnaire for Pre and Post-course strategy 82

Assessment.

3.1.3.4 The Posttest/ The Achievement Test 82

3.1.4 The Procedure 82

3.1.4.1 The EGBP Reading Course 83

3.1.4.2 The Metacognitive Reading Strategies Training 85

3.2 Data Findings and Analysis 97

3.2.1 Classroom Discussion Findings 97

3.2.2 The Questionnaires 98

3.2.2.1 The Pre-course Questionnaire Findings 99

3.2.2.2 The Post-course Questionnaire Findings 103

3.2.3 The Pretest /Diagnostic Test Results 110

3.2.4 The posttest/ Achievement Test Results 111

Conclusion 113

General Conclusion 114

Bibliography 116

Appendices 119

General Introduction

1


First year Economic Sciences, Management and Commercial Sciences’ students at the

University of Hassiba Benbouali, in Chlef, who are participants of this research work, are

concerned with a course of English for General Business Purposes (EGBP) among the

subjects scheduled along the academic year.

Actually, their ability to read is considered as one of the most important language skills they

need to develop, since they need English, mainly, to explore and exploit specialty-related

resources that are available in English, during and after the university course.

This research, then, will attempt to investigate the effectiveness of metacognitive reading

strategies on the enhancement of the ability of participants, as Business English (BE) students,

to comprehend reading materials.

As assumed, reading requires in-depth comprehension, involving a complex

integration of the students’ prior knowledge, language proficiency and their cognitive and

metacognitive strategies. Being so, the reading act engages the learner into a mental process

that submits those strategies to development while dealing with reading. That is due to the

fact that the reading act implies the reader’s trials to make sense of what is being read, and to

decide what actions to take in case where understanding is not reached.

In the light of what has just been stated, the following questions rise:

Through the present paper, the researcher aims at shedding light on the effectiveness

of metacognitive reading strategies in the enhancement of the ability of First year Economic

Sciences, Management and Commercial Sciences’ students, as Business English learners, to

comprehend reading materials.

In order to reach the objective of the research, the following research questions rise:

1. Do students have any reading strategies that they already use?

2. Is it possible to raise students’ metacognitive awareness of reading strategies

through a metacognitive strategies training to promote their use of these

strategies?

3. Does training students on metacognitive reading strategies enhance their

reading comprehension ability?


2

The researcher suggests three hypotheses to the research questions raised above, they are

respectively:

1. Students have strategies that they already use.

2. It is possible to raise students’ metacognitive awareness of reading strategies

through a metacognitive reading strategies training to promote their use of

these strategies.

3. Training students on metacognitive reading strategies enhances their reading

comprehension ability.

For the sake of this research, the researcher randomly chose two first year Economic

Sciences, Management and Commercial Sciences’ groups of students, and then assigned

them, again randomly, as control and experimental group. Both groups will take the same

Business English reading comprehension course. However, for the experimental group the

course will imply a metacognitive reading strategies training. Thus, the course will appear in

two versions. The first one without implying the strategy training and will concern the control

group, while the second will imply it and will concern the experimental one.

In order to obtain the necessary data, the following data collection instruments will be used:

an oral discussion, a pre-course reading strategies questionnaire, a pretest, a post-course

reading strategies questionnaire and a posttest. The oral discussion is meant to ensure that

participants did not undertake any strategy instruction beforehand. That is to say, it aims at

checking their homogeneity in terms of strategy instruction experience. The pre-course

reading strategies questionnaire, which is the second instrument, is meant to assess the

reading strategies participants in the experimental group already use. Thus, it will answer the

first research question which is about whether participants already use reading strategies.

The third instrument, which is the pretest, is meant to check participants’ homogeneity in

terms of their reading comprehension ability. It is worth noting that the participants’

knowledge at the course entry is a General English (GE) one, since their entry profile is,

ideally, the secondary school education exit profile. Thence, the pretest will be a General

English (GE) reading comprehension test. It is noteworthy that the pretest will serve as a

diagnostic test whose result will be of a considerable usefulness in the design of the course. The fourth instrument is the reading strategies questionnaire. It is the same questionnaire

which will be used at the pre-course phase for assessing strategies participants’ already use

that will be used as a pre-course questionnaire. The results that will be obtain about strategies


3

participants will be using after the course will be compared with the result that will be

obtained at the pre-course phase so as to evaluate participants’ improvement in terms of

strategy use. That is to say, to evaluate the effectiveness of the metacognitive strategy training

participants undertook throughout the course in improving their strategy’ use. The results of

this comparison will answer the second research question which is about whether it is possible

or not to raise participants’ metacognitive awareness through a strategy training in order to

promote their use of these strategies.

The fifth and last data collection instrument used in this research is the posttest. It is a test that

will be taken by participant at the post-course phase as an achievement test. It aims at

evaluating participants’ reading comprehension ability at the course exit. Results obtained

from such a test will reflect the effect of the course on participants’ reading comprehension

ability. Then, comparison of results obtained by participants in each group will reflect the

effect of the metacognitive strategy training undertaken by the experimental group. This will,

also, answer the third research question which is about the effectiveness of metacognitive

reading strategies in enhancing Business English students’ ability to comprehend reading

materials.

This paper will be presented in three chapters. The first will cover preliminary

concepts to which this research relates. It will include an overview on ESP with its different

branches, with an expanded consideration of BE (Business English), being the core concept

for this research, as it will target the reading skill through a Business English course. This

chapter will also include ESP course design, being an important task for the ESP teacher, in

addition to the different approaches to course design.

The second chapter will cover the reading skill. Thus, it is intended to include defining the

reading process as brought by authors in the field, in addition to the different approaches to

the reading process. A second concept that will be surveyed within this chapter is LLS

(language learning strategies), including an overview on LLS, and their categorization as

presented in leading research-works in the field. It is noteworthy that a clear focus will be put

on metacognitive reading strategies, being a core concept for this research.

This chapter will include, also, a survey of strategy training models that have been suggested

by researchers. Among the cited models, the CALLA one (Chamot & O’Malley, 1994) which

represents the theoretical framework for the strategy training implemented in this research.

The third chapter will be devoted to research design, methodology and data analysis. It will

include a description of the procedure of the research, presentation of the instruments used for


4

data gathering, description of the reading course designed by the researcher, being the teacher

in charge of the course, and a description of the metacognitive reading strategies training

implemented within the course.

This chapter will include, also, data analysis and the findings which will be interpreted so as

to answer the research questions. Some recommendations will be included in addition to the

limitations of the present research.

Chapter One Preliminaries

5

Chapter One:

Preliminaries


6

Chapter One: Preliminaries

1.0 Introduction 07

1.1 ESP and Business English 07

1.1.1 ESP 07

1.1.1.1 What is ESP? 07

1.1.1.2 The origins of ESP 10

1.1.1.3 The development of ES 12

1.1.1.4 Types of ESP 18

1.1.2 Business English 20

1.1.2.1 What is Business English? 22

1.1.2.2 Teaching Business English 22

1.1.2.3 English for General Business Purposes (EGBP) and English for Specific 23

Business Purposes (ESBP)

1.2 ESP Course Design 24

1.2.1 An overview on ESP Course Design 24

1.2.2 Approaches to ESP Course Design 28

1.2.2.1 The Language-centred Approach to Course Design 28

1.2.2.2 The Skills-centred Approach to Course Design 30

1.2.2.3 The Learning-centred Approach to Course Design 32


1.2.3.1 What is a Syllabus? 35

1.2.3.2 Types of Syllabuses 35

Conclusion 35


7

1.0 Introduction

Undoubtedly, Economic Sciences, Management and Commercial Sciences students, as

Business English learners, need to develop their reading skill regarding its importance for the

exploration of specialty-related resources that are available in English. Hence, targeting the

enhancement of reading comprehension, for this group of learners, comes as the fulfilment of

a need. However, before discussing the reading skill and reading strategies as core concepts

for this study, it is of paramount importance to survey preliminary concepts such as ESP and

Business English, being the realm to which this study belongs.

This chapter, thus, will include a survey of the literature related to these two preliminary

concepts.

1. ESP and Business English

ESP has gone through a process of development to which different factors contributed

in different ways and degrees. In this section of the first chapter, a brief presentation of ESP

will be introduced including its definition(s), origins and, then, the main stations that marked

its development, from its emergence to the most recent evolution it knew.

1.1 ESP

ESP has been taking an over-spreading action in response to the needs of those

specific domains that need specific languages for specific purposes, being either occupational

or educational.

Since participants are concerned with English for General Business Purposes (EGBP), as

pointed out previously, the first part of the first chapter has been devoted to the introduction

of ESP and Business English key concepts for paper. Thus, this chapter surveys the

definitions, emergence and development of ESP and Business English as brought in the

related literature.

1.1.1 What is ESP?

Researchers have approached ESP from different perspectives, thus they define it in

different ways. Hutchinson and Waters (1987) perceive ESP as an approach rather than a


8

product. They do not consider it as a particular kind of language or methodology nor

consisting of a particular type of material. They rather consider it as an approach to language

teaching/learning, which is based on learner’s needs. They argue that ESP is founded totally

on the answer to the simple question: Why does this learner need to learn a foreign language?

They conclude saying that ESP should be seen not as any particular language product but as

an approach to language teaching/learning which considers the reasons for which the learner

is taking the course of the foreign language, since they are known precisely. In this respect

they state;

“ESP must be seen as an approach not a product. ESP is not a

particular kind of language or methodology, nor does it consist

of a particular type of material .Understood properly, it is an

approach to language learning, which is based on learner need.

The foundation of all ESP is the simple question: Why does this

learner need to learn a foreign language?”

(Hutchinson and Waters 1987:19)

They set it clearer by adding that ESP should be considered as an approach that is guided by

plain and specific reasons for learning the target language, in their words“...ESP should

properly be seen not as any particular language product but as an approach to language

teaching which is restricted by specific and apparent reasons for learning.” (Ibid: 19)

Strevens (1988), in Dudley Evans & St John (1998:3), defines ESP through a set of

characteristics which he classifies into absolute and variable ones.

Through the absolute characteristics he qualifies ESP as being:

1. designed to meet specified needs for the learners ;

2. related in content (in its themes and topics) to particular disciplines , occupations and

activities;

3. centred on language appropriate to those activities in syntax ,lexis, discourse ,

semantics and so on , and analysis of the discourse;

4. in contrast with General English.

Meanwhile, through the variable characteristics, he qualifies ESP as:

1. may be restricted as to the learning skills to be learned (for example reading only);

2. may not be taught to any pre-ordained methodology.


9

Robinson (1991), in Dudley Evans & St John (1998:3), defines ESP on the basis of two key

defining criteria and a number of its characteristics. Her key criteria are that ESP is normally

goal-oriented” and that ESP courses develop from a needs analysis , which “aims to specify

as closely as possible what exactly it is that students have to do through the medium of

English” (Robinson,1991:3 in Dudley Evans & St John 1998:3). Dudley Evans & St John

(1998) explain Robinson’s characteristics for ESP as that ESP courses are constrained by a

limited time period, in which objectives should be achieved, and are taught to adults in

homogenous classes in terms of the work or specialist studies that students are involved in.

Dudley Evans & St John (1998:3) describe Streven’s definition of ESP as the most

comprehensive one in comparison with those given by Hutchinson (1987) & Waters and

Robinson (1991).Nevertheless, they criticize it in the point of the content referred to in the

second absolute characteristic. They claim that this can lead to certain confusion by

confirming the impression held by many teachers that ESP is always and necessarily related

directly to subject content, which they describe as a false impression.

They (Dudley Evans & St John) add, stating, that a definition of ESP should reflect the fact

that much of ESP teaching makes use of a methodology that differs from that used in EGP

teaching. They explain that they mean by methodology the nature of the interaction between

the ESP teacher and the learners. They also refer to general ESP classes which they subject to

comparison with more specific ESP classes .The difference stated then is that in more general

ESP classes the methodology used may be similar to EGP classes, whereas, in more specific

ESP classes the teacher becomes more like a language consultant enjoying equal status with

the learners.

The language of ESP in Dudley Evans & St John view is included as a defining feature. While

the specified needs arising from needs analysis relate to activities the learners need to carry

out rather than language, these activities generate and depend on registers, genres and

associated language that the learners need to be able to manipulate in order to carry out the

activity.

Dudley Evans & St John (1998:4) define ESP through absolute and variable characteristics as

well, which they state as follows:

a. Absolute Characteristics:

- ESP is designed to meet specific needs of the learner;

- ESP makes use of the underlying methodology and activities of the disciplines it


10

serves;

- ESP is centred on the language (grammar, lexis, and registers), skills, discourse and

genres appropriate to these activities.

b. Variable Characteristics:

- ESP may be related to or designed for specific disciplines;

- ESP may use, in specific teaching situations, a different methodology from that of general

English;

- ESP is likely to be designed for adult learners, either at a tertiary level institution or in a

professional work situation, it could, however be used for learners at secondary school level;

- ESP is generally used for intermediate or advanced students. Most ESP courses assume

basic knowledge of the language system, but it can be used with beginners.

1.1.2 Origins of ESP

Actually, researchers have found out that the concept of Languages for Specific

Purposes seems to be deep-rooted in the history of humanity, they state that its origins go as

far back in the past as the 1700s. Dudley-Evans & St John (1998:1) refer to the origin of

Languages for Specific Purposes (LSP) as having had a long history going back in time to the

Roman and Greek Empires saying that“...The study of languages for specific purposes has

had a long and interesting history going back, some would say, as far as the Roman and

Greek Empires” (Dudley-Evans & St John, 1981:1).

Dudley-Evans & St John (1998 :19), note Howatt (1984), arguing that the need for

commercial English for incoming Huguenot and Protestant refugees in England in the 16th

century led to a focus on Business English in early ELT and that today’s textbooks on

‘Commercial English’ and business letter writing were a feature of ELT from the 19th

century.

They add that the general development in the world of economy in the 1950s a 1960s seems

to have a considerable contribution in the burgeoning of ESP.

As stated in their words:


11

“The original flowering of the ESP movement resulted from

general development in the world of economy in the 1950s and

60s: the growth of science and technology, the increased use of

English as the international language of science, technology and

business, the increased economic power of certain oil-rich

countries and increased numbers of international students

studying in the UK and USA and Australia”

(ibid: 19)

Tom Hutchinson and Alan Waters (1989:6) confirm the contribution of the economic

development the world has known in the flowering of ESP. Moreover, they refer to ESP as a

phenomenon resulting from a set of converging trends, far from being a planned and coherent

movement. They, also, mention three main reasons common to the emergence of ESP which

are:

a. The Demand of a Brave New world

The enormous expansion in the world of science, technology and economics the world

knew by the end of the Second World War in 1945; put the world under the dominance of

technology and commerce. Consequently, a serious demand for an international language

surfaced. For many reasons, and most notably the economic power of the USA in the post-war

period, English took the role. A new mass of people wanting to learn English appeared. Their

interest for the pleasure or prestige of learning a foreign language, it resulted from the power

English gained by becoming the key to international currencies of economy. By acquiring the

role of the international language of technology and commerce, it created a new generation of

learners who know specifically what they were learning a foreign language, such as

businessmen and women who wanted to sell their products, and mechanics who wanted to

read instruction manuals...etc.

b. A Revolution in Linguistics

As the demand for English courses tailored to specific needs was growing, this

influenced the study of language causing the emergence of new ideas. The effect was obvious,

notably in the shift of attention from the usage of the language, which lies in defining its form,


12

to the ways in which language is actually used in real communication (Widdowson, 1978). It

is then that it was found that the language we speak and write varies considerably from one

context to another. In language teaching this gave rise to the idea that there are considerable

differences between English of commerce and English of engineering.

In short, the view that gained ground was that English needed by a particular group of learners

could be identified by analysing the linguistic characteristics of the specialist area of work or

study, Thus the guiding principle for ESP became: ” Tell me what you need English for I tell

you the English that you need.”

c. Focus on the Learner:

The development known by educational psychology had also its part of contribution in

the rise of ESP, mainly by emphasising on the importance of the learners and their attitudes

towards the learning process. Learners were then seen as having different needs and interests

which would have an important impact on their motivation to learn and therefore on the

effectiveness of their learning. On the basis of this view, courses started being designed in

relevance with learners’ needs and interest. It is worth mentioning that the standard way for

realizing this relevance was to choose texts from the learners’ specialist area-texts. The

assumption underlying this approach was that the clear relevance of the English course to

their needs would improve their motivation and thus promote learning by making it better and

faster.

Strevens (1977), also, states that the change in the world of education, giving the learner a

more central consideration to the educational process, contributed to the rise of ESP, he notes

that“... the existence of a major ‘tide’ in educational thought, in all countries and affecting all

subjects. The movement referred to is the global trend towards ‘learner-centred education”

(Strevens, 1977:152).

1.1.3 Development of ESP

Research has shown that from its emergence, ESP has undergone different stages of

development. Tom Hutchinson and Alan Waters refer to its beginning as being in the 1960s

while identifying five phases in the process of its development“...From its early beginning in

the 1960s ESP has undergone three main phases of development .It is now a fourth phase

with a fifth phase starting to emerge...”(Hutchinson & Waters 1987:9).


13

1.1.3.1 The Concept of Special Language: Register Analysis

The related literature confirms that Register Analysis Approach was the first to be

implemented in ESP, that is to say in the 1960s and onwards. As an approach, its main tenet

was that English of, say, electrical Engineering constituted a specific register different from

that of, say, Biology or general English. In other words, it was believed that students of these

special areas of English could be best served by providing them with the key grammatical

features and lexis to be found in their specialist area. It is worth noting that Swales (1988:1) in

(Dudley-Evans & St John 1998:21), refers to this approach as being based on “lexicostatistics.

Thus, analysing the target register in order to identify its grammatical and lexical features was

believed to serve the purpose best. Teaching materials, then, took these linguistic features as

their syllabus (Hutchinson & Waters 1987:9). The first significant ESP (EST) textbook, as

referred to by Dudley-Evans & St John (1998:21), is “The Structure of Technical English” by

A. J. Herbert which was published in 1965. Another one, noted by Hutchinson & Waters

(1987:9), is that of “A Course in Basic Scientific English” by Ewer and Latorre published in

1969.

However, serious critics were directed to the register analysis-based syllabus, and the

approach was rapidly overtaken by the development of linguistics. The approach was

criticized in the fact that register analysis showed that there was very little actual difference in

‘scientific’ language as compared to general English. In a comparison made by Ewer and

Hughes-Davies (1971) between the language of the texts their science’ students had to read

with the language of some widely used textbooks, they found that the school textbooks

neglected some of the language forms commonly used in science texts, for example,

compound nouns, passives, conditionals and modal verbs. Their conclusion was, then, that

ESP course should give priority to these forms.

Wales (1988), as noted in Dudley-Evans & St John (1998:21), in a critical analysis of “The

structure of Technical English”, claimed that the coverage of language has been admired but

for classroom use it did not really meet the requirements. In addition to the repetitiveness of

the activities, the length of the texts and their lack of authenticity, the restriction on a range of

vocabulary and grammar appeared as insufficient for a textbook on EST. This led to a shift of

focus from the form needed to the use of language and communication.


14

1.1.3.2 Rhetorical or Discourse Analysis

The major difference between the first and the second phases in the development of

ESP is the shift of focus from the sentence level to the one above the sentence. Hutchinson &

Waters (1987:10) refer to this phase by labelling it: “Beyond the sentence”. That is because

ESP became closely involved in the emerging field of discourse or rhetorical analysis,

pioneered by Henry Widdowson in Britain, John Lackstrom, Mary Todd-Trimble and others

in the United States.

The main assumption underlying the discourse analysis approach is stated by Allen and

Widdowson (1974) as succinctly as follows:

“We take the view that the difficulties which the students

encounter arise not so much from a defective knowledge of the

system of English, but from an unfamiliarity with English use,

and that consequently their needs cannot be met by a course

which simply provides further practice in the composition of

sentences, but one which develops a knowledge of how

sentences are used in the performance of different

communicative acts”

Allen &Widdowson 1974 in Hutchinson & Waters, 1987: 10)

As noted by Dudley & St John (1998: 23), the argument Widdowson presents for the primacy

of language use over the form (usage in his terminology) was influential for those who began

to work on ESP in the 1970s.

From a syllabus design perspective, the main concern of research was to indentify the

organizational patterns in texts and to specify the linguistic means by which they are

signalled. These patterns would then form the syllabus of the ESP course. (Hutchinson &

Waters, 1987:10). Hence, the typical teaching material based on the discourse approach

targeted the recognition of textual patterns and discourse markers.

However, the four skills remained the remarkable absentee up to this phase, as none of the

works done so far has given them importance. Hence, specific work on study skills became

the major focus in the late 1970s (Dudley & St John 1998:23).The figure suggested on the

next page represents the Rhetorical Process Chart which represents this approach (from “EST:

A discourse Approach” by Louis Trimble (1985) in Hutchinson and Waters 1987:11)


15

1.1.3.3 Target Situation Analysis (or Needs Analysis)

Target Situation Analysis , referred to also as ‘Needs Analysis’, aimed at establishing

procedures for relating language analysis more closely to learners’ reasons for learning since

ESP course aims at enabling learners to function adequately in a target situation (Hutchinson

& Waters 1987:12). Under this assumption, ESP course design process should proceed by

first identifying the target situation and then carrying then a rigorous analysis of the linguistic

features of that situation. The indentified features will form the syllabus of the ESP course.

John Munby set out a system, in his work Communicative Syllabus Design (1978) that

explains best the target situation analysis. Through this system, Munby produces a detailed

profile for the learners’ needs in terms of communication purposes, communicative setting,

the means of communication, language skills, functions, structures etc.

It is worth noting that Target Situation Analysis grew up alongside the functional/notional

work of Wilkins (1976). Wilkins’ work argued that language was made up of functions - the

purposes to which language is put - and notions - concepts expressed by language. This

resulted in a search to find those situations where students would need language and then an

attempt to define the language needed in those situations.


16

Level Description of Level

A. The objectives of the total discourse

EXAMPLES: 1. detailing an experiment

2. Making a recommendation

3. Presenting new hypotheses or theory

4. Presenting other types of EST information

B. The general rhetorical function that develop the objectives of Level A

EXAMPLES: 1. Stating purpose

2. Reporting past research

3. Stating the problem

4. Presenting information on apparatus used in

an experiment－

a) Description

b) Operation

5. Presenting information on experimental

procedures

C. The specific rhetorical functions that develop the general

rhetorical functions of Level B

EXAMPLES: 1. Description: physical, function, and process

2. Definition

3. Classification

4. Instructions

5. Visual-verbal relationships

D. The rhetorical techniques that provide relationships within and between the

rhetorical units of Level C

EXAMPLES: I. Orders

1. Time order

2. Space order

3. Causality and result

II. Patterns

1. Causality and result

2. Order of importance

3. Comparison and contrast

4. Analogy

5. Exemplification

6. Illustration

Figure1: Rhetorical Process Chart (Hutchinson and Waters 1987:11)


17

Figure2: Needs analysis using the CNP (Hutchinson and Waters 1987:55)

1.1.3.4 Skills and Strategies

Skills and strategies theory characterized the 1980s part of ESP’s life. As stated in by

Hutchinson & Waters (1987:13), the assumption which underlies it is that all languages share

common interpreting and reasoning processes that enable us to understand or decode the

meaning from discourse. Thus, the focus should not be limited to the surface language but

should rather be on the underlying interpretive strategies. Guessing the meaning of words

from context and using the visual lay out of the text to indentify its type, exploiting cognates

(i.e. words that are similar in mother tongue and the target language) are representative

examples of these strategies. It is worth noting that in this approach there is no need to focus

on specific subject registers since the underlying processes are common to all subjects’

registers.

Chitravelu1980 in Hutchinson & Waters (1987:13) argues that the reading skills are not

specific to languages but universal and that there is a core language. By the latter it is referred

to structures and forms like certain structures of arguments and forms of presentation.


18

In terms of materials, the focus should be put on reading and listening strategies .Thus,

learners are asked to reflect on and analyse meaning as conveyed in written or spoken

discourse. That rises from the consideration of the learners as thinking beings who can

observe and then express their interpretive processes they employ in language use (ibid

1987:13).

1.1.3.5 The Learning-Centred Approach

The pioneers of this approach, Hutchinson & Waters have this approach as the main

theme of many of their articles. They argue that ESP is not different in kind from any other

form of language teaching; hence it should be based on principles of effective and efficient

learning. They state that though the ESP’ content of learning may vary from the GE one, this

does not give any reason to cause their processes of learning to differ from each other

(Hutchinson & Waters, 1987:18). Their perception of the effective ESP course is based on the

consideration of what is beyond the competence that enables someone to perform. That is to

say targeting how someone can acquire that competence (Ibid: 73). Their main critic to other

approaches to ESP teaching pours in their focus on the description of language use instead of

the learning which is their real purpose (Ibid: 14).

In terms of course design, in the light of this approach the course is a dynamic and interactive

process through which the content and structures of the course are negotiated with the learners

throughout all the stages, so as to maximize the potential of the learning situation (Ibid :77).

1.1.1.4 Types of ESP

Researchers have come out with different branches that they identified in ESP.

Hutchinson & Waters(1987), mention three branches of ESP that appear on the ELT tree they

suggest. These branches are:

English for Science and Technology (EST),

English for Business and Economics (EBE)

English for Social Studies (ESS).

These areas themselves are divided later into two branches each, they are :

a) English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and b) English for Occupational

Purposes (EOP).


19

b) If we take the EST branch as an example, the EOP is 'English for Technicians'

whereas an example of EAP for the EST branch is 'English for Computer

Studies'.

Another categorization of ESP is the one suggested by David Carter (1983), these

branches are:

English as a restricted language

English for Academic and Occupational Purposes

English with specific topics.

For the type of English as a restricted language, carter cites the language use by air-traffic

controllers, or the one used by waiters.

Mackay and Mountford (1978), as noted by Kristen Gatehouse in his article entitled ‘Key

Issues in English for Specific Purposes (ESP) Curriculum Development’, clarify the

difference between restricted language and language as they state that;

“... the language of international air-traffic control could be

regarded as 'special', in the sense that the repertoire required by

the controller is strictly limited and can be accurately

determined situationally, as might be the linguistic needs of a

dining-room waiter or air-hostess. However, such restricted

repertoires are not languages, just as a tourist phrase book is

not grammar. Knowing a restricted 'language' would not allow

the speaker to communicate effectively in novel situation or in

contexts outside the vocational environment”.

Mackay and Mountford (1978: 4-5)

The second type of ESP identified by Carter is English for Academic and

Occupational Purposes. And here we notice that Carter brings EAP and AOP within the same

branch. Actually, even Hutchinson and Water, though they suggest each as a sub-branch

within each subject-related branch, they note that there is no clear-cut distinction between

EAP and EOP. Kristen Gatehouse, in his article ‘Key Issues Key Issues in English for

Specific Purposes (ESP) Curriculum Development’, raises the possibility that Carter (1983)


20

brought EAP and EOP under the same type of ESP on the basis of this statement made by

Hutchinson and Waters.

He sates what follows;

“It appears that Carter is implying that the end purpose of both

EAP and EOP are one in the same: employment. However,

despite the end purpose being identical, the means taken to

achieve the end is very different indeed”.

Kristen Gatehouse (http://www.iteslj.org/)

The third type of ESP indentified by Carter (1983) is English for Specific

Topics, being the only type in which emphasis moves from ‘purpose’ to ‘topics’.

This type, as stated by Gatehouse (idem), is concerned with uniquely anticipated

future English needs of, for instance, scientists interested in English for the purpose

of undertaking postgraduate reading studies, attending conferences or working in

foreign institutions.

Nevertheless, Gatehouse (idem) argues that this is not a different type of ESP but

rather an integral part of ESP programmes that focus on situational language needs.

He explains that this situational language has been determined on the basis of needs

analysis of authentic language used in target workplace settings.

1.1.2 Business English

Business English represents the area of ESP that has known the greatest part of

activity and development, as English became the international language of Business. Most

business English-medium communications are non-native speaker to non-native speaker

(NNS-NNS). It is notable that English used in these communications is not the one of native

speakers (NS), who is citizens of English-medium countries such as UK, USA and Australia,

but International English (Dudley & St John, 1998:53). Dudley & St John (ibid:54) cite Guy

and Mattock (1990) and their use of the term ‘Offshore’ to refer to the English used between

Europeans who do not share L1 and who learned English for practical purposes and not

academic ones as.


21

Figure 3: The tree of ELT (Hutchinson & Waters 1987: 17)


22

It is also worth noting that the concept of ‘International English’ refers more to effective

communication rather than English that sounds native-like. Non native speakers want to

communicate effectively but not necessarily like native speakers (Ibid).

1.1.2.1 What is Business English?

Business English (BE), as different from General English (GE), is part a branch of

ESP. As stated by Donna (2000:2), it involves teaching English to adults working in business

of one kind or another, or preparing to work in the fielded of business. The later covers the

case of participants of this research. Hence, Business English can be taught in language

schools, in-companies or any other rented premises.

While Business English has much in common with General EFL, it differs from it in many

other ways since the aims of their courses differ considerably.

Donna (idem) highlights the fact that Business English relates to expectations of the learners,

as the main thing to be retained by course organisers.

The purpose of a Business English course is to fulfil students’ work-related’ needs. These

needs are determined by the eventual use of English by the students. Thence, the content of

the Business English course varies according to the students’ needs and objectives.

Successful Business English courses are reached mainly those which reach their objectives

within the shortest periods of time due to the expensive costs of such courses. Needs can be

fulfilled, most quickly, when learners’ learning and effective needs are taken into

consideration and when it is made as much job-related as possible throughout the process of

designing the course.

1.1.2.2 Teaching Business English

Teaching Business English, as General FLT, has its implications. Most of the plans

suggested by applied linguists for the teaching of any of the ESP branches are not easy to be

distinguished from those assigned for General FLT.

Nevertheless, it remains noteworthy to shed light on the main aspect of teaching performance.

In this respect, Donna (2000) notes that the teaching objective and the steps of the lessons

should be made very clear to students so as to boost learners’ enthusiasm and intelligence,

while this facilitates the teaching task automatically for the teacher. To attain such a point,


23

decision-making and objective setting can be passed on to students frequently, mainly when

students are used to taking decisions, setting objectives and working with deadlines.

While objectives a related to the ‘what’ of the course, activities and techniques concern the

‘how’ part of it. Since these activities and techniques affect whether learning takes place or

not, they should be selected with serious consideration of teaching aims and learners’

response.

While the use of a variety of teaching techniques can be very useful for successful learning, it

remains valuable for the teacher to develop his or her own techniques to evaluate the

effectiveness of the methods and to combine methods effectively so as to provide a coherent

course. Making learners aware of the reasons behind a given method instead of another helps

them understand why things are happening in such or such way, consequently they will

cooperate with great enthusiasm.

Another important aspect of teaching that is worth highlighting is the teacher-student

relationship. In this respect Donna determines very expressively the kind of relation that

should join to student and the teacher, he says,

“On the most effective courses, students and teachers work in

partnership to build a constructive learning environment which

is appropriate to individual students’ professional and personal

situations. As well as being a learner, the student is also a

provider of information and material, if not also expertise.

Above all, he or she is the client and the teacher is an agent

providing a service.

(Idem)

1.1.2.3 English for General Business Purposes (EGBP) and English for Specific Business

Purposes (ESBP)

Likewise Academic English is divided into English for General Academic Purposes

(EGAP) and English for Specific Academic Purposes (ESAP), Business English is

categorized into English for General Business Purposes and English for Specific Business

purposes.

English for General Business Purposes concerns learners who are at very early stages of their

business contexts. The content of the EGBP course is much more language-based than job-


24

based. Most of the material designed to serve courses under this banner contain the four skills,

specific grammar and vocabulary development as stated by Dudley & St John (1998:55).

Works like “Makmillan Business Programme” which was authored by Badger and Menzies

(1993) and “Business Objectives” of Hollett (1991) are grammar-oriented courses. They cover

the grammar of English systematically with a particular attention given to verbs constituting

50 per cent of the grammar units in “The Language of Business English” (Brieger and

Sweeney, 1994) and two-thirds of those in “Grammar and Practice”(Duckworth, 1995). Such

courses focus on the presentation of the target grammar points through contexts in the form of

reading or listening scripts, followed by exercises to practice grammar and vocabulary, as a

means to reach accuracy. Eventually, other activities are suggested, targeting fluency in one

or more of the four skills.

Courses of such a design, in fact, teach English through business contexts or settings rather

than English for Specific Business Purposes. Whilst the vocabulary is Business-related, the

language activities are core EFL ones (Dudley & St John 1998:55 56).

1.2 ESP Course Design

As this research falls into the realm of Business English teaching, it has been

conducted with Economy, Management and Commercial Sciences students. The latter are

meant by a course of English for General Business Purposes (EGBP) while the teacher in

charge of the course has no specific content to cover. As part of his work, being an ESP

teacher, the researcher has to design a course of English for General Business Purposes to

meet the needs of the students. For this reason it has been very important to survey useful

literature related to ESP course design.

1.2.1 An Overview on ESP Course Design

Unlike General English teachers, who deal in most cases with predetermined contents

for their courses, ESP teachers are meant by designing their own courses. This fact gives

course design a priority status among the tasks of the ESP teacher.

But just before we go deeper into the concept of course design, and mainly the ESP one,

defining course design is noteworthy. One of the most comprehensive definitions of this

concept is the one suggested by Hutchinson and Waters (1987). It says,


25

“Course design is the process by which the raw data about

learning need is interpreted in order to produce an integrated

series of teaching-learning experiences, whose ultimate aim is to

lead the learners to a particular state of knowledge. In practical

terms this entails the use of the theoretical and empirical

information available to produce a syllabus, to select, adapt or

write materials in accordance with the syllabus, to develop a

methodology for teaching those materials and to establish

evaluation procedures by which progress towards the specified

goals will be measured”.

(Hutchinson & Waters, 1987: 65)

As perceived by Hutchinson Waters (1987), “ESP is an approach to language

teaching which aims to meet the needs of particular learners”. In practice this means that

much of the teacher’s work is concerned with designing appropriate courses for various

groups of learners. While course design plays relatively a minor part in the life of the General

English teacher, as General English courses are usually predetermined either by tradition,

choice of textbook or by the ministry as stated above, for the ESP’ teacher course design

often makes an important part of the workload.

In the same respect, Hutchinson &Waters state that,

“Designing a course is fundamentally a matter of asking

questions in order to provide a reasoned basis for the

subsequent process of syllabus design, materials writing,

classroom teaching and evaluation”.

(Ibid: 21)

They note that a range of questions should be asked, general and specific, theoretical and

practical. Some of them will be asked by research, others will rely on the intuition and

experience of the teacher and, yet others will call on theoretical models. The question they

suggest should be formed using why, who, where, when, what and how, to which they refer as

“Kipling’s six honest serving men”.

These questions, they state can be in the following form,

Why does the student need to learn?


26

Who is going to be involved in the process? This will need to cover not just the students, but

all the people who may have some effect on the process: teachers, sponsors, inspectors etc.

Where is the learning to take place? What potential does the place provide? What limitations

doe sit impose?

When is the learning to take place? How much time is available? How will it be distributed?

What does the student need to learn? What aspects of language will be needed and how will

they be described? What level of proficiency must be achieved? What topic areas will need to

be covered?

How will the learning be achieved? What learning theory will underline the course? What

kind of methodology will be employed (Idem).

Figure 4: Factors affecting ESP course design (Ibid: 22)

As shown in figure3 above, ESP course design is affected by the three main factors

which are language descriptions, learning theories and Needs analysis.

In their presentation of these three elements, Hutchinson and Waters (1987) , claim the

existence of confusion in the use of the terms ‘communicative’, ‘functional’, ‘structural’ etc,


27

as it is not uncommon to hear things like Functional approach or structural method , while

such things do not exist.

In this respect, they state;

“... a lot of confusion is undoubtedly caused in discussion about

ESP course design by the imprecise use of terms such as

‘communicative’, ‘structural’, ‘functional’ etc. Thus it is not

uncommon to hear people talk of ‘functional approach’, or a

‘structural method’, although no such things really exist; this

much-abused term ‘communicative’, is often used as if it were

synonymous with ‘functional’, which is not.

(Ibid: 22)

In order for them to avoid ambiguity at this level, they implemented two strategies. The first

one lies in avoiding the term ‘communicative’ and replacing it by learning-centred since it

expresses what the principles of the approach are (Idem).

The second strategy is to make a clear distinction between the two elements ‘language

description’ and ‘learning theory’. They state;

The language description is the way in which the language

system is broken down and described for the purposes of

learning. Terms such ‘structural’, ‘functional’, ‘notional’

properly belong to this area. They refer to ways of analysing

and describing the language. They say nothing about how the

language items described can or should be taught.

(Ibid: 23)

Through this statement, they mean that it is inappropriate to use such terms in conjunction

with ‘approach’ or ‘method’ since these two terms refer to a way of, or attitude to, teaching.

An approach, as they add, derives not from a view of language but from a view of learning.

They state this in nutshell when they say that ‘...it is the learning theory which provides the

theoretical basis for the methodology by helping us to understand how people learn’ (Idem).

The terms that are appropriate to the area of learning theories as noted by Hutchinson &

Waters and which they consider are ‘behaviourist’, cognitive, ‘affective’.


28

1.2.2 Approaches to Course Design

Since course design is such a process which engages as many factors and attitudes as

stated previously, there are certainly many approaches to it as confirmed by Hutchinson and

Waters (1987). They state that “...there are probably as many different approaches to ESP

course design as there are course designers” (ibid: 65). However they suggest three types of

course design that can be identified: language-centred, skill-centre and learning-centred.

1.2.2.1 Language-centred Approach to Course Design

This kind of course design is described as the simplest and most familiar to teachers of

English, and very prevalent in ESP. The language-centred course design aims at drawing a

direct connection between the analysis of the target situation and the content of the ESP

course. Figure 5 demonstrates how it proceeds.

As shown in figure 5 , the language-centred course design starts by the learner, proceeds

through various stages of analysis to a syllabus, thence to materials to use in the classroom

and finally to evaluation of mastery of the syllabus items.

However this kind of design has been criticized as having some weaknesses, such as

the fact that it starts from the learners and their needs as if it were learner-centred, while it is

not in any meaningful sense of the term. That’s because herein the learner is considered only

for the identification of the target situation, i.e. the learner is used only for defining the

restricted area of language to be targeted. Thereafter the learner plays no other roles in the

teaching/learning process. This kind of course design has been criticised also for being static

i.e. not flexible. That is due to its content being based on the first analysis while neglecting

changes that may occur due to conflicts and contradictions that are expected to characterize

any human endeavour.

In addition to the critics mentioned above, this model was criticized for its systematic aspect

which might engender the false belief that learning itself is systematic.

It has also been criticized for not acknowledging the factors which must inevitably have part

in the creation of the course. That is because the data gathered through data analysis is not

important itself, but it is its interpretation that matters.


29

The language-centred model of course design was also criticized for the fact that the data

analysis of the target situation superficial and says very little about the competence that

underlies the performance.

Hutchinson and Waters summarize critics of the language-centred model of course design

stating that “...the logical, straightforward appeal of the language-centred approach is, in

effect, its weakness” (ibid: 68).

Figure 5: A language-centred approach to course design (Ibid: 66)


30

1.2.2.2 Skills-centred Course Design

The skills-centred approach to ESP course design has been widely used in a number of

countries, and mainly in Latin America. Students there, as noted by Hutchinson & Waters,

have limited but very important texts to read that are not available in their mother tongue. In

response to that need, ESP course designers have worked on course projects that aim at

developing the skill of reading in English. Two principles form the basic foundation of the

skills-centred course design model, one theoretical, the other pragmatic (ibid: 69).

Its theoretical part says that any language behaviour is underlied by certain skills and

strategies which are put to use by the learner in order to produce or comprehend discourse.

That is to say, the skills-centred approach aims at going deeper than the surface performance

data by looking at the competence that underlies the performance. Objectives in such a model

are set in terms of both performance and competence that underlies it.

The pragmatic basis for the skills-centred approach, on the other hand, is that it derives from a

distinction made by Widdowson (1981) between goal-oriented and process-oriented courses.

Hutchinson and Waters (1987) note Holmes (1982) who draws attention to the fact that ESP‘s

main problem is usually one of time available for the course and students experience in their

specialty. These two factors, as Holmes states, ‘are constraints which say right from the start

that the aims cannot be achieved during the course’. Hutchinson and Waters state, “...If the

ESP course is designed in terms of goals, there is, in effect, a tacit admission that a large

number of students will fail the course” (Idem).

The process-oriented approach, they add, tries to avoid the problem by removing the

distinction between the ESP course and the target situation. The ESP course is not supposed

to produce students as proficient target situation performers, because as Holmes states, a large

number of students are likely to fail to achieve proficiency. Instead, “the ESP course and the

target situation are seen as a continuum of constantly developing degrees of proficiency with

no cut point of success or failure“.

It is worth noting that the researcher has to make a choice concerning the theoretical

background for his task of designing a course for the participants, for he is in charge of the

course.

The skills-centred approach points out to the same constraints the researcher confronted,

which are mainly time limitation and learners ‘experience in the literature of the specialty,


31

being first year students. Here is a presentation of the skills-centred approach to course design

as noted by Hutchison and Waters;

“The skills-centred model .... is a reaction both to the idea of

specific registers of English as basis for ESP and to the

practical constraints on learning imposed by limited time and

resources. In essence it sees ESP course as helping learners to

develop skills and strategies which will continue to develop after

the ESP course itself .Its aim is not to provide a specified corpus

of linguistic knowledge but to make the learners into better

processors of information.

(Idem)

However, the model of strategy training implemented by the researcher for the sake of this

research, which is suggested by Chamot et al (1999), favours learner-centeredness. As the

preparation phase of the strategy training which includes setting the learner-centred

classroom.

Although the skills-centred approach considers the learners, it does not do as fully as the

learning-centred approach, advocated by Hutchinson & Waters, does.

Thence, the researcher, in the design of the course he is in charge of, implemented much of

the learning-centred approach for its consideration of the learner at every stage of the design

process.

Figure6: A skills-centred approach to syllabus design (Ibid: 71)


32

1.2.2.3 A Learning-centred Approach

Hutchinson and Waters (1987) have chosen to use the term learning-centred instead of

learner-centred which is more common.

In their explanation of the idea behind their choice, they state that the learner-centred

approach is based on the principle that learning is totally determined by the learner. In the

light of this view, learning is seen as a process in which learners use the knowledge or skills

they already learnt in order to understand the new information. Accordingly, learning is an

internal process which depends crucially on the knowledge learners already have and their

ability and motivation to use it in the target situation.

Hutchinson and Waters suggest another perspective for seeing learning. They point out to

seeing learning in the context in which it takes place. They note,

“Learning is not just a mental process; it is a process of

negotiation between individuals and the society. Society sets the

target (in the case of ESP performance in the target situation)

and the individuals must do their best to get as close to that

target as possible (or reject it)”.

(Ibid: 72)

Learners will certainly determine their own route to the target and the speed in which they

travel that route; however that does not render the target itself unimportant. The target still has

a considerable influence on determining the route.

Thus, as stated by Hutchinson and Waters;

“... In the learning process, then, there is more than the learner

to consider. For this reason we would reject the term learner-

centred approach in favour of a learning centred approach to

indicate that the concern is to maximize learning. The learner is

one factor to consider in the learning process, but not the only

one”.

(Idem)

A critic made by the same authors about the skills-centred approach to course design,

is that although this approach puts emphasis on the learner, it does not fully take the


33

learners into account, because it still makes the learning situation too dependent on

the target situation.

While a language-centred approach says that the nature of the target situation performance

determines the ESP course, a skills-centred approach says that it is not enough, we have to

look beyond the target performance data to discover what processes enable someone to

perform, which means the competence that underlies the performance. A learning centred

approach says that it is not enough either, because what we want to discover is not the

competence itself, but how someone acquires that competence, thus we must look beyond the

competence.

A language-centred approach

Considers the learner to here

A skills-centred approach

considers the learner to here

A learning-centred approach

must consider the learner at every stage

Figure 7: A comparison of approaches to course design (Ibid: 73)

Identify target situation

Analyse target situation

Write materials

Teach materials

Evaluate learner achievement

Write syllabus

Analyse learning situation


34

As shown in figure 7, the learning-centred approach takes account of the learners at

every stage. This, as stated by the advocates of this approach, has two implications:

a. Course design is a negotiated process. There is no single factor that has an absolute

determining influence on the content of the course. On the contrary, each step of the

process will influence and be influenced by the others.

b. Course design is a dynamic process. It does not move in a linear way from initial

analysis to completed course. Needs and resources vary with time, therefore course design

needs to have built-in feedback channels so that it can be updated.

Figure 7 is a graphic representation of the learning-centred approach to course design.

Figure 8: A learning-centred approach to course design (Ibid: 74)

Identify learner

Theoretical

views of

learning

Analyse

target

Situation

Theoretical

views of

language

Analyse

learning

situation

Identify attitudes/ wants /

potential of learners

Identify needs/potential

constraints of learning/ teaching

situation

Identify skills and knowledge

needed to function in the target

situation

Write syllabus/materials to

exploit the potential of the

learning situation in the

acquisition of the skills and

knowledge required by the

target situation

Evaluation Evaluation Evaluation


35


1.2.3.1 What is a Syllabus?

The etymological meaning of the word syllabus is ‘label’ or ‘table of contents’.

According to Breen (1987: 85) each syllabus, should in essence, supply alternative answers

for the question: What does a learner of a new language need to know, and what does a

learner of a new language need to be able to do with this knowledge? Thus designing a

syllabus is deciding what to teach and in which order.

Nunan (1988) distinguishes a broad and a narrow approach to syllabus design. He states that

the narrow view draws a clear distinction between syllabus design and methodology, as

syllabus design is concerned with the selection and grading of content while methodology is

concerned with the learning tasks and activities. Those, according to him, who adopt a

broader view argue that due to the advent of communicative language teaching it is difficult to

distinguish between the two (Nunan, 1988: 5).

1.2.3.2 Types of syllabuses

There have been many types of syllabuses that appeared, most of them did at the same

time and are not distinct from each other. Researchers have categorized the existing

syllabuses into two main sets: Product-oriented syllabuses and Process -oriented ones. The

product -Oriented syllabuses focus on the product of language learning, including the

structural syllabus, the situational syllabus, and the notional/functional syllabus.

Process-oriented syllabuses, on the other hand, do not focus on the ‘what’ the students will

have accomplished at the course’ exit, but on the specification of learning tasks and activities

that will be undertaken throughout the course. This category includes procedural/task-based

syllabus, suggested by Prabhu (1971) under the so-called ‘The Bangalore Project’. The

learner-led syllabus belongs to the same set of syllabuses, as the notion of basing the syllabus

on how learners learn was brought by Breen and Candlin (1984). The last type of syllabuses,

belonging to the same set; is the proportional syllabus, suggested by Yalden (1987).


36

Conclusion

This chapter has surveyed preliminary concepts in relation to the realm to which this

research belongs. It has covered the concepts of ESP and Business English. It presented the

two types of Business English, which are EGBP and ESBP. The other preliminary concept

covered in this chapter is ESP course design. It has included an overview on course design as

well as the main approaches to it.

The next chapter is going to survey the literature related to the reading skill, in

addition to language learning strategies.

Chapter Two Review of the Literature

36

Chapter Two:

Review of the

Literature


37

Chapter Two: Review of the Literature

2.0 Introduction 38

2.1 The reading Skill 38

2.1.1 The Reading Process 38

2.1.2 Approaches to the Reading Process 39

2.1.2.1 The bottom-up View of Reading 39

2.1.2.2 The Top-down View of Reading 40

2.1.2.3 Schema Theory 41

2.1.2.4 The Interactive View of Reading 43

2.2 Language Learning Strategies 43

2.2.1 An Overview on Learning Strategies 43

2.2.1.1 Defining Language Learning Strategies 44

2.2.1.2 Insights from Language Learning Strategies Research 46

2.2.1.3 Intervention Studies of Language Learning Strategies 46

2.2.1.4 Learning Strategies Classification 47

2.2.1.4.1 Cognitive Strategies 47

2.2.1.4.2 Metacognitive Strategies 48

2.2.1.4.3 Social/Affective Strategies 48

2.2.1.4.4 The Concept of Strategic Competence 49

2.2.2 Learning Strategies as Applied to Reading 51

2.2.2.1 Metacognition in the Reading Skill 53

2.2.2.1.1 Metacognition and Metacognitive Strategies 53

2.2.2.1.2 Metacognitive Reading Strategies 54

2.2.2.1.2.1 Planning/ Pre-reading Strategies 56

2.2.2.1.2.2 Monitoring/While-reading Strategies 56

2.2.2.1.2.3 Evaluating/ Post-reading Strategies 57

2.2.3 Strategy Training 57

2.2.3.1 The Need for Strategy training 57

2.2.3.2 Implication of Strategy Training 58

2.2.3.3 When to Introduce the Strategies 59

2.2.3.4 The language of Strategies’ Instruction 60

2.2.3.5 Types of Strategy Training 60

2.2.3.6 Models of Strategy Training 61

Conclusion 75


38

2.0 Introduction:

This chapter attempts to survey the literature related to the two core concepts of the

present study; which are the reading skill and metacognitive reading strategies. For this sake,

the chapter is designed in two parts; the first one will be devoted for reading as a skill.

Whereas, the second part will be devoted for learning strategies in the learning process, then

specifically in reading. Though there is no clear cut between language learning strategies and

reading ones, more focus will be put on those which can be applied in reading and mainly

metacognitive ones, being the core point of this research.

2.1 The Reading Skill

At the present stage of this research, light will be shed on reading as a skill and

process. Hence, the coming subsections are meant to hold a detailed explanation through the

introduction of what occurred about reading in the literature.

2.1.1 The Reading Process

The process of reading has been discussed considerably by a serious number of

researchers, including its nature and the skills and strategies required for effective reading.

Consequently, the process was perceived differently and therefore defined differently. For

instance, Urquhart and Weir (1998: 22) perceive it as the process of decoding written encoded

messages through the combination of reception and interpretation. It is stated in their words as

“the process of receiving and interpreting information encoded in language form via the

medium of print” (Urquhart and Weir 1998:22).

Another definition that seems to be more detailed is the one suggested by Grabe (2002) as

cited in The Handbook of Applied linguistics, he states that fluent reading is a rapid process by

definition, as it requires the ability to recognize words automatically. He adds that reading is

an interactive process in two ways, first as it requires many skills and abilities to be carried

out simultaneously, and second as it requires interaction between text content and background

knowledge of the reader. Reading is also strategic and flexible in that the readers assess

whether or not they are achieving the purpose for reading. Reading is also purposeful as

readers monitor whether the immediate activity fits with the set objectives from reading, and

whether changing the task serves better. The final descriptor attributed by Grabe to reading is


39

that reading is a linguistic process as readers derive understanding and new meaning by

means of linguistic processing while interacting (Grabe, 2002: 51).

By this definition, Grabe (2002) gives a richer description to the reading process. He

describes it first as being automatic in the recognition of words. Second, it requires a two-

level interaction, at the first one it is the simultaneous combination of different skills and at

the second one; the interaction of the information contained in the text with background

knowledge held by the reader. He describes it also as being strategic, that is to say, effective

reading performance is achievable in case appropriate strategies are being applied. He also

points out to flexibility of the reading process in his description, by which refers to the

reader’s ability to assess his achievement of his purpose from reading. The reading flexibility

is then manifested in the reader’s adaptation of other monitoring activities as well as process

in order to reach the stated objectives. Reading is also described as being purposeful;

therefore the implemented tasks are assessable in terms of purpose’ realization. At last,

reading is described as being linguistic process since meaning is derived by means of

linguistic processing through interaction.

2.1.2 Approaches to the Reading Process:

A considerable amount of research has been led on learning to reading which is

known, among researchers, for its complex nature. Consequently, a variety of approaches

concerning learning to reading have appeared, such as: the bottom-up view, the top-down

view, the schema theory, and the interactive model of reading. More details will be presented

in the following part.

2.1.2.1 The Bottom-up View of Reading

The bottom-up view or model emphasizes the written text and says that

comprehension begins by processing the smallest linguistic unit, and working toward larger

units, i.e. letters, phonemes, syllables, words, phrases, then sentences. To explain this model,

Urquhart and Weir (1998) when discussing Gough’s (1970) model write the following words:


40

“The reader begins with letters...The information thus gained is

passed to a decoder, which converts the string of letters into a

string of a systematic phonemes. This string is then... recognised

as a word. The reader then fixates on the next word, and

proceeds in the same way until all words in a sentence have

been processed, at which point they proceeds to a component...

in which syntactic and semantic rules operate to assign a

meaning to the sentence”

(Urquhart and Weir, 1998: 40)

According to this model, reading is a linear process by which readers decode the text

word by word, linking the words into phrases and then sentences. The very problem of this

model is that if the text contains many words or grammatical constructions, then readers will

not be able to decode the language or recover the text information and thus understanding or

comprehension cannot be achieved. However, there exist other perceptions of the reading

process; some of them are discussed in the sections bellow.

2.1.2.2 The Top-down View of Reading and Schema Theory:

The top-down model is not fully the conversion to the opposite of the bottom-up one

as one may understand from its name. As Urquhart and Weir (1998) indicate, “It is virtually

impossible to see how a reader can begin by dealing with the text as a whole, then proceeds to

smaller units... ending with simple letters” (ibid: 42). Few lines ahead, they suggest that this

model includes:

“...The reader is seen as bringing hypotheses to bear on the text,

and using the text data to confirm or deny the hypotheses... the

reader comes to the text with a previously formed plan, and

perhaps omit chucks of the text which seen to be irrelevant to

the reader’s purpose”.

(Ibid: 42)

In this view, reading is not just extracting meaning from a text but a process of

connecting the information in the text with the knowledge the reader brings to the act of


41

reading. “Reading is, thus, viewed as a kind of a dialogue between the reader and the text”

(Grabe, 1988: 56).

Another feature that characterizes this model is the reader’s use of his own

knowledge- when bringing hypotheses to bear with the text. To be much more precise, the

reader uses his prior or background knowledge to derive meaning from the text. The

interaction between the background knowledge about the text and the new text information to

derive meaning is the basis of new models of reading. These models are known as schema

theoretic models.

2.1.2.3 Schema Theory:

This theory is closely related to the top-down processing describes how the

background knowledge of the reader interacts with the reading task and illustrates how

reader’s knowledge or previous experience is fundamental for comprehension to take place.

Alderson states that when students read a text “...they integrate the new information from the

text into their pre-existing schemata... their schemata influence how they recognize

information” (Alderson 2000: 33). Agreeing with this view, Anderson and Pearson (1988)

claims that comprehension is the result of the interaction between old (prior knowledge) and

new (text information) information when they write:

“Whether we are aware of it or not, it is this interaction between

new information and old knowledge that we mean when we use

the term comprehension. To say that one has comprehended a

text is to say that she has found a mental ‘home’ for the

information in the text, or else that she has modified an existing

mental home in order to accommodate that new information”

(Anderson and Pearson, 1988: 38)

For many years a lively debate occurs about which of the mentioned approaches is more

valid. While the bottom-up model is supported by many theorists, the top-down one has had a

greater influence on ESL/EFL fields. Therefore, an approach that takes into account the

effective and positive aspects of both approaches has occurred. It is the interactive model

introduced in the following section.


42

2.1.2.4 The Interactive View of Reading:

The interaction meant in this model is not the one between the reader and the text or

the reading task. It is an interaction between the models discussed in the last two sub-sections

of the present study simultaneously throughout the reading process. The principle of this view

“...is that one can take useful ideas from a bottom-up perspective and combine them with key

ideas from a top-down view” as Grabe and Stoller (2002: 33) note. And for Eskey (1988), the

interactive model takes into account the continuous interaction between bottom-up and top-

down processing in the construction of the meaning of a text. When discussing the nature of

this model, he asserts:

“In this model, interaction refers to the interaction between the

information obtained by means of bottom-up decoding and

information provided by means of top-down analysis; both of

which depend on certain kinds of prior knowledge and certain

kinds of information-processing skills”

(Eskey, 1988: 96)

The same viewpoint towards this model is shared by Eskey and Grabe (1988):

“This model incorporates the implications of reading process

as... the use of background knowledge, expectations, context,

and so on. At the same time it is also incorporates notions of

rapid and accurate feature-recognition for letters and words,

spreading activation of lexical forms and the concept of

automaticity in processing such forms”.

(Eskey and Grabe, 1988: 224)

In the light of the quotes about the interactive view of reading one may assume that

successful readers are not those who reject a model or accept an others, but they are the ones

who can skilfully convert the language on the page into the information it represents rapidly

and accurately (bottom-up) and at the same time relate this new information to the relevant

knowledge they already have (top-down) to derive meaning from the text.


43

2.2 Language Learning Strategies

Since our research is about metacognitive reading strategies, it is important then to go

through language learning strategies, their definition, what research has brought about them as

a field of specialty, their classification and models of strategy instruction suggested by

researchers. This section is meant to cover what has been brought in the literature about that.

2.2.1 An Overview on Language Learning Strategies:

In order to have a clear understanding of language learning strategies, this subsection

presents a general overview on language learning strategies including their definition, their

classification and an insight from research conducted in the field.

2.2.1.1 Defining Language Learning Strategies

Learning strategies are those thoughts or actions used by learners to complete learning

tasks. In the same way that teachers use strategies in their teaching to assist their students in

learning, like using visuals to introduce new ideas, activating learners prior knowledge before

introducing new concepts, learning strategies are those tools that learners can use to complete

the learning tasks. Learners can have their own strategies that they use for retaining new

vocabulary items. Using drawing next to the word as they copy it to their notebook is an

example of these strategies (NCLRC website, Sailing the 5 Cs with Learning Strategies).

Chamot defines learning strategies as being procedures or techniques used by learners to

facilitate a learning task. While some learning strategies such as taking notes or making

graphic organizers are observable, other strategies are mental processes that are not directly

observable (Chamot et al, 1999 : 2).

Learning strategies instruction is said to help all students to be better language learners.

Students’ understanding of their own learning process and ability to control it, give them more

responsibility for their own learning (Paris &Wino Grad, 1990 in NCLRC: 9).

Research has reported that students who think strategically are motivated to learn (Paris, 1988

in ibid). Strategic learners perceive themselves as more able to succeed academically than

their peers who do not know how to use strategies effectively. Those who expect themselves


44

to succeed in learning tasks generally succeed and each successful learning experience

increases motivation (ibid: 9).

Table1 shows the same strategies taken by the teacher as teaching strategies and the learner as

learning ones.

Strategy Teacher Learner

Background

Knowledge

Activate your students’ prior knowledge

in order to build new material on what

they already know.

Think about what you already

know about a topic to help you

learn more about it.

Personalize Through discussion, link new material

to your students’ experiences and

feelings using guiding questions or

other activities.

Link new material to your

personal experiences and

feelings.

Summarize Have your students read a text, then

summarize it to aid comprehension.

After you read a text, stop a

moment and summarize the

meaning to help your

comprehension

Use Imagery Create a meaningful context for your

students by accompanying new

information with figures, illustrations,

and photographs.

Associate new information with

a mental or printed image to

help you learn it.

Table 1: A comparison of similar teaching strategies and learning strategies (Chamot, in

www.cnlrc.com)

2.2.1.2 Insights from Language Learning Strategies Research

According to Chamot (Chamot et al, 1999:157), cognitive learning models which

focus on learners’ mental processes, and social or social-cognitive models, which focus on the

role of interaction between individuals and group processes in learning, both of them, being

major domains of current learning theory and research, provide a rationale for learning

strategies instruction.

Cognitive models of learning consider learning as an active dynamic process in which

learners select information, encode it into long-term memory, and retrieve it when needed.

Cognitive theorists suggest two types of knowledge stores in long term-memory:

1. Declarative knowledge, which consists of information we know about, such as facts,

beliefs and events.

2. Procedural knowledge, which consists of knowledge of how to perform skills and

processes, such as reading, writing, math computation, and conducting science

experiments.


45

Regarding the difference between declarative knowledge and procedural knowledge, they

should be taught in different ways.

Three cognitive learning models highlight the importance of learning strategies and how they

work, in addition to their goal of helping students become independent learners. These

cognitive models are information processing, schema theory, and constructivism.

O’Malley and Chamot (1990) applied cognitive learning theory to second language

acquisition as a theoretical foundation for understanding and applying language learning

strategies.

Information processing theory examines the thinking processes associated with learning and

remembering. The theory suggests that learning requires processing new information by

organizing it, elaborating on it, and connecting it with existing knowledge. And this is exactly

the purpose of cognitive strategies such as summarizing, inferencing, and predicting.

Information processing includes also metacognition as an essential part. The components of

metacognition include both declarative knowledge about one’s own thinking processes and

learning strategies, as well as procedural knowledge about how to monitor and direct learning

and thinking.

Explicit introduction of strategies, including why and when they are useful, supports this

metacognitive executive control.

Schema theory suggests that learning occurs as we try to organize and understand life

experiences according to our pre-existing knowledge (Bartlett, 1932; R.C Anderson, 1984 in

Chamot et al 1999). This pre-existing knowledge is stored in organised structures called

schemata, which can be described as “concept maps” of a central concept and its related ideas.

Schemata can be explained as “scripts” of what will happen when we go to a restaurant or so.

Having the schema or a relevant prior knowledge allows us to make predictions, visualize

events, draw inferences, monitor comprehension, and create summaries. Learning strategies

such as these are critical to understanding new information in the light of existing knowledge.

As noted by Chamot (ibid: 163), research has covered learning strategies at two main levels,

describing the strategies that learners report using on different tasks, and strategies instruction

or training.

Research on language learning strategies started by studies of the characteristics of effective

language learners. As the role of strategies became clear, researchers started developing

instruments for measuring students’ strategies use. Some studies used individual, group and

think- aloud interviews to characterize how students apply strategies while they deal with


46

learning tasks. These descriptive studies include comparison of learning strategies used by

more and less effective language learners and how the use of strategies develops over time, in

more recent researches.

In 1975, Rubin suggested that a model of a good learner can be identified by observing the

strategies that are used by students who were successful in their second language learning.

Stern (1975) also identified characterestics of the good language learner. Hosenfeld (1976)

explored characteristics of a good language learner through verbal reports, think-aloud

protocols to investigate language learners mental processes while they perform language

tasks. These studies were followed by the work of Naiman, Frohlich, Stern and Todesco

(1978, 1996),which achieved the notion that second language learning ability resides at least

in part in the strategies one uses for learning . Considering the results of all these studies, the

good language learner can be identified as the one who:

. Is an active learner

. Monitors language production

. Practices communicating in the language.

. Uses prior linguistic knowledge

. Uses various memorization techniques

. Asks questions for clarification

2.2.1.3 Intervention Studies of Language Learning Strategies

Considering the research in learning strategies as being either descriptive or

intervention-based, this research falls into the range of intervention studies, since it consists of

introducing learning strategies to learners through a strategy training, and then analysing the

effect of those strategies on learners’ performance. In this research, learners’ performance is

limited to comprehension of reading materials suggested within a Course of English for

General Business Purposes.

While most research on language learning strategies were descriptive; a number of

intervention studies were conducted. Intervention studies have sought to teach language

learning strategies and to measure their effect on students. These experimental studies have

taken place in classroom settings in which teachers or researchers have provided more or less

direct strategies instruction to students to help them become better language learners. The


47

effects investigated include performance on language tests, increase in reported use of

learning strategies, attitudes, and self-efficacy (Chamot et al 1999: 167).

A number of researchers have suggested approaches and developed models for teaching

language learning strategies to help teachers teach language learning strategies. In this

respect, Chamot gives examples of authors who worked on that, citing: Brown 1989,

Chamot, Barnhardt, El-Dinary, & Robbins, 1996 ; Chamot & O’Malley , 1994 ; Ellis &

Sinclair , 1989; Hosenfeld , Cavour , & Bonk , 1996; Kidd & Marquardson, 1996; Mendelson

& Rubin , 1995; Nyikos, 1996; Rubin &Thompson, 1994, Thompson & Rubin , 1998 ;

Weaver & Cohen ,1997; Wenden , 1991; Wenden & Rubin , 1987; and Willing , 1985.)

2.2.1.4 Learning Strategies Classification

Learning strategies can be defined as the mental activities, actions or methods that

assist in enhancing learning outcomes, or simply speaking, they are those activities that

students or people use to learn. In any literature on learning strategies various types of these

strategies are mentioned, but the commonly used types between almost all researchers appear

in three folds: cognitive strategies, metacognitive strategies, and social/affective strategies.

2.2.1.4.1 Cognitive Strategies

Cognitive strategies involve the mental or physical manipulation of the material or the

language to be learned. O’Malley and Chamot claim that “cognitive strategies operate

directly on incoming information, manipulating it in ways that enhance learning” (O’Malley

and Chamot 1990: 44). Moreover, Cohen (1998) provides the same definition for cognitive

strategies as he adds:

“Cognitive strategies encompass the language learning

strategies of identification, grouping, retention, and storage of

language material, as well as the language use strategies of

retrieval, rehearsal, and comprehension”

(Cohen, 1998: 7)

2.2.1.4.2 Metacognitive Strategies


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According to Oxford (2001: 167) metacognitive strategies“...help learners manage:

(1) themselves as learners, (2) the general learning process and (3) specific learning tasks”.

They are activities that encourage learners to reflect on thought processes. Cohen (1998)

argues that metacognitive strategies can be described as:

“...pre-assessment and pre-planning, on-line planning and

evaluation, and post-evaluation of language learning activities

and of language use events. Such strategies allow learners to

control their own cognition by coordinating the planning,

organizing, and evaluating of the learning process”

(Cohen, 1998: 7)

In this respect, the main principles of metacognitive strategies include planning for learning,

monitoring one’s own understanding and production, and evaluating one’s performance and

comprehension.

2.2.1.4.3 Social/Affective Strategies

According to O’Malley and Chamot (1990: 45) social/affective strategies represent “a

broad grouping that involves either interaction with another person or ideational control over

affect”. So these strategies include interacting and cooperating with others to assist learning.

With the same view Cohen writes:

“Affective strategies serve to regulate emotions, motivation and

attitudes... Social strategies include the actions which learners

choose to take in order to interact with other learners and with

native speakers”

(Ibid: 8)

The classification of these three types of learning strategies is summarized in Table 2 bellow,

with a definition and some representative strategies for each type. Of course, the table does

not represent all the learning strategies but concentrates only on the cognitive, metacognitive

and social/affective ones. Oxford (1990) classifies learning strategies in a different way in

which there are: (1) indirect learning strategies under which metacognitive, social and


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affective strategies are included, and (2) direct learning strategies which, in addition to

cognitive strategies, they include; memory strategies such as creating mental linkages

(grouping, elaborating,...), applying images and sounds (using key words, using imagery,...),

employing action (using mechanical techniques,...); compensation strategies such as guessing

intelligently (using linguistic clues, using other clues,...), and overcoming limitations in

speaking and writing (Using circumlocution or synonym, switching to the mother tongue,...).

2.2.1.4.4 The Concept of Strategic Competence

Having been discussing learning strategies, it is noteworthy to mention the concept of

strategic competence. Douglas (2000: 76) presents the strategic competence as “... the

learner-internal traits of background knowledge and language knowledge and the external

context controlling the interaction between them”. By that he means the fact that language

users in different language use situations they interpret the context in much the same way.

They, then, ought to start by assessing the situation, engage the appropriate discourse domain

otherwise they create a temporary one, establish goals for responding to the situation, make a

plan for meeting the goals, decide which elements of knowledge will be required, and control

the execution of the plan by retrieving the appropriate knowledge and organizing in a

coherent way.

Strategic competence as Douglas notes consists of two primary types of cognitive processes

or strategies that he calls metacognitive strategies and communicative strategies.

Metacognitive strategies direct the user’s interaction with the context while communicative

strategies are called by the metacognitive strategies when the features of the context are

specifically identified as communicative (ibid: 76-77).

Douglas words imply a description of metacognitive strategies as having control over other

strategies.


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Generic

strategy

classifica-

tion

Representative

strategies Definitions

Metacognitiv

e strategies

Selective

attention

Planning

Monitoring

Evaluation

Focusing on special aspects of learning tasks, as in planning

to listen for key words or phrases

Planning for the organization of either written or spoken

discourse.

Reviewing attention to a task, comprehension of information

that should be remembered, or production while it is

occurring.

Checking comprehension after completion of a receptive

language activity, or evaluating language production after it

has taken place.

Cognitive

strategies

Rehearsal

Organization

Inferencing

Summarizing

Deducing

Imagery

Transfer

Elaboration

Repeating the names of items or objects to be remembered.

Grouping and classifying words, terminology, or concepts

according to their semantic or syntactic attributes.

Using information in text to guess meanings of new linguistic

items, predict outcomes, or complete missing parts.

Intermittently synthesizing what one has heard to ensure the

information has been retained.

Applying rules to the understanding of language.

Using visual images (either generated or actual) to

understand and remember new verbal information.

Using known linguistic information to facilitate a new

learning task.

Linking ideas contained in new information, or integrating

new ideas with known information.

Social/affecti

ve strategies

Cooperation

Questioning

for

clarification

Self-talk

Working with peers to solve a problem, pool information,

check notes, or get feedback on a learning activity.

Eliciting from a teacher or peer additional explanation,

rephrasing, or examples.

Using mental redirection of thinking to assure oneself that a

learning activity will be successful or to reduce anxiety about

a task.

Table 2: Learning Strategies Classification (O’Malley & Chamot, 1990: 46).

2.2.2 Learning Strategies as Applied to Reading:

As mentioned above, learning strategies are regarded as one of the aspects of cognitive

psychology. It is also argued that reading is a cognitive process in which there exists a

conversation or interaction between the reader and the text or the reader and the author. Thus,

most of recent researches indicate that learning strategies and reading comprehension are


51

closely related and that the latter is greatly affected by the former at the level of all types of

strategies.

Several instructional studies have focused on reading comprehension strategies. An early

study was conducted with high school students of French. These students were taught explicit

reading strategies which improved their reading comprehension (Hosenfeld, Arnold,

Kirchofer, Laciura, & Wilson 1981 in Chamot et al 1999: 170).

It is noteworthy that there is no clear cut in the distinction between reading strategies and

learning strategies in general. Therefore most of the reading strategies presented below are

just a selection from the general range of learning strategies but much more applicable to the

reading activity. Carrel lists a wide variety of reading strategies and says they can be used by

both native and non-native readers,

“Reading strategies run the gamut from such traditionally

reading behaviours (reading strategies) as skimming a text to

get the general idea, scanning a text for a specific piece of

information, making contextual guesses about the meanings of

unknown words, skipping unknown words, tolerating ambiguity,

making predictions, confirming or disconfirming inferences,

identifying the main idea, rereading, using cognates to

comprehend, to more recently recognized strategies such as

activating prior background knowledge and recognizing text

structure”

(Carrel, 1998: 2)

In the same way, Grabe and Stoller (2002: 16) provide a sample reading strategies which

includes:

Specifying a purpose for reading

Planning what to do/what steps to take

Previewing the text

Predicting the contents of the text or section of text

Checking predictions

Posing questions about the text

Finding answers to posed questions

Connecting text to background knowledge

The words between brackets are not original in the quotation but added for the sake of clarification.


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Summarizing information

Making inferences

Connecting one part of the text to another

Rereading

Guessing the meaning of a new word from the context

Using discourse markers to see relationships

Checking comprehension

Identifying difficulties

Taking steps to repair faulty comprehension

Critiquing the author

Critiquing the text

Judging how well objectives were met

Reflecting on what has been learned from the text

Alderson (2000) cites some strategies listed by Thompson (1987) who says that they can be

taught in order to improve comprehension in both first and second language reading. These

strategies are:

Identifying text structure, via a flow-chart or a hierarchical summary

Providing titles to texts before reading

Using embedded headings as advanced organisers

Pre-reading questions

Generation of story-specific schema from general problem-solving schema

for short stories (questions readers ask themselves)

Use of visual imagery

Reading a story from the perspectives of different people or participants

(Thompson, 1987 in Alderson, 2000: 311)

Careful concentration on the listed reading strategies may lead the reader of this work to

conclude that: (1) the vast majority of them can be classified as metacognitive strategies, and

(2) all of them, along the reading activity, take place either before the reader starts reading,

while reading, or after reading. These points will be the focus of the following section of the

study.

Just before tackling the next section, a comment on two terms commonly used to describe the

activity of reading seems to be important. These two terms are: reading skills and reading

strategies. The question about which word (skill or strategy) is suitable to be used in the

reading process is raised each time researchers tackle the topic of reading strategies. Grabe

and Stoller (2002) see that “skills represent linguistic processing abilities that are relatively


53

automatic in their use and their combinations” (15), and about strategies they note that they

are “often a set of abilities under conscious control of the reader” (15). The two key-words in

these quotes are “automatic” for skills, and “conscious control” for strategies.

Wasik and Turner (1991: 611) add some clarification to the distinction between skills and

strategies and claim that a strategy can become a skill under certain conditions and the same

thing for a skill to become a strategy when they assert: “Skills refer to information-processing

techniques that are automatic... In contrast, strategies are actions selected deliberately to

achieve particular goals”.

Then they state: “An emerging skill can become a strategy when it is used intentionally.

Likewise, a strategy can ‘go underground’ and become a skill”.

They also comment: “Indeed strategies are more efficient and developmentally advanced

when they become generated and applied automatically as skills. Thus, strategies are skills

under consideration” (Wasik and Turner, 1991 in Grabe and Stoller, 2002: 16).

2.2.2.1 Metacognition in the Reading Skill

Since this research is about metacognitive reading strategies, it is useful to define the

notion of metacognition first. The following subsections survey some definitions of

metacognition as brought by researchers, then metacognitive reading strategies.

2.2.2.1.1 Metacognition and Metacognitive Strategies

In his definition of metacognition, Anderson (2003: 1) states that it “...can be defined

simply as thinking about thinking”, while Carrel (1998) defines it as cognition about

cognition. In relation to learning, Anderson (2003: 1) asserts that “Learners who are

metacognitively aware know what to do when they encounter difficulties in learning”.

Williams and Burden (1997) perceive metacognition as the case where learners step outside

their learning and look at it from outside. They note that this perception may include an

awareness of what one is doing as well as his knowledge about the actual process of learning.

It also includes, according to them, the ability to manage and regulate consciously the use of

appropriate learning strategies for different situations with awareness of one’s own mental

processes and the ability to reflect on how one learns. In other words they introduce it as

knowing about what one knows (Williams and Burden (1997) in Urquhart and Weir, 1998:

197).


54

Chamot defines metacognition as the fact of reflecting on once learning, and describes it as

the hallmark of the successful learner (Chamot et al 1999:2). Metacognition has two

components. The first is the declarative knowledge about one’s own thinking processes and

learning strategies, while the second is the procedural knowledge about how to monitor and

direct learning and thinking. Chamot suggests explicit introduction of strategies, including

why and when they are useful as it helps support this metacognitive executive control (ibid:

157).Oxford (2001) mentions metacognitive strategies stating the following:

“...(metacognitive strategies) help learners deal effectively with

a given task... paying attention to the task at hand, planning for

steps within the language task, reviewing relevant vocabulary

and grammar, finding task-relevant materials and resources,

deciding which other strategies might be useful and applying

them... and monitoring language mistakes during the task”

(Oxford, 2001: 168)

2.2.2.1.2 Metacognitive Reading Strategies

In their article published in the Journal of Education Psychology (JEP, 2002:1),

Mokhtari and A. Richard claim that researchers investigating reading comprehension

monitoring among skilled and unskilled readers have recognized the importance of

metacognitive awareness in reading comprehension because it distinguishes between skilled

and unskilled readers. They quote what Paris and Jacobs (1984) say as they state;

“Skilled readers often engage in deliberate activities that require

planful thinking, flexible strategies, and periodic self-monitoring.

They think about the topic, look forward and backward, in the

passage and check their own understanding as they read.

Beginning readers or poor readers do not recruit and use these

skills. Indeed, novice readers often seem oblivious to these

strategies and the need to use them”

(Paris and Jacobs 1984 in ibid)

In an experimental study of metacognitive reading strategies instruction for college level ESL,

students in two experimental groups were taught to use their semantic mapping or an explicit


55

technique for relating prior knowledge to the text (Carrel, Pharis, & Liberto, 1989, idem).

Students in both experimental groups showed significant comprehension gains over the

control group when answering the open-ended questions. However, this gain didn’t apply to

multiple choice questions.

Another experimental study of metacognitive reading strategies instruction involved third

grade Spanish-speaking children who were taught reading strategies in Spanish. The children

showed a significant improvement in reading performance in standardized tests in both

Spanish and English. They were able to transfer the metacognitive strategies to their second

language (Muniz-Swicegood, 1994, ibid).

Recently, a study with seventh-grade native-speaking low-level readers involved a number of

strategic interventions (Jiménez et Gamez, 1998). At first the students’ metacognitive

awareness of their won thinking was developed by teaching them to think aloud (in either

Spanish or English or a mixture) about a Spanish text. Next, the researchers provided

culturally relevant stories in English and taught students how to use strategies for unknown

vocabulary, how to ask themselves questions about the text, and how to make inferences.

After the intervention, students’ statements indicated that they had more metacognitive

understanding of their own reading processes and were aware of strategies they could use to

assist comprehension (idem).

Metacognitive reading strategies entail specifying a purpose for reading, planning how the

text will be read, activating prior knowledge, adapting appropriate strategies to be used, self-

monitoring for those strategies and for errors in reading comprehension, and self evaluating of

how well the overall objectives are being fulfilled, which may result in distinct successful

reading task or allow for taking corrective measures if comprehension is not being achieved.

So, metacognitive reading strategies are used at the level of three different stages throughout

the reading task which are: the planning stage, before reading, the monitoring or controlling

stage, while reading, and the stage of evaluation, at the end of the reading task. Urquhart and

Weir (1998) provide a clear explanation for the metacognitive strategies all along the three

stages. Their explanation is discussed below with some sub-strategies or activities -they

provide- for the strategies used at the level of each stage.

2.2.2.1.2.1 The Planning/pre-reading Strategies:

Urquhart and Weir (1998) identify two generic pre-reading strategies: previewing and

prediction.


56

a. Previewing: it can be used to make a decision whether to read a book, an article, or a

text. This may include the following activities:

Thinking about the title

Checking the edition and date of publication

Reading the table of contents quickly

Reading appendices and/or indices quickly

Reading the abstract carefully

Reading the preface, the foreword and the blurb carefully

b. Prediction: it is used to anticipate the content of a text; to make hypotheses about the

macro-propositions it might contain. It is a form of thinking about the subject and

asking oneself related questions. This activity has the potential to clarify for the reader

what the purposes for reading a particular text might be. (Urquhart and Weir, 1998:

184-5)

2.2.2.1.2.2 The Monitoring/while-reading Strategies:

These strategies include two generic strategies: self-questioning and self-monitoring:

Self-questioning

Self questioning is regarded as a characteristic of good reading when it promotes

cognitive processes such as inferencing, monitoring understanding, and attending to structure.

Self-monitoring

Self monitoring refers to checking that comprehension is taking place and adopting

repair strategies when it is not. This strategy is seen as a hallmark of skilled reading. It is

important that students know how various strategies can help them.

2.2.2.1.2.3 The Evaluating/post-reading Strategies:

According to Urquhart and Weir (1998: 187), post-reading strategies include

evaluation and personal response. Research suggests that, in learning, to make the text their

own the readers will better comprehend it. Readers can be encouraged to relate the content of

the text to their existing schemata and to evaluate it in the light of their own knowledge and

experiences. This may lead to more successful reading.


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2.2.3 Strategy Training

Strategy training or strategy instruction is two terms used interchangeably in this

paper. They refer to instruction that aims at training learners on learning strategies use. The

following subsections will survey the related literature, including the theoretical background

of the strategy training implemented for the practical part of this research.

2.2.3.1 The Need for Strategy training

Oxford claims that learners need to learn how to learn while teachers need to know

how to facilitate the process. She states the necessity of strategy training in nutshell as she

says;

“Although learning is certainly part of the human condition,

conscious skill in self-directed learning and in strategy use must be

sharpened through training. Strategy training is especially necessary

in the area of second and foreign languages. Language learning

requires active self-direction on the part of learners, they cannot be

spoon-fed if they desire and expect to reach an acceptable level of

communicative competence”

(Oxford, 1990: 201)

Many teachers advocate explicit training of language learners on the “how to” of language

study, as stated by Oxford. Such training aims at making language learning more

meaningful, to encourage collaborative spirit between learners and teachers, to learn options

for language learning, and to learn and practice strategies that facilitate self-reliance. Strategy

training should not be theoretical but should be highly practical and useful for students.

Certainly none knows everything about how people learn languages, but there is a strong

support for sharing, through strategy training, what we do know.

It is worth noting herein, that research has proved that learners who receive strategy training

generally learn better than those who do not, and that certain techniques for such training are

more beneficial than others.


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2.2.3.2 Implications of Strategy Training

Since this research aims at testing the efficiency of metacognitive reading strategies in

boosting reading comprehension, it is crucial then to shed light on the different implications

of strategy’ instruction in the classroom. In other words, it is important to present a practical

framework that can offer the teacher a clear guidance for the implementation of these

strategies and their integration within the course of English. Such a framework is meant to

offer the answers to questions about when to integrate the strategies (referring to the syllabus

covering time), the possible ways of doing so (referring to explicitness vs. implicitness), in

addition to what language to use for the instruction (referring to the target language vs.

learners’ mother tongue) and other possible questions that might come up to the teachers

while planning or conducting strategy instruction.

2.2.3.3 When to Introduce the Strategies

It is crucial for a language teacher willing to integrate strategies into the course of

language, to know the implications of such an approach. Chamot answers this question in

nutshell as she states the following:

“Effective strategies instruction is not an extra activity or a

separate part of the regular language class .Rather; it is used to

support language and content learning and to accomplish the

goals of the curriculum. While initial explanations are needed,

much of strategies instruction should occur while students are

working on authentic, meaningful language tasks”

(Chamot et al, 1999:42)

In this respect she also states,

In this framework (the CALLA framework), strategies instruction is

not taught at a special time of its own. Nor is it separated from

content in special strategies lessons or strategies activities. Instead,

discussions about strategies and thought processes become a natural

part of regular class activities”

(Ibid: 44)


59

Thus, regardless of the time devoted for the initial explanation of the strategies as a concept

referring to a set of tools meant to boost learning, the instruction of strategies can be

integrated within the curriculum as a parallel awareness raising action, the aim of which is to

empower learners to manage their own learning strategically.

Chamot goes into a more detailed guidance for teachers, adding that they should be selective

and thoughtful when choosing the strategies to teach. That is to avoid overwhelming and

confusing learners as it may happen in case where too many strategies are being instructed at

once. Conversely, teaching too few strategies may be boring for the student as they may

perceive it below the level to challenge their intellects (ibid: 33).

2.2.3.4 The Language of Strategy Training

The implementation of language learning strategies within the course of English relies

mainly on classroom discussions. Hence, the teacher needs to decide upon the language to use

for conducting these discussions in order to guarantee their grasping by the learners. The issue

of which language to use rises mainly in case where the learners are not competent enough in

the target language; since this may result in hindering their understanding.

Chamot considers classroom discussions as a crucial tool for indentifying the strategies

learners use, and to model new ones so as to present them to the learners. She states that these

discussions are relatively easy to initiate in the students’ native languages, but they are

difficult to conduct in the second or foreign language when students are at beginning levels of

language proficiency. Thus, teachers of beginning-level students must decide whether to use

the students’ mother tongue , assuming that all learners share this language as a first language,

while the teacher is proficient at this language as well , or to teach students the vocabulary

and expressions needed to talk about learning strategies in the target language.

It is worth noting herein that using second or foreign language in strategy discussions with

beginning-level students is not an impossible task, but it needs patience and perseverance

from the teacher’s part (ibid: 36).

2.2.3.5 Types of Strategy Training

Three types strategy training has been suggested by Oxford (1990: 202-203), which

are: awareness training, one-time strategy training, and long-term strategy training.


60

2.2.3.5.1 Awareness Training

This way of training is referred to, also, as consciousness-raising or familiarization

training. Learners are meant, in this case, to become aware and familiar with language

learning strategies and their importance in the promotion of learning. What is special about

this case is that learners do not have to use the strategies in actual, on-the-spot tasks.

Awareness training is very important as it is often the learners’ introduction to the concept

learning strategies. It should be fun and motivating so that learners get encouraged to expand

their knowledge of strategies at a later time.

It is worth noting here that it is best not to use lecture format, as stated in Oxford’s words, for

awareness training.

As for participants, they can be teachers, students or any other people interested in language

learning processes while no background in learning theory or strategies need be assumed.

2.2.3.5.2 One-time Strategy Training

One-time-strategy training involves learning and practising one or more strategies

with actual language tasks, as opposed to awareness training in which no practice is

suggested. Learners in this situation are meant to learn the significance of the strategy and

when and how to use it, and how to evaluate its success as a strategy.

Nevertheless, one-time strategy training is not serving a long-term sequence of strategy

training. It is connected to a strategy learning goal that can be taught in one or just a few

sessions. The example of such a strategy training suggested by Oxford is the one of memory

strategy that can be taught without integrating it into more prolonged strategy training.

2.2.3.5.3 Long-Term Strategy Training

Long-term strategy training is like one-time strategy training in involving learning and

practising strategies with actual language tasks. In this type of training, learners are meant to

learn the significance of a strategy, when and how to use them and how and when to monitor

and evaluate their won performance. Long-term strategy training is like short one in the fact


61

that it works with the tasks and objectives of a language programme. Nevertheless, long-term

training takes a longer period of time while covering greater number of strategies.

2.2.3.6 Models of Strategy Training

Intervention researchers have suggested different models of strategy training so as to

provide practitioners with a practical material that can be used within the classroom setting.

The following subsection will survey some of the models suggested.

It is worth noting herein, that this research will implement one of these models as a

framework for conducting the experiment. The chosen model will be presented and explained

with more details in the coming sections of this paper.

2.2.3.6.1 Vigotsky’s Model

Vigotsky (1986) advocates modelling as a way to develop metacognitive monitoring

in his scaffolding instruction, as reviewed by Cooper (1993). Scaffolding instruction is based

on providing the learners with a great deal of support from a more skilled person who is

usually the teacher. This kind of instruction is made up of three main stages: modelling,

support and feedback.

As explained by Maria B. Cequena in her article about the impact of metacognitive strategies

on comprehension, when applying Vigotsky’s way to reading, the teacher starts by explaining

the strategy meant to be employed while highlighting its importance. After that, the strategy is

modelled or demonstrated while reading a text. Then, with teacher’s support, learners are

given the opportunity to apply the strategy modelled, in form of guided practice. Eventually,

the teacher leads the learners to evaluate the reading task done for feedback that is necessary

to further improve the use of the target strategy.

It is worth noting here that as the learners demonstrate mastery in the use of the target

strategy, support is gradually faded until it is removed, as learners show mastery in the use of

the target strategies.

2.2.3.6.2 Oxford’s model

Rebecca Oxford (1990: 203-208) suggests a two-phase process for strategy training.

The first phase aims at assessing learners existing strategies while the second aims at


62

conducting the strategy training. Thus, the teacher is meant to start by assessing the learners’

current learning strategies using one or more of the suggested techniques within the model,

after that, he/she tackles the training as the second phase of the instruction process.

Assessing Current Learners’ Strategies

Oxford mentions the following techniques for strategy assessment: observations,

interviews, “think-aloud” procedures, note-taking, diaries or journals, and self-report surveys.

The teacher can choose the techniques that fit the learning situation.

a. Observations

Though some strategies cannot be observed by the teacher, the case of

associating/elaborating, using imagery and guessing, other strategies are visible when used

and thus observable , that is the case of collaborating with peers , asking for clarification or

verification, and overcoming limitations in speaking through gestures and mime. The use of

such observable strategies helps the teacher to seize information about the way the learners go

about learning language. This can be done using an observation form among the several forms

that have been published, or simply by devising one’s own form.

b. Interviews and think-Aloud Procedures

The model includes these techniques while it is possible to use them separately or both

at the same time.

Interviews can be totally unstructured containing no particular questioning techniques or no

data coding form, are difficult to handle as they would require the teacher to categorize the

data after the interview in order to proceed the analysis process. Differently than that, more

structured techniques are better to handle.

The interview guide developed by Carol Hosenfeld and her colleagues is valuable for the

assessment of reading strategies. It was used originally for preliminary diagnosis of strategies

before and after training, and then to assess changes in strategy use after training.

This guide is meant to be used through asking the learner to perform a task and to think aloud

during the performance, describing what she or he is doing to accomplish it. Data, then, can


63

be collected through recording the learner’s general behaviour while he or she says out loud

what he or she is doing.

Not all interviews require performing a task and simultaneously think aloud about the

strategies employed. Interview information can also be obtained on what learners usually do,

without having them perform the task during the interview.

J.Michael O’Malley, Anna Uhl Chamot, and their colleagues developed a useful interview

guide which asks learners about what they generally do with familiar language tasks. Students

are not asked to perform the language task itself during the interview but to consider how they

typically do the task. This technique allows the learners to provide information in their own

words about the way they use learning strategies. However, such interviews work well with

small groups or individuals.

Semi-structured interviews are also very useful. Oxford notes the one Anita Wenden suggests

and describes it as being very useful and well-tested.

In this case, some days before the interview students are given a list of broad questions

outlining the main areas to be covered. They are asked to complete a grid of daily activities in

which they find themselves ordinarily, by indicating the settings, such as watching TV or

social conversation, and which learning activities they use in those settings. The settings

meant to be listed are only those in which they use the target language. During the interview

the learners answer broad questions, using information they have written down on their grid.

Another technique within the same set is think-aloud procedure used without interviews.

Just as the teacher can interview the learners without asking them to think aloud, he or she can

use the think-aloud procedure without interviewing the learners.

In this respect, the successful experience led by Betty Leaver is worth to noting. Betty taped

the conversation of a small group od adult Russian learners trying as they tried to figure out

the meaning of taped listening comprehension dialogues. She also recorded the reactions of

two children who are asked to figure out the meaning of taped dialogues. After that, tapes

were transcribed and analysed to determine the approach and strategies used by the kids.

With such procedures the teacher needs to develop a way to categorize or make sense of the

data. However, open-ended data collection like this requires skilful interpretation.

c. Note-taking

Note-taking is another valuable technique strategy assessment. It is more effective

when paired with interviewing. Here are three note-taking techniques for strategy assessment.


64

The first one is to ask a group of learners are asked to note down their learning difficulties

when performing task and to use these notes in an interview.

The second involves a daily grid and occurs prior to the semi-structured interview, already

mentioned. The third is to ask learners to take notes on a grid, describing the strategies they

employ; then they rate those strategies in terms of frequency of use, enjoyment, usefulness,

and efficiency.

d. Diaries or journals

Diaries or journals are useful means for strategy assessment. They are forms of self-

report which allow learners to record their thoughts, feelings, achievements, and problems, as

well as their impressions about their teachers, fellow students, and native speakers. It is worth

noting here, that keeping a diary or journal is a useful learning strategy in itself, and this

strategy can help learners become aware of their whole range of strategies.

In order to get the diaries less subjective and more focused on specific matters, the teacher can

offer learners more guidance in terms of what makes them more meaningful. For instance, the

teacher can ask the learners to focus in their diaries on language learning strategies. If the

teacher intends to read his learners’ diaries in order to exploit their content, he should, of

course, inform his or her learners in advance, since dairies are usually considered private.

It’s important to mention that learners can share their diaries with their peers. In addition,

some teachers have used diaries as a stimulus to class discussion of strategy use. Some

teachers set aside class time once a week to allow students to discuss their diaries.

The final strategy assessment procedure suggested by Oxford (1990), is self-report surveys.

Those are instruments used to gather systematic, written data on language learning strategy

use. These surveys can vary from less structured to more structure.

Less structured self-report surveys, also called subjective surveys, do not offer much guidance

for the learners in terms of the information elicited. They contain open-ended questions that

allow the learner to describe his or her learning strategies openly and freely in writing. The

advantage in this case is that the learner can say whatever he or she wants, and this fact results

in the generation of lots important information. Nevertheless, summarizing the results of such

surveys across the students appears to be difficult.

More structured self-report surveys, also called objective surveys, usually ask multiple-choice

questions which can objectively scored and analysed. Such surveys make it easier to


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summarize results for a group and objectively diagnose problems of individual students as

they usually use standardised categories of all respondents.

Nevertheless, these surveys miss the richness and spontaneity of the less structured formats.

Choosing a Technique for Assessing Learners’ Strategies

Oxford (1990:200) states that the choice of the technique to use for assessing learners’

strategies should be based on the teacher’s purpose from the strategy assessment itself. The

purpose can be a personal interest on the teacher’s part, for use in orienting one’s teaching

practices, for providing learners with feedback on their strategy use, or as a prelude to strategy

training.

This research matches the last case, which is assessing learners’ strategies as a prelude for

strategy training.

Using Strategy Assessment Results

One of the soundest reasons to assess students learning strategies, as stated by Oxford,

is enabling the teacher to provide training on how to improve those strategies. It is always

good to provide the students with results of the assessment. None likes to be treated like

guinea pig. Besides, they will be curious and eager to know new things about themselves. The

interpretation of their feedback can be woven into the training itself, or it can be presented

separately depending on how the teacher structures the training (ibid: 200).

2.2.3.6.3 The CALLA model (Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach)

Chamot (1999: 7) presents learning strategies into a metacognitive model. This model

is referred to as the Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach (CALLA) created by

Chamot and O'Malley (1994). It is an instructional model that provides explicit instruction in

learning strategies that is meant to assist students in meeting national curriculum standards,

learning both language and content, and becoming independent learners who evaluate their

own learning. This model is designed to accelerate academic achievement for English

language learning (ELL) students and has been applied in ESL, EFL, and foreign language

instruction. The theoretical Framework of CALLA, as stated by Chamot (idem), is a social-


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cognitive learning model that focuses on the role of students background knowledge, the

importance of collaborative learning, and the development of metacognitive awareness and

self-reflection.

Chamot describes the CALLA framework for learning strategies in the following words,

“The CALLA framework for learning strategies instruction

emphasizes explicitness, metacognitive knowledge, and scaffolded

support as the teacher and students work through these phases (the

five phases of the model).The five phases are recursive, which means

the teachers can move between phases as needed to help students

develop skills for understanding and using learning strategies”.

(ibid: 44)

Figure 8 : CALLA Instruction Sequence (Chamot et al, 1999: 45)

As shown in figure 8 the strategies’ instruction starts as more teacher-directed with students

taking more responsibility over time.

Chamot suggest an analogy for the CALLA framework, which is the construction of a

building from the ground up. Starting first from the foundation as it is poured (preparing

students for strategies), then scaffolding is put in place to support the building in progress


67

(presenting strategies and coaching students as they practice them). As the building is

constructed, it begins to support itself, and the scaffolding is removed gradually (less explicit

instruction and less coaching as students start using strategies independently and expanding

them to other areas). Yet, even once a building stands on its own, maintenance and repairs are

occasionally needed (it is the need for strategies evaluation and evaluation of the instruction

itself for additional support as shown in figure3).

2.2.3.6.3.1 The Design of the CALLA Model

The model uses a selection of learning strategies that have been proved to be useful

and applicable to a broad range of learning tasks. The chosen strategies, as stated by Chamot,

can be used for all of the modalities: reading, listening, writing, and speaking, as well as for

the retention of vocabulary and content information. These strategies have been reported as

used by good learners and have been successfully incorporated by teachers into second

language instruction. In this respect, Chamot states the following

“Teachers should teach the model to their students so that

students understand the four processes. However, teachers

should be selective and thoughtful when choosing which

strategies to teach their students. Teaching too many strategies

at one time will overwhelm and confuse students. Conversely,

teaching too few strategies may bore students by not challenging

their intellects”.

(ibid: 33)

The model consists of four metacognitive processes through which students go for any

challenging learning task. They are:

Planning

Monitoring

Problem solving

Evaluating


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The model is recursive in nature. That is to say, the four strategic processes are not strictly

sequential but may be used depending on the requirements of the task and the interaction

between the learner and the task.

In case of reading, for instance, the student needs to plan by setting his goals or thinking

about what he wants to get out of the story and making predictions about the story based on

the title and his prior knowledge of the topic. Then he moves to the monitoring process, and

as he reads he checks if what he is reading is making sense. Nevertheless, while he reads he

may decide to go and revise his plans, based on new information in the text. He my need to

change some of his prediction and bring in new background knowledge, or even change goals,

while these actions are part of the planning process. He continues reading and then decides to

stop and evaluate himself after having read only a part of the story. In case where he feels

that he did not understand an important phrase or idea, he may go to the problem solving

process. That is to say, he is using each process as it is needed during the task, although not

necessarily sequential.

Figure 1 represent a table that contains a summary of learning strategies ordered according to

each of the four processes, as well as strategies for remembering information. Although a

strategy is grouped according to the metacognitive process in which it most occurs, it may be

used in more than one process depending on the task and how the strategy is applied (ibid :14)

Learning Strategies

Strategy Definition Other possible terms Metacognitive

process

Set Goals Develop personal

objective; identify the

purpose of the task

Determine

destination,

Establish purpose ,

plan objective

Planning

Direct Attention Decide in advance to

focus on particular tasks

and ignore distractions

Pay attention Planning

Monitoring

Problem solving

Evaluating

Activate

Background

Knowledge

Think about and use

what you already know

to help you do the task

Use what you know ,

Elaborate on prior

knowledge

Planning

Monitoring

Problem solving

Evaluating

Predict

Anticipate information to

prepare and give

Anticipate , guess

outcome

Planning


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direction for the task

Organizational

Planning

Plan the task and content

sequence

Outline, brainstorm ,

priority list

Planning

Self-Management Arrange for conditions

that help you learn

Know yourself, plan

how to study

Planning

Ask if it makes

sense

Check understanding and

production to keep track

of progress and identify

problems

Monitor

comprehension and

production , self-

monitor

Monitoring

Selectively Attend

Focus on key words ,

phrases and ideas

Scan, find specific

information

Planning

Monitoring

Deduction/Induction

Consciously apply

learned or self-developed

rules

Use a rule, Make a

rule

Monitoring

Personalize/

Contextualize

Relate information to

personal experiences

Relate information

to your experiences

Monitoring

Remembering

information

Take notes Write down important

words and concepts

T list, semantic

webs, ideas maps,

flow charts, outlines

Planning

Monitoring

Problem solving

Evaluating

Use Imagery Create an image to

represent information

Visualization,

Mental picture,

Draw pictures

Planning

Monitoring

Problem solving

Evaluating

Remembering

information

Manipulate/Act Out Handle tangible objects,

role play, and pantomime

Pantomime , Use

objects , role play

Planning

Monitoring

Remembering

information

Talk Yourself

Through it (Self-

talk)

Reduce anxiety by

reminding self of

progress, resources

available , goals

Positive thinking ,

build confidence

Planning

Monitoring

Problem solving

Evaluating

Cooperate Work with others to

complete tasks , build

confidence, and give and

receive feedback

Work together ,Peer

coaching

Planning

Monitoring

Problem solving

Evaluating

Inference

Make guesses based on

previous knowledge

Logical guessing,

Use context clues

Problem-solving


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Table 3: Metacognitive Model of Strategic Learning (Chamot et al 1999: 15-17)

Substitute

Use synonym or

descriptive phrase for

unknown words

Paraphrase,

circumlocute

Problem solving

Ask Questions to

Clarify

Ask for explanation,

verification , and

examples, pose questions

to self

Questioning Planning

Monitoring

Problem solving

Evaluating

Use Resources Use reference materials

about the language and

subject matter

Look it up Problem-solving

Verify Predictions

and Guesses

Check whether your

predictions/guesses are

correct

Verification Evaluating

Summarize Create a mental Oral , or

written summary of

information

Make a summary Evaluating

Check Goals Decide whether goal was

met

Keep a learning log ,

reflect on progress

Evaluating

Evaluate Yourself Judge how well you

learned the material /did

on the task

Self-evaluate, self-

assess, check

yourself

Evaluating

Remembering

information

Evaluate Your

Strategies

Judge how you applied

strategies and the

effectiveness of

strategies

Learning reflections,

Assessing techniques

Evaluating

Imagine with

Keyword

Create a visual and

personal association

between meaning and

sound

Keyword imagery

method

Remembering

information

Transfer / Cognates Use previously acquired

linguistic knowledge,

recognize words that are

similar in other known

languages

Monitoring

Problem solving

Remembering

information


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2.2.3.6.3.2 The Metacognitive Processes of the CALLA Model

Chamot suggests a training model consisting of a four metacognitive processes which

are, as shown in table represented in figure 3: Planning strategies, Monitoring strategies,

Problem solving strategies, and evaluating strategies.

The following sub-section surveys these processes, as brought by Chamot, in more details.

a. Planning Strategies

The Planning process is the first process in the CALLA model. Chamot defines it by

stating the following,

“Planning is a crucial first step towards becoming a self-

regulated learner. The planning process is similar to how

people plan, organize, and schedule events daily, weekly, or

monthly. Planning strategies help people develop and use

forethought. They encourage thinking so that the learner reflects

before beginning a task rather than diving into the activity

unprepared and with little thought as to what will happen.

During the planning process, good learners think about how

they are going to approach and carry out a task”.

(ibid: 14)

During this process the learners are meant to set goals by thinking of objectives for the task,

and they come up with a plan of strategies to help them through the task to meet those

objectives. They decide to focus attention on the task while ignoring distractions. They think

of what they already know about the task and the related topic and then predict what they

might need to do on the basis of this information. It is worth noting, here, that although the

planning process occurs at the beginning, the process can reoccur throughout the task if one

needs to reconsider his/her plan.

Among the most powerful planning strategies, we can count: setting goals, directed attention,

activating background knowledge, predicting, organizational planning, and self-management

(ibid: 14-20).


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b. Monitoring Strategies

After the learners have prepared an approach, they use monitoring strategies to

measure their effectiveness while working on the task. Monitoring is managed through two

process components. First, students monitor how they are doing as they work .Second, they

monitor by making adjustment to how they are working.

In this respect Chamot states,

“While monitoring, students should think where their focus of

concentration needs to be at any given time and then

consciously focus their attention on aspects of the task. Learners

monitor their comprehension and production by thinking about

whether they understand when reading or listening or if they are

making sense when writing or speaking. Learners also think

about how the information they are receiving or producing fits

in with the knowledge of the world based on their own

experiences”.

(Idem)

During this process, learners rely on their knowledge of the rules of the language to make

decisions about the language they are processing. They may imagine a picture if the task has a

visual component, as they can imagine a relevant situation to help them understand and

produce language. The strategies learners possess encourage them in case where they feel

frustrated or overwhelmed. They also use social skills to work with and learn from others

while performing tasks in partnership.

We can count the following strategies among the monitoring ones: ask if it makes sense,

attending selectively, deducing and inducing, personalizing and contextualizing, taking notes,

using imagery, manipulating and acting out, talking yourself through it (self talk), and

cooperating (ibid: 20-25).

c. Problem-Solving Strategies

When good students have difficulty in performing a task, they choose a strategy from

the problem-solving process. For instance, when they get confronted to a word that they do


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not know, they make guesses based on all available information. When they do not know how

to say something they think of another way to say it or they say something different. Chamot

et al state that “the strategies included in the problem-solving process range from solving

problems autonomously by making a guess based on the context to looking up information in

a dictionary”. They add that Students who actively and appropriately engage in this range of

strategies are more successful at learning tasks (ibid: 25).

We can cite the following strategies as problem solving ones: inferencing, substituting, asking

questions for clarification, and using resources.

d. Evaluating Strategies

Evaluating strategies are those ones that good learners use to evaluate how well they

did. They are meant to enable the learner to reflect on his performance in order to assess his

achievement of the goals he set for the task, and the effectiveness of the strategies he

implemented for the same sake. Chamot states;

“After completing part or all of a task, good learners reflect on

how well it went. This process allows them to see if they carried

out their plans and to check how well strategies helped.

Strategic learners assess whether they met their goals for the

task and if they did not, why they didn’t meet those goals and

what they can do differently next time”.

(ibid: 27)

Chamot cites the following strategies as belonging to the evaluation process: verifying

predictions ad guess, Summarizing (through answering questions like: What is the gist of

this? What is the main idea?), Checking goals (through answering the question: Did I meet

my goal?), evaluating oneself through answering the question: How well did I do?),

evaluating one’ strategies through answering questions like: Did I choose good strategies?

What could I do differently next time?) (ibid: 27-29)


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e. Strategies for Remembering Vocabulary and Other Information

Chamot states that “... in addition to comprehending and producing information,

students must learn to use grammar and the sound system and remember information related

to social and cultural behaviours, subject matter, and vocabulary”. She also notes repetition

has been reported by students as a very frequently used strategy for learning languages. While

repeated exposure to materials increases students’ chance of remembering information,

the amount of material in language acquisitions indicates that more efficient strategies may

be necessary (idem).

Chamot suggests a set of strategies for remembering information within her metacognitive

model of strategy training. She introduces them by stating,

“The strategies suggested here help students to learn and

remember information for a long period of time by building

bridges in the learners’ mind. Information is retained and

connected in the brain through mental links or pathways that

are mapped onto an individual’s existing schemata. If the links

are numerous and personally meaningful, the information is

easier to memorize and recall later. Making meaningful

associations with new words and phrases can make vocabulary

acquisition more effective and efficient”.

(Idem)

The strategies Chamot suggests for remembering vocabulary and other information include

the following: Imagining with keywords (through using keyword imagery method to

remember vocabulary), grouping or classifying (through creating categories), transferring or

using cognates (through using one’s knowledge of the target language or other languages and

using cognates from English or other languages) (ibid : 29-31).

Conclusion

This chapter has surveyed the literature related to the reading skill and language

learning strategies. It has covered some descriptions of the reading process, in addition to the


75

main approaches to the reading process. This chapter also included defining LLS, types of

LLS, LLS as applied to the reading skill, and metacognitive reading strategies, being the main

target of this research. Eventually, the chapter surveyed the different models of strategy

training, including the CALLA model (Chamot& O’Malley 1994), which was implemented in

the experiment implied in this research.

Chapter Three Research Design, Methodology and Data Analysis

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Chapter Three:

Research Design,

Methodology and

Data Analysis


78

Chapter Three: Research Design, Methodology and Data Analysis

3.0 Introduction 79

3.1 Methodology 79

3.1.1 Research design 79

3.1.2 The Participants 80

3.1.3 Instruments for Data Collection 80

3.1.3.1 Classroom Discussion 81

3.1.3.2 The Pretest/ The Diagnostic Test 81

3.1.3.3 The Reading Strategies Questionnaire for Pre and Post-course strategy 82

Assessment.

3.1.3.4 The Posttest/ The Achievement Test 82

3.1.4 The Procedure 82

3.1.4.1 The EGBP Reading Course 83

3.1.4.2 The Metacognitive Reading Strategies Training 85

3.2 Data Findings and Analysis 97

3.2.1 Classroom Discussion Findings 97

3.2.2 The Questionnaires 98

3.2.2.1 The Pre-course Questionnaire Findings 99

3.2.2.2 The Post-course Questionnaire Findings 103

3.2.3 The Pretest /Diagnostic Test Results 110

3.2.4 The posttest/ Achievement Test Results 111

Conclusion 113

General Conclusion 114


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3.0 Introduction

This chapter will present the practical part of this study. It will introduce the design of

the study, the implemented methodology, in addition to data gathered with analysis and

results. It will also include a detailed description of the steps followed throughout the

experiment, including the course of English for General Business Purposes’ participants

undertook. It is noteworthy that the course has been designed by the researcher who was in

charge of teaching the English subject to the two groups of participants.

Therefore, a brief description of the course of English for General Business Purposes (EGBP)

as designed by the researcher will be included. Besides, there will be a detailed description of

the Metacognitive Reading Strategies Training students of the experimental group undertook

within the EGBP’ course.

Regarding the different models of Strategy Training suggested in the related literature,

such as Oxford’s model, Vigotsky’s and Chamot’s, the latter has been selected by the

researcher as a framework for the strategy training. This model gains preference over the

others for to its metacognitive aspect. That is to say its authors (Chamot et al, 1999) designed

it as a metacognitive model of learning strategies training. Thus, it has been perceived more

advantageous in working out the students’ metacognitive awareness. Moreover the model

suggests a reading strategies questionnaire in which the strategies are presented in categories

according to the metacognitive processes they belong to. This questionnaire was used in this

research to identify participants existing learning strategies as a step within the preparation

phase of the training. It was used also as a strategies’ checklist for the students to refer to for

their future uses.

It is noteworthy that the strategy training is not conducted with the devotion of special

sessions or activities; instead it was integrated as a natural part of regular class activities in

reference to the CALLA strategy instruction model (Chamot et al, 1999: 44).

3.1 Methodology

The following subsections will present the methodology implemented thorough this

research.


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3.1.1 Research design

The study uses a case study OXO design. Two groups of first year Economic

Sciences, Management and Commercial Sciences, being concerned with an EGBP course,

were randomly chosen, then, again randomly, assigned as control an experimental group. Data

gathered using questionnaires and tests are analysed then compared.

3.1.2 Participants

Participants of this research are two randomly chosen groups of 1st year Economic

Sciences, Management and Commercial Sciences’ LMD students at the University of Hassiba

Benbouali in Chlef. These students are concerned with a course in English for General

Business Purposes a Business (EGBP), with the allocation of one session of ninety minutes

per week, along the academic year. The first group has been assigned as the control group and

the second as the experimental one, randomly. Later, both groups attended took an EGBP

Course, designed by the researcher, being the teacher in the charge of the subject. The course

targeted the reading skill mainly.

Actually, participants have gone through a seven years General English course as part

of the middle and secondary school curricula. Thus, their entry profile for the EGBP course

they are meant with at university is the secondary school exist profile. The latter is supposed

to meet the Terminal Objective of Integration (OTI) stated by the ministry of education, as

cited in the official documents officially published by the ministry on the World Wide Web

(www.onefd.edu.dz). Therefore, students’ secondary education exit profile was considered in the

design of the EGBP course they undertook as part of the experiment.

As far as the participants’ ability to comprehend reading materials, it had been evaluated

before the course started via a pretest which was conceived as a reading comprehension one. This test

aimed at checking the two groups’ homogeneity in terms of reading comprehension ability. The latter

is crucial for the reliability of the experiment, since the aim of the experiment is to prove the

effectiveness of the metacognitive reading strategies in boosting the participants’ ability to

comprehend reading materials.

3.1.3 Instruments for Data Collection

For the sake of collecting data for this research, the following instruments were used:


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1. Classroom discussion about students’ previous experience with strategy training

2. Reading Comprehension First Test (Pretest /Diagnostic test)

3. Reading Comprehension Second Test (Posttest/ Achievement test)

4. Reading Strategies Questionnaire (For the experimental group, before the training, for

assessing students’ existing strategies)

5. Reading Strategies Questionnaire (For the experimental group, after the training, for

the assessment improvement in strategy use)

The following sub-sections will present these instruments in detail, and in the order they were

used.

3.1.3.1 Classroom Discussion

Before tackling the strategy training, participants in both groups were involved into a

classroom discussion which aimed at verifying whether they have ever undertaken a strategy

training, and therefore to check their homogeneity in terms of learning strategies.

The discussion was led through covering the following questions:

1. Do you know what learning strategies are?

2. Have you ever been advised to be strategic throughout your learning experience? If yes,

what have you been told to do for that purpose?

3. Have you ever heard or read about learning strategies training?

4. Have you ever thought or tried to have a record of techniques that help you learn best so

that you can have recourse to whenever you want to learn?

3.1.3.2 The Pretest (Diagnostic Test)

The pretest is meant to verify the homogeneity of the two groups of students in terms

of reading comprehension ability. Regarding the students profile in English which is ideally

the exit profile of secondary school education, the test was adapted from the TOEFL Junior

test of general English, designed for English language programmes for placement and

progress’ monitoring. Thus, we could use it for both checking homogeneity of the groups in

terms of reading comprehension ability, and in deciding upon the level of the content of the

course participants are meant to undertake. This test consists of a General English reading text

with six multiple choice questions and four comprehension questions. Ninety minutes were

devoted for the test while the scoring was set on 10 points, one for each question.


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3.1.3.3 The Reading Strategies Questionnaire for Pre and Post-course assessment

The reading strategies questionnaire is the one suggested by Chamot et al (Chamot et

al 1999:72) within the CALLA model (Metacognitive Model of Learning Strategies

Training). It is noteworthy that this questionnaire was used for three different purposes within

this study. First, it was used at the beginning of the course as part of strategy training, for the

identification of learners’ existing learning strategies which is part of the presentation phase

of the strategy’ training.

Second, for the fact that it includes the metacognitive reading strategies targeted by the

training, it was used also as a check list of metacognitive reading strategies for participants to

refer to while practising reading throughout the course. And third, it was used at the end of the

training for assessing the improvement students in the experimental group made at the level of

strategy’ use as a result of the training.

3.1.3.4 The Posttest (Achievement Test)

The posttest or the achievement test is a test that both groups undertook at the end of

the course so as to assess participants’ ability to comprehend reading materials. Since the

course is an EGBP one, the text selected belongs to the realm of business and within a theme

and a function covered in the course so as to guarantee relevance of the test with the course

content. The test consists of five multiple choice questions and five comprehension questions,

while the scoring was set out of ten, with one point for each question.

The scores obtained from the posttest by both groups are meant to be submitted to comparison

with that those obtained from the pretest. There will be a two-level comparison: intra-group

and inter-group.

3.1.4 The Procedure

The research was conducted through the weaving of a metacognitive reading strategies

training within a course of English for General Business Purposes, with a clear focus on the

reading skill. For the sake of obtaining reliable results, the researcher took the course in

charge at the Faculty of Economic Sciences, Management and Commercial Sciences at the

University of Hassiba Ben Bouali, in Chlef. One of the most important implications of taking


83

the Business English subject in charge at university is the design of the course, since no

syllabus is suggested for the teacher to cover.

Regarding the paramount importance of the course as part of the experiment since the strategy

training is meant to be woven within; a description of the course is presented below as part of

the procedure of the experiment. Thus, the researcher, as a teacher and a designer of the

course, suggested lesson plans that he executed in the classroom. Samples of lesson plans for

both control and experimental groups are presented in the coming sections as well as a

description of the modal of strategy training implemented.

3.1.4.1 The EGBP Reading Course

The course through which the strategy training was conducted falls in the realm of

English for General Business Purposes (EGBP) as a branch of ESP. Hutchinson & Waters

(1987:18), state that though the ESP’ content of learning may vary from the GE one, this does

not give any reason to cause their processes of learning to differ from each other. As for

EGBP Dudley & St John (1998:55), state that it concerns learners who are at very early stages

of their business contexts. This is the case of first year Economic Sciences, Management and

Commercial Sciences’ students at the University of Hassiba Ben Bouali in Chlef, to whom

belong the participants of this study. The same authors also state that the content of the EGBP

course is much more language-based than job-based. Most of the material designed to serve

courses under this banner contain the four skills, specific grammar and vocabulary

development (ibid: 55).

On the basis of this theoretical perspective, the course was designed to target mainly

the reading skill for two main reasons: the first is its importance in terms of participants’

ultimate objective from learning EGBP, which is mainly exploring English business-related

resources for the sake of research within the field of their specialty, and the second is the

requirements of this research which aims at testing the effectiveness of metacognitive reading

strategies in the enhancement of participants’ ability to comprehend reading materials.

The researcher has implemented the learning-based approach to course design (Hutchinson &

Waters 1987). While for the design of the syllabus, the notional-functional approach (Wilkins

1972) was implemented. Therefore each course’ unit relates to a business-related theme and

works out a specific linguistic function. That is for the advantage that the Notional-Functional


84

syllabus gives priority to the learner and his/her communicative competence, and this aspect

fits the learning-centred approach implemented for the design of the course.

The reading passages selected for the course were related to General Business Purposes. Most

of them were adapted from Market Leader Business English course book.

As for the degree of difficulty of the reading passages, it was in relevance to the learners’

profile which has been identified on the basis of tow meaningful criteria which are: the first is

the secondary education exit profile in English, known as “OTI” (Objectif Final

d’Integration), and the second is the result obtained from the pretest (or the diagnostic test), as

it targeted the students reading comprehension ability.

It is noteworthy that Krashen’s comprehensible input theory; known as Krashen’s I+1

(Krashen 1985) was considered in the choice of the input’s degree of difficulty. In other

words, the input of the course, which consists mainly of the reading passages, was meant to be

a notch above the students’ proficiency level in order to make it comprehensible for them. At

the same time, Swain’s Output theory (2005) was considered, as it states that students need

not only comprehensible input so that they manage to acquire the foreign language, but also

output opportunities with a more competent interlocutor who is generally the teacher in the

teaching/learning environment. Thus, the output consisted of a written production worked out

through oral brainstorming before students are invited to write then to share in the classroom.

Again it is noteworthy that though the four skills have their share of the course, a clear focus

was on the reading skill; as the objective of the course is to develop students’ reading skill

through the implementation of metacognitive reading strategies by means of practice of

reading comprehension tasks.

While both groups of participants are meant by the same course’ content, students in the

experimental group were offered additionally an explicit metacognitive reading strategies

training that was woven throughout the same course.


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In this respect Chamot et al (1999) state that;

“Effective strategies instruction is not an extra activity or a

separate part of the regular language class .Rather; it is used to

support language and content learning and to accomplish the

goals of the curriculum. While initial explanations are needed,

much of strategies instruction should occur while students are

working on authentic, meaningful language tasks”

(Chamot et al, 1999:42)

In addition to that, Chamot et al guide teachers in conducting the strategy training by

recommending thoughtful selection of strategies to teach. That is to avoid overwhelming and

confusing learners as it may happen in case where too many strategies are being instructed at

once. Conversely, teaching too few strategies may be boring for the students as they may

perceive it below the level to challenge their intellects (ibid: 33).

Under the light of these guidelines suggested by Chamot et al, the researcher, being

the teacher and course designer, made a selection of most useful strategies to be targeted

throughout the training.

3.1.4.2 The Metacognitive Reading Strategies Training

It is crucial for a teacher willing to conduct a strategy training to have a clear plan for

such a task. Since the practical part of this research is based on conducting strategy training

for the sake of checking the effectiveness of metacognitive reading strategies in the

enhancement of students’ ability to comprehend reading materials, the CALLA model

suggested by Chamot & O’Malley (1994) has been chosen as the instructional framework for

the training.

The CALLA framework is adequate for this research for its metacognitive aspect, as it is

intended to be a Metacognitive Model of Strategic Learning. It targets making students know

how and when to use learning strategies to become more independent learners. It is

considered as an effective way for conducting learning strategies instruction. It is based on

explicit teaching of learning strategies and works out learners’ autonomy in the use of


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strategies through a process going from teacher-guided activities to students’ independent use

of the target strategies.

As the CALLA model includes many language learning strategies, it was adapted to include

reading strategies only as required for the course in this research. Thus, the training was

conducted through a five-step process. These steps are: Preparation, Presentation, Practice,

Evaluation, and Expansion (Chamot et al 1999: 43-49).

The following subsections will present these steps in detail.

3.1.4.2.1 Preparation

At this phase the teacher prepares the students for the strategy training through

indentifying their prior knowledge about and the use of specific strategies. The teacher can

use techniques for eliciting prior strategies knowledge.

Within the CALLA model the preparation phase targets the following objectives as basic

background for the strategy training:

-Creating the Learner-centred classroom

-Students’ Self-efficacy

- Identifying students’ existing strategies

a. Creating the Learner-Centred Classroom

A teacher who aims at conducting strategy training should target first the

establishment of the learner-centred atmosphere, since it is an environment that creates and

fosters independent students who are aware of their learning processes, and who through this

awareness can take control of their own learning.

For the creation of the learner-centred classroom, Chamot et al suggest a set of activities that

have been shared by teachers who succeeded in creating learner-centred classrooms. These

include activities for setting learning responsibilities. And here the teacher is meant to share

the learning responsibility with the students, so he/she takes the role of model and facilitator,

while the students increase their role as learners and active participants who are responsible

for their own learning. This can be reached mainly by setting clearly the class expectations for

the students as they need to understand them from the beginning.


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Classroom contracts, the use of learning analogies, learning reflections, setting personal

language goals and self assessment of language abilities are examples of tools for building

learners expectations towards independence. (ibid: 52-60).

The researcher, being the teacher of the course through which the strategy training has

been conducted, implemented mainly learning analogies and setting personal goals as tools

for the establishment of the learner-centred classroom in addition to sharing the class

expectations with the students.

b. Self-Efficacy

Highly motivated learners work hard and persevere in the face of difficulty, and they

find satisfaction in the successful accomplishment of a learning task. Self-efficacy or task-

based confidence which forms the basis for self-esteem and learning motivation refers to the

student’s beliefs about their abilities to accomplish a task. Self-efficacious learners feel

confident about their ability to solve a problem because they believe that they continue

developing that ability throughout their learning experience (ibid: 62). They also recognize

that errors are part of learning. Students with low self-efficacy, considering them to have poor

abilities, choose less demanding tasks and do not try hard because they think that any effort

will reveal their lack of ability (Bandura, 1992 in Chamot et al, 1999: 62).

Strategies have been linked to motivation and particularly to a sense of self-efficacy leading

to expectations of successful learning (Zimmerman &Pons, 1986; Chamot et al, 1993;

Chamot et al, 1996). The development of self-efficacy is closely associated with effective use

of learning strategies (Zimmerman, 1990 in Chamot et al 1999: 62).


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In this respect Chamot et al state that:

“Students’ self-perceptions are important to the teacher,

parents, and the students themselves. If a student starts off with

a low perception of his or her ability, then the teacher, parents

and students can work together to learn techniques and skills to

help boost the student’s confidence level”

(ibid: 60-64)

At this stage, the researcher, as the teacher of the course, conducted a talk with the

students of the experimental group in order to boost their confidence level, mainly for

achieving the objectives of the course. As a result, students have shown a positive change in

attitude towards learning English in general and the course specifically.

c. Identifying Students’ Existing Reading Strategies

After learners have known the implications of their roles in the learner-centred

classroom and have begun thinking of themselves as learners, they showed readiness to begin

learning strategies, as noted. The next stage in the training is finding out the strategies

students already use. This step is meant to make students aware of their own raeding

strategies and those of their classmates. This makes them feel themselves able to contribute

actively in the strategy training. Chamot states that “All students come into strategies

instructions with preferred techniques for learning, whether for language or other subjects,

and appreciate acknowledgment of their prior experiences” (ibid: 64).

Indentifying learners’ current strategies also helps the teacher decide what strategies to focus

on during the training as the teacher builds on strategies students already possess. By building

on strategies already known by the students the teacher gets it easy to familiarize them with

talking about their thought processes before moving on to new ones.

Chamot et al suggest activities that are meant to raise learners’ awareness of learning

strategies they already have in hand. These activities include mainly class discussions about

learning strategies, group discussions and structured interviews; think-aloud technique,

questionnaires, and diaries or dialogue journals (ibid 64-75).


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For this research, the questionnaire was chosen as a tool for identifying the learners’

reading strategies. It is noteworthy that the same questionnaire was used as a strategy

checklist for students to refer to throughout the reading practice. The same questionnaire was

used at the end of the course so as to assess students’ improvement in the use of the strategies

targeted by the training.

3.1.4.2.2 Presentation

After the preparation phase through which the students’ prior knowledge about and

use of the raeding strategies have been introduced and discussed, the teacher can move to the

presentation phase of the instruction as a second step. At this phase, the teacher is meant to

demonstrate the new learning strategy and explain how and when to use it. Learning strategies

at this stage are explicitly modelled, named and explained. The CALLA model includes some

guidelines for explicit presentation of learning strategies which are:

a. Teacher Modelling

Before asking the students to practice a given strategy the teacher should demonstrate

how the strategy is used by modelling it on a similar task. The teacher then, while dealing

with a similar task, thinks aloud so as to make his thought processes as clear as possible,

either by writing them or illustrating them on the board or on overhead.

b. Naming the Strategy

While the teacher shows the way the strategy works in the modelling phase, he /she

should name the strategy explicitly. The strategy name should be written (in L2or L1) out for

students on a board, a poster, or a strip of cardboard that the teacher can raise every time the

strategy name is mentioned.

Knowing the strategy name is important for the evaluation of strategy, so as to decide upon

which strategy is better for a task. Chamot states , “This explicit training leads to a more

conscious understanding of strategies that, in turn, contributes to the learner’s metacognitive

knowledge and control over strategies use” (ibid: 77).


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c. Explaining the Importance of the Strategy

As the teacher thinks aloud while modelling the strategy in order to show the students

how it is used and what its name is, it is very useful to highlight the importance and

usefulness of the strategy with specific examples.

In this respect, Chamot states, “Students need to hear this type of explanation because they

may not realize the value of strategic learning for themselves until they have practiced it over

time” (ibid: 78).

d. Telling When to Use the Strategy

While presenting the strategy, the teacher can describe the typical situations in which

the strategy can be effective. Linking the strategy to the student’s real life helps him/her in

remembering it. For instance, while inferencing is a useful strategy in reading and listening in

classroom settings, it is also used and useful in real life. A teacher can provide the example of

someone talking on the phone while a truck is passing by, you use what you hear to

understand what you do not hear, that is inferencing and you can use it in class for similar

situations. The same thing can be said about the use of inferencing while dealing with poor

quality photocopies, as we need to figure out the words partially printed according the words

that are clearly printed.

e. Asking Students to Describe Their Use of the Strategies

After presenting the strategy by modelling it, naming it and describing how and when

to use it, the teacher should offer the students the opportunity to share the way they use them.

That can be conducted through class discussion through which students describe their use of

the strategy


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Chamot summarizes the presentation phase in nutshell as she states,

“Language teachers present learning strategies explicitly to students

in a variety of ways. However, teachers should always model

strategies, refer to them by name, explain why they are important,

suggest when to use a specific strategy, and elicit from students how

they are already using a strategy. As a result of this explicit

presentation of learning strategies, students will acquire the

metacognitive knowledge they need to use strategies independently

and begin to have more control over their own learning processes”.

(ibid: 97)

3.1.4.2.3 Practice

At this phase, students practise using the strategy with regular class activities of

moderate difficulty.

Strategies instruction sheds light on students thinking and encourages effective use of

strategies while they perform classroom tasks. The following subsections present some ways

in which teachers can encourage strategic practice as part of language practice as suggested

by Chamot.

a. Integrate Strategies Practice into Regular Course Work

The CALLA model of instruction is presented by its designers as not being an add-on,

but rather a way to support language learning in an existing curriculum. Students, thus, should

practice strategies while working on language tasks as suggested for class work. When the

teacher includes reading strategies in the teaching the instructional shift doesn’t occur at the

level of content but the one of emphasis (idem). On this basis, the researcher implemented the

strategy training within the same course content.

a. Select Appropriately Challenging Tasks

Two critical criteria that should characterize the language task through which a new

strategy can be learnt is being authentic and moderately challenging. In case where students


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react negatively to strategy instruction , the first thing the teacher should go back to and

analyse is the suggested tasks and whether they meet these criteria or not.

An authentic task is one that is based on real communicative or informational needs. It is one

that targets providing learners with an opportunity to use language for a meaningful purpose.

The difficulty of the task should be a slight stretch for students. Students are not likely to use

strategies unless they experience their efficiency personally. That efficiency can be proved

when students succeed in performing tasks using them. If a task is too easy, students will not

need strategies to succeed, they may therefore perceive strategies as being a waste of time.

However, if the task is too difficult students may not be able to succeed even when they do

use appropriate strategies (ibid: 98-101).

b. Encourage Students to Practice the Strategies Introduced

When students learn a new strategy, teachers should guide them to practice it during

the language learning tasks. A way to guide learners in the practice of the new strategy, as

suggests Chamot, is to add instructions to the task that remind the learners to use the strategy.

The teacher can develop a worksheet to guide students in practicing several strategies for the

task in hand.

c. Coach Students to Use Strategies

During practice activities students should be coached by the teacher. After initial

practice, students need the support of reminders to continue using the strategies they are

learning.

Students need also feedback about their performance and their use of the strategies. Feedback

can be given through praising learners success in both solving the task and using the strategy.

It can also be given by restating what the student said. This enables the students to know the

strategy and how their colleague did.

d. Encourage Students to Choose Their Own Strategies and to Develop a Repertoire

of Strategies

After having dealt with many strategies, students need to practise choosing strategies

for themselves. The teacher can encourage the learners to reflect on their own thinking


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processes. It is important that teachers keep giving students feedback whenever they use

strategies, praising them for being strategic and pointing out when a strategy is successful.

The teacher can encourage the student to choose another strategy if the one chosen first

doesn’t work. If students rely on only one or two strategies, the teacher should encourage

them to try others (ibid: 103).

e. Focus on Students’ Learning Processes Not Just Products

One of the easiest ways to encourage strategic thinking is to put more emphasis on

thinking that leads to students’ response rather than on correct content. The teacher can ask

students frequently about their reasoning behind their responses. The following questions

focus on thinking:

What are you going to do?

How did you come up with that?

What makes you think so?

What were you thinking about?

How can you solve your problems?

How did you decide that?

Chamot states,

“... Examining thinking behind insightful responses can give all

students a model of effective thinking and can help good

students be more aware of what helps them learn. Teachers

should get in the habit of praising good thinking more than good

outcomes”

(ibid: 104)

3.1.4.2.4 Evaluation

At this stage, students self-evaluate their use of the strategy and how well it is working

for them. Students should be pushed forward to practice evaluation themselves as a way of

developing their metacognitive ability; that is their ability to reflect on their own approaches


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to learning. Self-evaluation is meant to offer the students an opportunity to take control of

their own learning selecting or rejecting particular learning strategies.

Although the focus in the evaluation phase is on student self-evaluation, teachers are also

engaged in evaluation activities. They have to evaluate how their students are using the

strategies they taught them in order to adapt the instruction to the students needs.

Chamot (ibid: 115) suggests the use of the same retrospective methods of collecting

information about students ’use of learning strategies, such as questionnaires , discussions and

interviews. However, these methods are always subject to the possibility that students may not

report accurately on the strategies they used during the task. This happens in case where the

students report only strategies which they think are useful to the teacher or when they do not

remember all of those they used. Chamot states,

“Many of the approaches used in the Preparation phase to

identify the strategies that students already use prior to learning

strategies instruction can also be used to help students evaluate

their use of the new strategies they have learned. For example

group work and interviews, checklists, questionnaires, and

diaries or dialogue journals can be used in both the Preparation

phase and the Evaluation phase”

(Ibid: 115)

On this basis, the researcher used the reading strategies questionnaire that he used in the

preparation phase for indentifying the strategies students used prior to the training, in the

evaluation phase for assessing their use of the new strategies they learnt as well as the

improvement they made in the use of those they knew before.

Chamot suggests for teachers a self-evaluation check list of learning strategies instruction on a

regular basis. This check list is organized according to the Instructional Framework detailed

above while making it possible for them to evaluate their learning strategies instruction for

each of the five phases: Preparation, Practice, Evaluation, and Expansion.

Figure 7.9 represents the checklist as suggested by Chamot.


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Table 4 TEACHING LEARNING STRATEGIES CHECKLIST (Adapted from Sarah Barnhardt, 1996. National Capital Language Resource Centre, Georgetown

University/George Washington University/ Centre for Applied Linguistics, 2600 Virginia Av., Suite

105, Washington DC 20037. in Chamot et al, 1999:137)

Phases Actions Often Some-

times

Rarely

Preparing 1. I ask students about the strategies they already use.

2. I include activities such as think alouds and discussions to help students be aware of their strategies.

Presenting

3. I choose strategies to teach by matching them with the task.

4. I give the strategy(s) a name and explain it.

5. I tell students why and when to use the strategy(s).

6. I model how to use the strategy(s) on a task.

Practicing

7. I choose challenging tasks for students.

8. I give students opportunities to practice the strategies.

9. I remind students to use a strategy they've just learned or to choose from the strategies they know.

10. I emphasize students’ thought processes by asking them how they figured something out.

11. I point out any strategies I see students using.

12. I praise good thinking more than correct answers.

Evaluating 13. I encourage students to evaluate their own strategies use.

14. I discuss with students which strategies they find most useful with the tasks practiced.

15. I encourage students to independently choose strategies.

16. I fade explicit learning strategies prompts when students take responsibility for the strategy.

7. I evaluate how I teach strategies and revise appropriately.

Extending

18. I talk with students about how they can use the strategies in other subjects and life situations.


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3.1.4.2.5 Expansion

At this phase, students extend their use of the strategy to other reading situations or

tasks. They work on transferring the strategy to new contexts. The ability of transferring the

strategies from a familiar context to an unfamiliar one is a critical component of effective

learning strategies use. Chamot states that “matching a familiar strategy to a new task

completes the cycle of strategies instruction, as students must rely on their own background

knowledge of both the strategy and the task” (ibid: 139).

Expanding the use of the strategies to new contexts completes the instructional model

suggested. It may be possible for students to evaluate the usefulness of a strategy for a

particular task, but this doesn’t mean that they can transfer it to another type of task. This is

the case of “inferencing” strategy, for instance, as it works for both reading and listening task.

Students may be able to use it successfully for a reading task but not for listening. Early

research has shown that strategy transfer is difficult (Gagné, Yekovich, & Yekovich, 19993).

Nevertheless, in studies in which students had to consciously evaluate the effectiveness of a

strategy, it was successfully transferred to other tasks. Chamot states that “Students

’metacognitive awareness of the learning strategies they know and of when and how to use

them is essential for the strategy transfer” (idem).

In order for students to be able to transfer learning strategies they need, in addition to their

metacognitive awareness, to know the requirements of the new task and its similarities, as

well as differences, to the task with which they are currently using the strategy for. In

Chamot’s words, “Task knowledge together with strategy knowledge are key to successful

transfer of learning strategies” (idem).

Students need guidance from the teacher while completing this phase of the instruction as

teaching students to expand their use of learning strategies needs to be scaffolded. At first the

teacher should give strong support through asking students explicitly to transfer the strategies

to other tasks such as other assignments. Later on the students are asked to report on the

effectiveness of the strategy transfer. This is meant to encourage reflection and the

development of automaticity of strategy transfer. It is worth noting herein that the expansion

phase should be included with instruction of all learning strategies (Idem).

At the end of the course both the control group and the experimental group were given

the posttest which is a reading comprehension achievement test , meanwhile the experimental

group was given the strategy questionnaire again in order to assess the improvement they


97

realized as a result of the training. Later on, data gathered from the questionnaires were

compared and so were the results of the two tests in order to find out more about the effects of

the strategy training.

3.2 Data Findings and Analysis

Data gathered via the instruments mentioned above were submitted to analysis and

comparison. The following subsections will present a description of these data in addition to

the results of their analysis.

3.2.1 Classroom Discussion Findings

For the purpose of verifying if the participants had any previous experiences with

strategy training as a way to verify their groups’ homogeneity in terms of reading strategies,

the students were involved, intentionally, into an oral discussion which was led by the teacher

through which the following questions were covered:

1 Do you know what learning strategies are?

2 Have you ever been advised to be strategic in your learning experience? If yes, what

have you been told to do for that purpose?

3 Have you ever heard or read about learning strategies training?

4 Have you ever thought or tried to have a record of techniques that help you perform

better in reading or any other skill?

The following results have been reported on the basis of the answers to the questions asked

throughout the classroom discussion:

Question 1: Do you know what learning strategies are?

Answers provided by the students to the first question were all the same, as none of them

showed that he/she knows what learning strategies are.

Question 2: Have you ever been advised to be strategic in your learning experience? If yes,

what have you been told to do for that purpose?

Few students reported that they were advised to be organized in the way they learn, but none

of them reported any advice targeting strategies neither as a notion nor as a term.


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Question 3: Have you ever heard or read about learning strategies training?

None of the participants reported either having read or heard about learning strategies.

Question 4: Have you ever thought or tried to have a record of techniques that help you

perform better in reading or any other skill?

None of the learners reported having thought of making a record of techniques as they

reported that in those very few cases where they used techniques they were not really aware

of them as techniques.

Conclusion

According to participants’ answers to the questions discussed in the classroom

conversation, none of the participants had undertaken a learning strategies training before,

though they might possess some strategies that they use as techniques without being aware of

them as being strategies. This reveals the fact that the two groups are homogenous at the level

of strategy instruction experience, and thus the improvement they made in their use of reading

strategies is due purely to the strategy training they undertook within the EGBP course.

3.2.2 The questionnaires

The reading strategies questionnaire was used for three objectives, the first one is to

identify strategies students already used prior to the training, as a part of the preparation phase

of the strategy training according to the CALLA model suggested by O’Malley and Chamot

(1994), and implemented in this research. The second objective is its use as a strategy check

list for students in the experimental group to refer to in order to pick up strategies they need

while performing reading tasks, either in the practice phase of the training or any other

practice opportunities. And the third is to assess the improvement students in the experimental

group realized through comparison of questionnaires’ results obtained in the pre and post-

training phases.


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3.2.2.1 Pre-course Reading Strategies Questionnaire Findings

The pre-training reading strategies questionnaire shows reading strategies used by

participants at the pre-course phase. Data obtained from the questionnaire at this phase show

if the participants already used reading strategies prior to the strategy training. Thus, results

obtained will answer the first research question.

The table below contains data gathered via the reading strategies questionnaire addressed to

the participants in the pre-course phase, i.e. before they undertake the strategy training.

Strategies Students’ answers

Never Rarely Occasio

nally

Always

1. I decide in advance what my reading

purpose is, and then I read with that goal

in mind.

00

00%

01

05%

07

35%

12

60%

2. I decide in advance specific aspects of

information to look for, and focus on that

information when I read.

02

10%

03

15%

04

20%

11

55%

3. Before I read, I think of what I already

know about the topic.

02

10%

03

15%

11

55%

04

20%

4. I try to predict what the text will be

about.

02

10%

06

30%

06

30%

04

20%

5. While I read, I periodically check

whether the material is making sense to

me.

02

10%

01

05/%

06

30%

09

45%

6. I imagine scenes or draw pictures of

what I am reading.

03

15%

06

30%

06

30%

05

25%

7. I encourage myself, as I read, by saying

positive statements such as, “You can do

it”.

02

10%

11

55%

05

25%

02

10%

8. I work with classmates to complete

assignments or solve comprehension

problems.

03

15%

02

10%

11

55%

04

20%

9. I use the context, like familiar words,

pictures, and the content, to help me guess

the meanings of unfamiliar words I read.

03

15%

05

25%

05

25%

07

35%

10. I identify what I don’t understand in

the reading text, and I ask precise

questions to solve the problem.

04

20%

10

50%

05

25%

01

10%


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11. I use reference materials (dictionary,

textbook, computer program, and so on)

to help solve comprehension problems.

02

10%

08

40%

09

45%

01

05%

12. After reading I check if my predictions

were correct.

02

10%

04

20%

09

45%

05

25%

13. I summarize (in my head or in writing)

important information that I read.

04

20%

10

50%

04

20%

02

10%

14. I rate my comprehension by reflecting

on how much I understood what I read.

03

15%

10

50%

04

20%

03

15%

15. After reading, I decide whether the

strategies or techniques I used helped me

Often

16

80%

00

00%

02

10%

02

10

16. I check whether I accomplished my

goal for reading.

03

15%

03

15%

09

45%

05

45%

Table 5: Pre-training Reading Strategies Questionnaire Results

Analysis of Data Gathered via the Pre-training Reading Strategies Questionnaire

A. Pre-reading strategies:

Strategy1. I decide in advance what my reading purpose is, and then I read with that goal in

mind.

Data gathered via the questionnaire show that one participant (05%) rarely uses this strategy,

seven others (35%) use it occasionally, while twelve (60%) always use it.

Strategy2. I decide in advance specific aspects of information to look for, and focus on that


Data gathered show that two (10%) of the participants never use this strategy, three of them

(15%) rarely do, eleven (60%) use it occasionally, while four (20%) always use it.

Strategy3. Before I read, I think of what I already know about the topic.

Data gathered via the questionnaire show that two students (10%) never use this strategy,

three (15%) of them rarely use it, eleven others (55%) use it occasionally, and four (20%)

always use it.


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Strategy4. I try to predict what the text will be about.

Data gathered via the questionnaire show that two participants (20 %) never use this strategy,

six (30%) of them rarely use it; six others (30%) use it occasionally and four (20%) always

use it.

B. While-reading strategies

Strategy5. While I read, I periodically check whether the material is making sense to me.

Data gathered show that two participants (10%) never use this strategy, one participant (5%)

rarely uses it, six (30%) participants use it occasionally and eleven (55%) others always use it.

Strategy6. I imagine scenes or draw pictures of what I am reading.

Data gathered via the questionnaire show that 3 participants (15%) never use this strategy, 6

of them rarely use it, 6 others (30%) use it occasionally while 5 (25%) of them always use it.

Strategy7. I encourage myself, as I read, by saying positive statements such as, “You can do

it”.

Data gathered via the questionnaire show that 2 participants (10%) rarely use the strategy,

eleven of them (55%) rarely use it, 5 of them (25%) use it occasionally and 2 (10%) always

use it.

Strategy8. I work with classmates to complete assignments or solve comprehension

problems.

Data gathered via the questionnaire show that 3 participants (15%) never use this strategy,

two of them (10%) rarely use it, eleven of them (55%) use it occasionally, and 4 of them

(20%) always use it.

Strategy9. I use the context, like familiar words, pictures, and the content, to help me guess



five of them (25%) rarely use it, five of them (25%) use it occasionally and seven (35%)

always use it.


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Strategy10. I identify what I don’t understand in the reading text, and I ask precise questions

to solve the problem.

Data gathered via the questionnaire show that 4 participants (20%) never use this strategy, ten

(50%) of them rarely use it, five of them (25%) use it occasionally and one (35%) always uses

it.

Strategy11. I use reference materials (dictionary, textbook, computer program, and so on) to

help solve comprehension problems.


eight of them (40%) rarely use it, nine of them (45%) use it occasionally and one (35%)

always uses it.

C. Post-reading strategies

Strategy12. After reading I check if my predictions were correct.


four of them (20%) rarely use it, nine of them (45%) use it occasionally and five (25%)

always use it.

Strategy13. I summarize (in my head or in writing) important information that I read.


of them (50%) rarely use it, four of them (20%) use it occasionally and two (10%) always use

it.

Strategy14. I rate my comprehension by reflecting on how much I understood what I read.


(50%) of them rarely use it, four of them (20%) use it occasionally and three (15%) always

use it.

Strategy15. After reading, I decide whether the strategies or techniques I used helped me

often.


none of them (00%) rarely uses it, two of them (10%) use it occasionally and two others



103

Strategy16. I check whether I accomplished my goal for reading.


three of them (15%) rarely use it, nine of them (45%) use it occasionally and five (25%)

always use it.

Discussion of the Findings of the Pre-Training Reading Strategies Questionnaire

According to data gathered via the reading strategies questionnaire detailed above,

some participants already possessed and used reading strategies before they undertook the

training.

It was also remarked that the frequency of use of these strategies differs from one strategy to

another and from one student to another, since there are some strategies that some students

never use, others that they use rarely, others which they use occasionally and others which

they always use.

Conclusion

These findings answer the first research question which says: “Do students have any

reading strategies that they already use?” by confirming the hypothesis which says that

they do have reading strategies and use them. However, participants were not aware of them

as strategies since they undertook no training that aims at raising their strategic awareness.

3.2.2.2 Post-course Reading Strategies Questionnaire Findings

The post-training reading strategies questionnaire shows reading strategies used by

participants at the post-course phase. Comparison of data gathered via the questionnaire at

this phase with those gathered via the pre-course phase will show whether the metacognitive

reading strategies training participants in the experimental group undertook promoted their

use of these strategies or not.

The table below contains data gathered via the reading strategies questionnaire addressed to

the participants in the post-course phase, i.e. after they had undertaken the strategy training.


104

Strategies Students’ answers

Never Rarely Occasio

nally

Always

1. I decide in advance what my reading

purpose is, and then I read with that goal

in mind.

00

00%

00

00%

04

20%

16

80%

2. I decide in advance specific aspects of

information to look for, and focus on that


00

00%

00

00%

05

25%

13

65%

3. Before I read, I think of what I already

know about the topic.

01

05%

02

10%

05

25%

12

60% 4. I try to predict what the text will be

about.

02

10%

02

10%

07

35%

09

45%

5. While I read, I periodically check

whether the material is making sense to

me.

01

05%

01

05%

09

45%

11

55% 6. I imagine scenes or draw pictures of

what I am reading.

01

05%

01

05%

09

45%

09

45%

7. I encourage myself, as I read, by saying

positive statements such as, “You can do

it”.

00

00%

01

05%

10

50%

09

45% 8. I work with classmates to complete

assignments or solve comprehension

problems.

00

00%

00

00%

08

40%

12

60%

9. I use the context, like familiar words,

pictures, and the content, to help me guess


00

00%

01

05%

09

45%

10

50% 10. I identify what I don’t understand in

the reading text, and I ask precise

questions to solve the problem.

00

00%

03

15%

07

35%

10

50%

11. I use reference materials (dictionary,

textbook, computer program, and so on)

to help solve comprehension problems.

00

00%

01

05%

08

40%

11

55% 12. After reading I check if my predictions

were correct.

00

00%

02

10%

07

35%

11

55% 13. I summarize (in my mind or in

writing) important information that I

read.

00

00%

02

10%

10

50%

08

40%

14. I rate my comprehension by reflecting

on how much I understood what I read. 00

00%

02

10%

09

45%

09

45% 15. After reading, I decide whether the

strategies or techniques I used helped me.

00 02 11 07


105

00%

10%

55%

35%

16. I check whether I accomplished my

goal for reading.

00

00%

00

00%

08

40%

12

60%

Table 6: Post-Training Reading Strategies Questionnaire Results

Analysis of Data Gathered via the Post-Training Reading Strategies Questionnaire

A. Pre-reading strategies

Strategy1. I decide in advance what my reading purpose is, and then I read with that goal in

mind.

Data gathered via the questionnaire show that no participants (0%) reported that they never

use this strategy, none (0%) rarely use this strategy, none as well (0%) uses it occasionally,

while sixteen (80%) of them always use it.

Strategy2. I decide in advance specific aspects of information to look for, and focus on that


Data gathered show that no participants (0%) reported that they never use this strategy, none

of them (0%) uses it as well, while five of them (25%) use it occasionally, and fifteen (75%)

always use it.

Strategy3. Before I read, I think of what I already know about the topic.

Data gathered via the questionnaire show that one participant (5%) never uses this strategy,

two (10%) of them rarely use it, five others (25%) use it occasionally, while twelve (60%)

always use it.

Strategy4. I try to predict what the text will be about.

Data gathered via the questionnaire show that two participants (10 %) never use this strategy,

two others (10%) rarely use it; seven (35%) use it occasionally while nine (45%) of them

always use it.


106

B. While-reading strategies

Strategy5. While I read, I periodically check whether the material is making sense to me.

Data gathered show that one participant (5%) never uses this strategy, another one (5%) rarely

uses it, nine (45%) participants use it occasionally and nine (45%) others always use it.

Strategy6. I imagine scenes or draw pictures of what I am reading.

Data gathered via the questionnaire show that one participant (5%) never uses this strategy,

another one (5%) rarely uses it, nine (45%) use it occasionally while nine others (45%)

always use it.

Strategy7. I encourage myself, as I read, by saying positive statements such as, “You can do

it”.


use this strategy, one participant (5%) rarely uses it, ten of them (50%) use it occasionally,

and nine of them (45%) always use it.

Strategy8. I work with classmates to complete assignments or solve comprehension

problems.


use this strategy, none of them neither (0%) reported a rare use of it, eight (40%) use it

occasionally, and twelve (60%) always use it.

Strategy9. I use the context, like familiar words, pictures, and the content, to help me guess



use this strategy, one of them (5%) rarely uses it, nine (45%) use it occasionally and ten


Strategy10. I identify what I don’t understand in the reading text, and I ask precise questions

to solve the problem.


use this strategy, three (15%) of them rarely use it, seven (35%) use it occasionally and eleven

(55%) always uses it.


107

Strategy11. I use reference materials (dictionary, textbook, computer program, and so on) to

help solve comprehension problems.


use this strategy, one of them (5%) rarely uses it, eight of them (40%) use it occasionally and

eleven (55%) always uses it.

C. Post-reading strategies

Strategy12. After reading I check if my predictions were correct.


use this strategy, two of them (10%) rarely use it, seven (35%) use it occasionally and eleven


Strategy13. I summarize (in my head or in writing) important information that I read.


use this strategy, two of them (10%) rarely use it, ten (50%) use it occasionally and eight


Strategy14. I rate my comprehension by reflecting on how much I understood what I read.


use this strategy, two (10%) of them rarely use it, nine (45%) use it occasionally and nine

others (45%) always use it.

Strategy15. After reading, I decide whether the strategies or techniques I used helped me.

Data gathered via the questionnaire show that no participants (0%) revealed that they never

use this strategy, two of them (10%) rarely use it, eleven (55%) use it occasionally and seven


Strategy16. I check whether I accomplished my goal for reading.

Data gathered via the questionnaire show that no participants (0%) revealed that they never

use this strategy, none (0%) as well revealed a rare use of it, while eight (40%) use it

occasionally and twelve (60%) always use it.


108

Graph 1: Reading Strategies 1-4 Participants Always Use

Graph 2 : Reading Strategies 5-8 Participants Always Use


109

Graph 3 : Reading Strategies 9-12 Participants Always Use

Graph 4 : Reading strategies 13-16 participants always use


110

Discussion of the Findings of the Post-Training Reading Strategies Questionnaire

According to data gathered via the reading strategies questionnaire given to the

participants after they undertook the metacognitive reading strategies training, participants

have made a remarkable progress in their use of the reading strategies they were trained on

within a metacognitive frame. This progress appears in the considerable increase in the

number of participants who reported a regular use of the reading strategies in the post-training

phase, as compared to the number of participants who reported the same frequency of use in

the pre-training questionnaire.

Conclusion

These findings answer the second research question which says: “It is possible to

raise students’ metacognitive awareness of reading strategies through a metacognitive

reading strategies training to promote their use of these strategies” by confirming the

hypothesis that says that it is possible to raise learners’ metacognitive awareness of reading

strategies through metacognitive reading strategies training to promote their use of these

strategies.

3.2.3 Pretest (Diagnostic Test)

Participants of both control and the experimental group took a pretest in the pre-course

phase and a posttest at the post-course phase. The pretest was meant to diagnose the

participants’ reading comprehension ability in order to identify the participants’ course-entry-

profile, and thus to select adequate content for the course. Besides, the pretest has another

crucial objective which is checking participants’ homogeneity in terms of reading

comprehension ability.

Table3, bellow, shows the results of the pretest and posttest for both control and experimental

groups.

The pretest Results

The pretest results revealed a mean 3.27 for the control group and 3.77 for the

experimental one as shown in table7.


111

The pretest results will be analysed with those of the posttest through a comparison, after the

presentation of the posttest results.

3.2.4 The Posttest (The Achievement test)

Again participants of both groups took an achievement test in the pre-course phase, as

stated before. This test is meant to assess participants’ reading comprehension ability after

having undertaken the course. Results of this test are supposed to hold evidence about the

effectiveness of the metacognitive reading strategies students of the experimental group

undertook within the course.

The posttest Results

The posttest results revealed a mean of 5.68 for the control group and 7.72 for the

experimental one as shown in table7.

Table 7: Pretest and posttest results for both groups

Discussion of the findings

Discussion of data obtained by means of the pretest and the posttest will be led

through a two-level comparison: intra-group and intergroup. The intra-group comparison

highlights the difference in participants’ performance within the same group, while the inter-

group comparison highlights the difference in participants’ performance across the two

groups.

Values obtained from the intra-group comparison of the control group are compared with

those obtained from the intra-group comparison of the experimental group in order to get a

description of the gains obtained by each group in reading comprehension ability.

Tests Control Group’s

Mean

Experimental Group’s

Mean

Difference

Pretest 3.27 3.77 0.5

Posttest 5.68 7.72 2.08

Gain 2.41 3.95 1.57


112

Values obtained from the inter-group comparison, which is the comparison of scores obtained

by the experimental group with those obtained by the control one in the posttest; reveal the

difference in reading ability between the two groups as a result of the strategy training.

Data obtained as a result of this two-level comparison is evidence that shows the impact of the

metacognitive strategy training the experimental group undertook, through showing the

difference in the performance of participants of both groups.

3.2.4.1 The Intra-group Means’ Comparison

According to data collected, as shown in table3, participants of the control group

obtained a mean of 3.27 in the pretest and 5.68 in the posttest, that is to say a gain of 2.43 as

a result of the course, since it aims at developing the students reading skill.

As for the experimental group, data collected show that they obtained a mean of 3.77 in the

pretest and 7.72 in the posttest, that is to say a gain of 3.95.

Values obtained from the intra-group comparisons show that participants of the experimental

group outperformed those of the control group in reading comprehension performance. This

means that the experimental group realized a bigger gain in terms of reading comprehension

ability.

3.2.4.2 The Inter-group Means’ Comparison

The inter-group comparison highlights the difference between the results obtained by

each of the two groups. Whilst comparison of results obtained by both groups in the pretest is

meant to check homogeneity of these groups, comparison of the posttest results is meant to

check the difference of improvement in reading comprehension performance made by

participants of each group.

Values obtained from the comparison of the two groups’ posttest results is considered as an

evident descriptor of the effect of the metacognitive strategy training undertaken by

participants of the experimental group.

According to data collected, as table3 shows, the mean score of the control group in the

pretest is 3.27, while the mean score of the experimental group in the same test is 3.77. The

difference between the two mean scores is 0.5. This reflects the homogeneity of the two

groups in reading comprehension ability, as stated previously.


113

The results of the posttest show that the mean score of the control group is 5.68, while the

mean score of the experimental group in the same posttest is 7.72.

Comparison of the means of each group in the posttest shows that the experimental group

outperformed the control group with a significant mean value of 2.08. This value reveals a

considerable difference in the two groups’ ability to comprehend reading materials.

Figure13: Intra and inter-group comparison of tests’ means

Conclusion

Although the experimental and control groups joined the course with a homogenous

ability to comprehend reading materials, as proved by the pretest results, the experimental

group outperformed the control group in the posttest. Besides, the experimental group realized

a bigger gain than the one realised by the control one, as revealed by the intra-comparison.

This outperformance made by the experimental group over the control one is due to the

metacognitive reading strategies training they undertook as part of the course.

These findings answer the third research question which says: “Does training students on

metacognitive reading strategies enhance their reading comprehension ability? by

confirming the hypothesis that says that training students on metacognitive reading strategies

enhances their reading comprehension ability.

Pre-intervention Mean

Post-intervention Mean

Control Group 3,25 5,68

Experimental Group 3,77 7,72

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

Me

an

Tests Means Comparison

General Conclusion

114

General Conclusion

Through the present paper, the researcher aimed at highlighting metacognitive reading

strategies and their effectiveness in the enhancement of reading comprehension ability among

Business English students.

In order to achieve the ultimate goal stated above, the researcher used a set of data

collection instruments. Data collected via each instrument were analysed and interpreted into

results that answer each of the targeted research questions.

The first instrument used was an oral discussion which aimed at ensuring that participants in

both groups had not undertaken any strategy instruction beforehand. Data gathered via the

discussion revealed the fact that none of the participants had undertaken any strategy

instruction. This result confirms participants’ homogeneity in terms of strategy instruction

experience.

The second instrument used was the reading strategies questionnaire. It has surveyed the

reading strategies participants in the experimental group used before. Data gathered from the

questionnaire showed that participants used reading strategies; however some strategies are

used by very few participants, while others are used by more. Besides, some strategies are

used in a very low frequency, while others are used much more frequently. The analysis of

these data answers the first research question, which is about whether participants had any

reading strategies that they used before the course, as it confirms the hypothesis that says that

they have strategies that they use.

The third data collection instrument is the pretest. Data gathered revealed a mean 3.27 for the

control group and 3.77 for the experimental one, with a non significant difference of 0.5.

These results confirm the homogeneity of both groups in terms of reading comprehension

ability.

The fourth data collection instrument used is the reading strategies questionnaire. It is the

same used in the pre-course phase to assess reading strategies participants in the experimental

group already used. It aimed, again, at assessing the reading strategies participants of the same

group use, but after having undertaken that strategy training throughout the course. Data

gathered by means of the questionnaire showed a considerable improvement in strategies’ use

in terms of the number of users among participants and frequency use as well. Results

obtained from the analysis of the data gathered via the questionnaire at this phase, answer the

second research question, which is about whether it is possible to raise participants

General Conclusion

115

metacognitive awareness of reading strategies and promote their use, as it confirms the

hypothesis that says that it is possible.

The fifth data collection instrument used is the posttest. It concerned participants of both

groups and was used at the pre-course phase as an achievement test. It aimed at evaluating the

participants’ reading comprehension ability after having taken the course. Data gathered via

the posttest revealed a mean of 5.68 for the control group and 7.72 for the experimental one.

The intra-group comparison of data obtained via the pretest and those obtained via the posttest

reveal a mean gain of 2.41 by the control group and 3.95 by the control group. This means the

experimental group realized a 1.57 bigger mean gain in terms of ability to comprehend

reading materials than the one realized by the control group.

The inter-group comparison, on the other hand, reveals a non significant 0.5 mean difference

between the two groups in the pretest, and a significant 2.08 mean difference in the posttest.

The significance of the difference in the mean gain realized by each group as well as the mean

difference between the two groups in the posttest mean is due to the strategy training the

experimental group undertook as part of the course. Thus, these results answer the third

research question, which is about whether it possible to enhance reading comprehension

ability of the participants, as Business English students, as it confirms the hypothesis that says

that it is possible.

The results obtained throughout this research lead the researcher to recommend the

design of a course of English for General Business Purposes (EGBP) implementing the

CALLA model of strategy instruction, developed by O’Malley and Chamot, for Economic

Sciences, Management and Commercial Sciences university students. Such a course would

imply language learning strategies and thus boost language learning among students.

A question the researcher believes worth research is: What are the implications of the

design of an EGBP course covering the four skills and implementing LLS?

Bibliography

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116

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Appendices

Appendices

Appendices

Appendices

Appendix N°1: Pretest sample

Appendix N°2: Questions Asked Throughout the Oral Discussion

Appendix N°3: Reading Strategies Questionnaire (English version)

Appendix N°4: Reading Strategies Questionnaire (French version)

Appendix N°5: Reading Strategies Questionnaire (Arabic version)

Appendix N°6: Teacher’s Strategies- checklist

Appendix N°7: Course without strategy Training: Sample Lesson plan

Appendix N°8: Course Implying Strategy-Training: Sample Lesson Plan

Appendix N°9: Posttest sample


1 1st year Economic Sciences ,Management and Commercial Sciences students English diagnostic test

University of Hassiba Benbouali Full name:...................................................

1st year Economic Sciences ,Managment Group:................ and Commercial Sciences

English diagnostic test

Read the text and do activities below

Jenny found her old bicycle at the back of the garage. It was a lot smaller than she

remembered. When she sat on it and put her feet on the pedals, her knees nearly touched

her chin. She put it back sadly and went inside the house. Her dad was working on his

computer in the study.

‘Dad, can I get a new bicycle?’ asked Jenny.

‘Sure,’ said Jenny’s dad. ‘Cycling is good for you. You can get one for your birthday.’

‘But my birthday isn’t for months!’ cried Jenny. ‘Everyone at school has a bike. They all go to

the park after school together. I want to go too!’

‘Well, I’m sorry, but I can’t afford a bicycle now,’ said dad. ‘Why don’t you work and earn

some money? You can save up for a bicycle yourself.’

Jenny was thoughtful.

‘I’m very busy now,’ dad went on. ‘I don’t have time to cut the grass. If you do that, I’ll give

you five dollars.’

‘Okay,’ said Jenny. She went to the garage and got the lawnmower. She hadn’t used it

before. It was quite heavy and difficult to push, but soon the grass was cut. She was putting

the lawnmower away when her neighbour, Mrs. Watkins, looked over the wall.

‘You did a good job there! Can you mow my lawn too?’ said Mrs Watkins. ‘I’ll give you ten

dollars!’

‘Sure!’ said Jenny. ‘I’ll come right away!’

That night Jenny went on the computer. She wrote ‘Gardening and Housework – Ten dollars

an hour: Call Jenny at 23 Roseville Lane.’ She decorated the page with pictures of cleaning

and gardening equipment. She printed it fifty times. Then she posted the pages through all

the doors on her street.

That week, Jenny was very busy! Lots of people had jobs to do, but they didn’t have time to

do them. So they called Jenny. Every day, Jenny rushed home from school. She did her

homework quickly, and then she went out to work.

At the end of the week, she had $65! She told her father.

‘That’s enough for a second hand bicycle,’ he said.

‘Yes, but if I work for one more week, I might have enough money for a new bike,’ said

Jenny. ‘In two more weeks, I could buy a really good bicycle! I think that’s what I’ll do. I

want to have the best bicycle in the class, because I earned it!’

Jenny’s dad hugged her. ‘I think you learned something important. We appreciate things a lot

more when we earn them. When we get something without earning it, we do not realize its

true value.’



http://www.examenglish.com/TOEFL_Junior/toefl_junior_reading1.htm

Activity one: Tick the right answer. 1. Jenny’s bicycle was:

a. broken b. dirty c. too small d. Of a bad colour

2. Jenny’s dad did not buy her a bicycle because:

a. He didn’t think it was a good idea.

b. He was too busy.

c. He had just bought Jenny a birthday present.

d. He didn’t have enough money.

3. Jenny’s dad asked Jenny to work in:

a. the garden. b. the living room. c. the bathroom. d. the garage.

4. How much money did Jenny earn on the first day?

a. $10 b. $5 c. $15 d. $65

5. Jenny told her neighbours about her new business by:

a. mailing letters to them.

b. sending them an email.

c. delivering messages by hand.

d. talking to all her neighbours.

6. At the end of the story, Jenny felt:

a. optimistic about making more money.

b. pleased because she had learnt a useful lesson.

c. grateful to her father for his advice.

d. disappointed because she couldn’t afford a new bicycle.



Activity two: Answer these questions

1. Did Jenny accept to have a bicycle for her birthday? .............................................................................................................................

2. How much money did Jenny earn from cutting Mrs. Watkins’ grass? .............................................................................................................................

3. Why did people call Jenny to do those jobs for them?

............................................................................................................................ 4. What lesson did Jenny learn from her work experience?

............................................................................................................................

Appendix N°2: Questions Covered Throughout the Oral Discussion

1 Do you know what learning strategies are?

2 Have you ever been advised to be strategic in your learning experience? If yes, what

have you been told to do for that purpose?

3 Have you ever heard or read about learning strategies training?

4 Have you ever thought or tried to have a record of techniques that help you perform

better in reading or any other skill?

Appendix N°3: Reading Strategies Questionnaire

Reading Strategies Questionnaire

Name ــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــ

Age ـــــــــــــــــ

Gender Girl Boy

Level ـــــــــــــــــــــــــــــ Specialty ــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــ

Reading is a frequent activity you use for learning and using English. You may often read

texts such as dialogues, stories, advertisements, and articles in English as part of class work

or on your own.

How often do you do each of the following to help you understand English reading material

that is challenging?

1. I decide in advance what my reading purpose is, and then I read with that goal in mind.

Never Rarely Occasionally Often

2. I decide in advance specific aspects of information to look for, and focus on that



3. Before I read, I think of what I already know about the topic.


4. I try to predict what the text will be about.


5. While I read, I periodically check whether the material is making sense to me.


6. I imagine scenes or draw pictures of what I am reading.


7. I encourage myself, as I read, by saying positive statements such as, “You can do it”.



16. I check whether I accomplished my goal for reading.


8. I work with classmates to complete assignments or solve comprehension problems.


9. I use the context, like familiar words, pictures, and the content, to help me guess the

meanings of unfamiliar words I read.


10. I identify what I don’t understand in the reading text, and I ask precise questions to

solve the problem.


11. I use reference materials (dictionary, textbook, computer program, and so on) to help

solve comprehension problems.


12. After reading I check if my predictions were correct.


13. I summarize (in my head or in writing) important information that I read.


14. I rate my comprehension by reflecting on how much I understood what I read.


15. After reading, I decide whether the strategies or techniques I used helped me

understand, and I think of other strategies that could have helped.



Questionnaire des Stratégies d’Apprentissage de la Lecture

La lecture est une activité fréquente que vous utilisez pour l'apprentissage et l'utilisation de

l'anglais. Vous pouvez souvent lire des textes tels que les dialogues, des histoires, des

publicités et des articles en anglais dans le cadre du travail en classe ou ailleurs.

Combien de fois faites-vous chacun des éléments suivants pour vous aider à comprendre

les textes en anglais que vous trouvez difficiles ?

1. Je décide à l'avance ce que l’objective de la lecture est, et puis je lis avec cet objectif

en tête.

Jamais rarement de temps en temps souvent

2. Je décide à l’ avance ce que sont les aspects spécifiques de l'information à

rechercher, et me concentre sur cette information lorsque je lis.


3. Avant de lire, je pense à ce que je sais déjà sur le sujet.


4. Avant de lire, j'essaye de deviner de quoi il s’agit dans le texte.


5. Pendant que je lis, je vérifie périodiquement si le texte fait sens pour moi.


6. J'imagine les scènes ou des dessins de ce que je lis.


7. Je m'encourage en faisant des déclarations positives, telles que «Tu peux le faire".


8. Je travaille avec des camarades de classe pour faire devoirs ou résoudre des

problèmes de compréhension.


9. J'utilise le contexte, comme des mots familiers, des images et du contenu, pour

m'aider à deviner le sens des mots que je ne connais pas dans le texte.


10. J'identifie ce que je ne comprends pas dans le texte, et je pose des questions précises

pour résoudre le problème.


11. J'utilise des matériaux de référence (dictionnaire, manuel, programme informatique,

etc.) pour m’aider à résoudre des problèmes de compréhension.


12. Après avoir lu, je vérifie si mes prédictions étaient exactes.


13. Je résume (dans ma tête ou par écrit) les informations importantes que j'ai lus.


14. J’évalue ma compréhension en mesurant le tuât que j’ai compris du texte.


15. Après la lecture, je décide si les stratégies ou techniques que j'ai utilisées m'ont aidé à

comprendre, et je réfléchis si d'autres stratégies auraient pu m’aider.

J Jamais rarement de temps en temps souvent

16. Je vérifie si j’ai atteint mon objectif de la lecture.



ستراتيجيات التعلم للقراءةإ استطالع

ـــــــــــــــــــــ االسم

أنثى ذكر الجنس

ــــــــــ السن

ـــــــــــــــــــ التخصصــــــــــــــــــــ المستوى

ا،محادثات، قصصا أو مقاالت كجزء من قد تقرأ نصوص.كثيرا في تعلم واستعمال اللغة االنجليزية د عتم نشاط م القراءة

.نشاطك في الصف أو بدافع ذاتي

.التي تجدها صعبة لك لما يلي لكي تحقق فهم نصوص القراءة االنجليزيةفعما مدى

. القراءة ، و أبقى متذكرا هدفي ذاك خاللالنصأقرر مسبقا ما هو هدفي من قراءة .1

أبدا نادرا أحيانا غالبا

.المعلومة التي أبحث عنها و أركز عليها خالل القراءة مسبقا معالمأقرر .2


.حول موضوع النص راءة أفكر فيما أعرفه مسبقاقأباشر ال قبل أن .3


.أحاول أن أتنبأ بموضوع النصقبل أن أباشر القراءة .4


.خالل القراءة أتحقق دوريا من وجود معنى لما أقرأه .5

أحيانا غالبا أبدا نادرا

.أتخيل مشاهدا و أرسم صورا لما أقرأهخالل القراءة .6


".يمكنك فعلها": أشجع نفسي خالل القراءة بأن أردد عبارات ايجابية، كأن أقول .7


.أعمل مع زمالئي لتكملة المهمة أو حل مشاكل الفهم .8


تقدير معاني كلمات النص التي ال فيلمساعدتي و المحتوى ، الصورالمألوفة ، كالكلماتأستعمل السياق .9

.أعرفها



.أحدد ما ال أفهمه في النص وأسأل أسئلة دقيقة لحل المشكلة .11


لحل مشاكل الفهم التي ( القاموس، الكتاب المدرسي، برنامج الكمبيوتر وما إلى ذلك)أستعمل المراجع .11

.تعترضني


.حة تنبؤاتيبعد القراءة أتأكد من ص .12


.المعلومات المهمة التي أقرأها( ذهنيا أو كتابيا )ألخص .13


.م فهمي بالتفكر في مدى تمكني من فهم ما قرأتهأقي .14


بعد القراءة أقرر إن كانت اإلستراتيجيات أو التقنيات التي استعملتها قد ساعدتني في الفهم، و أفكر في .15

. تساعدنيكانت ل أخرىإستراتيجيات


.أتحقق من بلوغي لهدفي من القراءة .16


Appendix N°6: Teacher’s Strategies- checklist

Table 4 TEACHING LEARNING STRATEGIES CHECKLIST (Adapted from Sarah Barnhardt, 1996. National Capital Language Resource Centre, Georgetown

University/George Washington University/ Centre for Applied Linguistics, 2600 Virginia Av., Suite

105, Washington DC 20037. in Chamot et al, 1999:137)

Phases Actions Often Some-

times

Rarely

Preparing 1. I ask students about the strategies they already use.

2. I include activities such as think alouds and discussions to help students be aware of their strategies.

Presenting

3. I choose strategies to teach by matching them with the task.

4. I give the strategy(s) a name and explain it.

5. I tell students why and when to use the strategy(s).

6. I model how to use the strategy(s) on a task.

Practicing

7. I choose challenging tasks for students.

8. I give students opportunities to practice the strategies.

9. I remind students to use a strategy they've just learned or to choose from the strategies they know.

10. I emphasize students’ thought processes by asking them how they figured something out.

11. I point out any strategies I see students using.

12. I praise good thinking more than correct answers.

Evaluating

13. I encourage students to evaluate their own strategies use.

14. I discuss with students which strategies they find most useful with the tasks practiced.

15. I encourage students to independently choose strategies.

16. I fade explicit learning strategies prompts when students take responsibility for the strategy.

7. I evaluate how I teach strategies and revise appropriately.

Extending

18. I talk with students about how they can use the strategies in other subjects and life situations.

Appendix N°7: Course without strategy Training: Sample Lesson Plan

Level: 1st

year Economy, Management and Commercial Sciences

Session: 1

Theme: Introducing people

Lesson: Read and Write Text: Meet Phil Knight

Text’ Source: Market Leader

Number of sessions: 01

Teaching material: white board+ Pictures+ Reading passage handouts.

Text: Meet Phil Knight Source: Market Leader Elementary Business English

Functions Grammar points Vocabulary Target Strategies

Introducing

people: age,

nationality,

family members,

job, and

interests.

Present simple

CEO, company, married , wife , son ,

daughter, logo, ad, advertisement

agency, partner, office, Headquarter

None

Learning objective(s): This lesson aims at making the students

1. Practise reading and deal with the suggested comprehension tasks.

2. Reproduce (paraphrase) the text in their own words while integrating the vocabulary

items related to the text and the present simple tense.

3. Write a paragraph to in which they describe a famous person ( Relying on the reading

passage as a model)

Text: Meet Phil Knight

Phil Knight is the founder and CEO of Nike, a famous sports and fitness company. He

is from Oregon in USA. He is 65 and is a very rich man. He is married, and his wife's name

is Penny. They have two sons and one daughter. Knight loves sport, including tennis,

running and golf. He also likes fast cars. He says, I love the fact that Nike is about sports.

He has a tattoo of the Nike logo on his left leg.

Knight's ad agency is Wieden & Kennedy. At his first meeting with Wieden, Knight

said 'Hi, I'm Phil Knight, and I hate advertising.' But they are still partners after is 21 years.

At meetings with Wieden Knight is relaxed and tells jokes. He wears blue jeans, a T-shirt

and suit jacket, and a pair of Nike shoes

Knight is interested in Asia, especially Japan. His office is full of objects from Asia.

It is in Nike's World Headquarters’ in Beaverton, Oregon.


Timing Teaching Steps / procedure Rationale of the task

8m

7m

5 m

10m

10m

10m

Pre reading :

The teacher shows photos of some famous people and leads a

discussion to introduce the topic and the key words of the text.

Guessing task: What do you think our text is about?

(Teacher seeks: A text about a famous person).

While reading : Task 1: Read the text and check your guess.

Task 2: Read the text then say if the following statement are true or

false and correct the false ones.

1. Phil Knight is the boss of Nike.

2. Nike is a famous cars factory.

3. Phil is not wealthy person.

4. Wieden & Kennedy is the company in charge of Nike ads.

Task 3: Read the text again and answer these questions

1. What is Nike?

2. What is Wieden & Kennedy?

3. How long have Nike been in partnership with with

Wieden & Kennedy

Task 4 : Re-read the text and fill in the table with information from

the text

Phil Knight

Age 65

Nationality

Family

Job

Type of

company

Interests

To introduce the topic,

activate students’

background knowledge

about it, and present key

words.

To guide the students

towards the while

reading phase.

(Transition from the

Pre-reading to the

While-reading phase).

To make the students

skim through the text to

check answer to the

previous task.

To make students

practise scanning of the

text to find specific

information in.

To make students

practise scanning of the

text to find specific

information in.


10m

10m

8m

12m

Post-reading :

A/Grammar reminder

Pair-work

- Pick the verbs in the first paragraph.

- In which tense are they?

- Why did the writer choose this tense for his text ?

- Replace “Phil Knight” by the pronoun “I “and rewrite the

verbs of the first paragraph in the appropriate form.

B/Writing :

a. Brainstorming :

The teacher guides the students back to the table suggested in

Task4 and invites them to produce a paragraph in which they

introduce Phil Knight, mentioning his age, nationality, family

members, job , type of company he works for and interests.

b. Writing :

1 -The teacher invites the learners to suggest a famous person

in the world of Business and invites them to introduce him/her,

with his support, in the same way they are expected to deal

with the topic later individually.

2 -The teacher invites the students to produce a paragraph in

which they introduce any other famous business person,

mentioning their age, nationality, family members, job and

interests.

To recall the present

simple and its use in

describing present state

of people for the sake of

introducing them, and to

recall its form as a tense.

To guide the students in

the reproduction of the

text using information

from the table filled in

previously in order to

prepare them for the

integration of what they

learnt in a personal

production.

Support students by

modelling the use of

information about a

person in making a

sentence of introduction

for this person.

Production opportunity

allowing the integration

of what have been learnt

throughout the session.


Level: 1st

year Economy, Management and Commercial Sciences

Session: 1

Theme: Introducing people

Lesson: Read and Write

Text’ Source: Market Leader

Number of sessions: 01

Teaching material: white board+ Pictures+ Reading passage (handouts).

Text: Meet Phil Knight Source: Market Leader Elementary Business English

Functions Grammar points Vocabulary Target Strategies

Introducing

people: age,

nationality,

family members,

job, and

interests.

Present simple ,

Time markers of

the present tense

CEO, company, married , wife , son ,

daughter, logo, ad, advertisement

agency, partner, office, Headquarter

As they appear in

the strategy check

list: 1,2,3,4,10,16

Learning objective(s): This lesson aims at making the students know how to:

1. Deal with reading comprehension tasks through the implementation of metacognitive

reading strategies.

2. Reproduce (paraphrase) the text in their own words with the integration of the key

vocabulary items met in the text and the present simple tense.

3. Write a paragraph in which they describe a famous person ( Relying on the reading

Passage as a model)

Text: Meet Phil Knight

Phil Knight is the founder and CEO of Nike, a famous sports and fitness company.

He is from Oregon in USA. He is 65 and is a very rich man. He is married, and his

wife's name is Penny. They have two sons and one daughter. Knight loves sport,

including tennis, running and golf. He also likes fast cars. He says, I love the fact that

Nike is about sports. He has a tattoo of the Nike logo on his left leg.

Knight's ad agency is Wieden & Kennedy. At his first meeting with Wieden,

Knight said 'Hi, I'm Phil Knight, and I hate advertising.' But they are still partners after

is 21 years. At meetings with Wieden Knight is relaxed and tells jokes. He wears blue

jeans, a T-shirt and suit jacket, and a pair of Nike shoes

Knight is interested in Asia, especially Japan. His office is full of objects from

Asia. It is in Nike's World Headquarters’ in Beaverton, Oregon.


Timing Teaching Steps / procedure Rationale of the task

7m

5m

5 m

10m

Pre reading : The teacher shows photos of some famous people and leads a

discussion to introduce the topic and the key words of the text.

1 :Strategy

The teacher models “Deciding what the purpose of reading is”.

(here to answer suggested comprehension questions about the text

to model its use)

Strategy 3:

The teacher models “I think of what I already know about the

topic”. (Activating schemata about the topic).

Guessing Task: What do you think our text is about?

(Teacher seeks: A text about a famous person).

Strategy4:

The teacher models “I predict what the text is about”.

Strategy2:

The teacher models “I decide in advance specific aspects of

information to look for, and focus on that information when

reading”.

While reading : Task 1: Read the text and check your guess.

Task 2: Read the text then say if the following statement are true

or false and correct the false ones.

Strategy10:

The teacher models “I identify what I don’t understand in the

reading text, and I ask precise questions to solve the problem”.

To introduce the

topic, activate

students’

background

knowledge about it,

and present key

words.

To guide the

students towards the

while reading

phase.( Transition

from the Pre-

reading to the

While-reading

phase).

To make the

students skim

through the text to

check their guesses.

To practise reading

and check students’

understanding of the

text.


10m

10m

1. Phil Knight is the boss of Nike.

2. Nike is a famous cars factory.

3. Phil is not wealthy person.

4. Wieden & Kennedy is the company in charge of Nike ads.

Strategy16:

I check whether I accomplished my goal for reading.

Task 3: Read the text again and answer these questions

1. What is Nike?

2. What is Wieden & Kennedy?

3. How long have Nike been in partnership with Wieden

& Kennedy?

Task 4 : Re-read the text and fill in the table with information

from the text

Phil Knight

Age 65

Nationality

Family

Job

Type of

company

Interests

Strategy16:

I check whether I accomplished my goal for reading.

Strategy15:

I decide whether the strategies or techniques I used helped me. I

check whether I accomplished my goal for reading.

To practise reading

and check students’


text

To check students

detailed


text through

scanning to find

specific information.


8m

10m

10m

15m

Post-reading :

A/Grammar reminder

Pair-work

- Pick the verbs in the first paragraph.

- In which tense are they?

- Why did the writer choose this tense for his text?

- Replace “Phil Knight” by the pronoun “I “and rewrite the

verbs of the first paragraph in the appropriate form.

B/Writing :

a. Brainstorming :

The teacher guides the students back to the table suggested in

Task4 and invites them to produce a paragraph in which

they introduce Phil Knight, mentioning his age, nationality,

family members, job , type of company he works for and

interests.

b. Writing :

1 -The teacher invites the learners to suggest a famous

person in the world of Business and invites them to introduce

him/her, with his support, in the same way they are expected

to deal with the topic later individually.

2 -The teacher invites the students to produce a paragraph in

which they introduce any other famous business person,

mentioning their age, nationality, family members, job and

interests.

To recall the present

simple and its use in

describing people

and their daily

activities for the

sake of introducing

them.

To guide the

students in the

reproduction of the

text using

information from

the table filled

previously, in order

to prepare them for

the integration of

what they learnt in a

personal production.

Support students by

modelling the use of

information about a

person in making a

sentence of

introduction for this

person.

Production

opportunity allowing

the integration of

what has been learnt

throughout the

session.


1 1st year Economic Sciences ,Managment and Commercial Sciences students English Test

University of Hassiba Benbouali Full name: ........................................................................

1st year Economic Sciences, Management and Commercial Sciences Group........

English Test

Text:

Hi,

Sorry for sending this to all the staff in the company, but my list of people who are going to the Signmakers’ Conference in Dartmouth is not up-to-date, so I thought I’d mail it to everyone just to be on the safe side.

The company has agreed to pay for transport by rail which means you won’t have to drive there yourselves. We’ve booked seats on the 06:30 from Stanton Heath which goes direct to Dartmouth. We should arrive there by 08:45, and we can then share taxis to get to the venue, which I understand is just a 15 minute drive, so we should easily make the 09:30 start.

Hotel accommodation has been booked at the Premium Inn, Dartmouth. The management have agreed that all delegates should have their own rooms. It’s likely that some of you will have singles, while others will have doubles and twins. I can’t take request for double rooms, I’m, afraid. It will be the luck of the draw. All rooms will have en suites, and should be very comfortable.

We’re planning return transport on the 20:10 from Dartmouth which will get us back to Stanton Heath at 22:00. I’ll be booking transport on Friday morning (14th March), so if you have any queries or problems, make sure you contact me before then.

James Roxford

Exercise 1

Read the text and tick the right answer

1. James’s email was sent to:

Mindy Jacques

Visitors to James’s company

Everyone in the company

2. The Sign makers Conference will be held in

London.

Dartmouth.

Norwitch.


2 1st year Economic Sciences ,Managment and Commercial Sciences students English Test

3 . The transport to the conference will be by

Plane

Train

Bus

4. The delegates will spend the night at

The hotel

The conference centre accommodation building

Host centre

5. The rooms will be given as follows

Single rooms for all delegates

Single rooms for some delegates and double and twins for others

Double rooms for all delegates

Exercise 2 : Answer the following questions according to the text

1. Are all the staff of the company concerned with the conference?

.....................................................................................................................................................................................

2. Who will pay for the transport to the conference?

...................................................................................................................................................................................

3. Where will the delegates spend the night?

....................................................................................................................................................................................

4. When are the delegates supposed to return from the conference?

....................................................................................................................................................................................

5. Who can the staff ask in case where they have any queries or problems?

.................................................................................................................................................................................

Abstract

This paper falls within the realm of LLS (language learning strategies). Itattempts at shedding light on metacognitive reading strategies and theireffectiveness in the enhancement of Business English students’ ability tocomprehend reading materials. The participants are 1st year LMD, EconomicSciences, Management and Commercial Sciences’ students, who are concernedwith a course in EGBP (English for General Business Purposes) as part of thecurriculum. Participants, being randomly chosen, were, again randomly, dividedinto two groups. The first was assigned as the experimental group, while thesecond as the control one. The course was designed as an EGBP learning-centred one that targets mainly the reading skill. For the sake of this research,the course content was conceived in two versions; one that impliesametacognitive reading strategies training built on the CALLA model (Chamot& O’Malley,1994), and a second which does not imply any addition content.Participants in theexperimental group undertook the version of the course thatimplies the training, while those in the control group undertook the version thatdoes not imply the training.Just before the course started, participants of bothgroups had taken a pretest that aimed at checking the homogeneity of theirprofiles in terms of reading comprehension ability. Soon after, they had beeninvolved into an oral discussion about language learning strategies, in order toensure that none of them had undertaken any strategy instruction beforehand.Just after that, those of the experimental group had been asked to fill in a readingstrategies questionnaire that aimed at assessing the reading strategies theyalready use. At the course’ exit, participants of the experimental group wereasked to fill in a readingstrategies questionnaire, similar to the one given to themin the pre-course phase, so as to check improvement in terms of the use of thetarget strategies. Soon after, participants of both groups took a posttest, as theachievement test. The latter aimed at evaluating participants’ability tocomprehend reading materials after having completed the course. Eventually,the data gathered throughout the process described above were submitted toanalysis and study so as to answer the three questions of this research.

Keywords:EGBP; ESP; Reading Skill; LLS; BE; Startegy Training; LMD; EAP; TeachingEnglish; EFL; TEFL; Syllabus Design; Course Design.

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Enhancing Reading Comprehension through Metacognitive ... · This paper falls within the realm of LLS (l anguage learning strategies ). It attempts at ... English for General Business