Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your
contribution is not tax-deductible.)
PayPal Acct: 
Feedback: 
Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):
| [ Login ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: [1] ] |
| Subject: Re: what we have-2nd part | |
|
Author: Angelina |
[
Next Thread |
Previous Thread |
Next Message |
Previous Message
]
Date Posted: 15:21:08 08/22/10 Sun In reply to: Angelina 's message, "what we have" on 15:18:41 08/22/10 Sun 2)-The study “Reading strategy awareness of Arabic-speaking medical students studying English.” Understanding it better: This study examined the extent of awareness about reading strategies among Arabic L1 medical students studying through the medium of English in a medical college in the Arabian Gulf. The focus of this study remains on comparing reading practices of less versus more proficient readers and also of year one ( pre-medical year) versus year four ( pre -clinical year) students. A variety of tools (e.g. interviews, journals etc) were employed to capture the nature of strategic reading because it seems that more skilled L2 readers use strategies more frequently, in a more varied and orchestrated manner than less skilled readers. Results were then correlated with various measures of reading proficiency (e.g. test scores etc). Description of the methodolody: The instrument used in this study was the SORS (Survey of Reading Strategies), a questionnaire adapted for use with L2 ESL readers from an instrument designed for measuring L1 English readers’ awareness of their academic reading strategies (the Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory or MARSI) SORS The SORS consisted of 30 statements with a five part Likert scale regarding perceived frequency of use. The 30-item questionnaire consisted of strategies assigned to three groups: - ‘‘Cognitive” strategies that can be described as “actions or procedures readers use when working directly with the text”, such as re-reading and adjusting speed; - ‘‘Metacognitive” strategies that are ‘carefully planned techniques to monitor reading’ such as previewing and asking yourself questions; and - ‘‘Support’’ strategies that include ‘mechanisms to help readers understand text such as highlighting, translating and dictionary use. There were 8 Cognitive statements, 13 Metacognitive and 9 Support ones. The SORS was chosen for its ease of administration, for the fact that it had been used in several previous studies, in comparing both ESL and L1 English students in academic settings, and because the MARSI, from which it was adapted, had previously been used with Arabic-speaking students in an EFL setting. 2) Study participants 108 Arabic-speaking medical students in Year One of their study and 52 in Year Four were the number of students that participated in this study. 3) Procedure A native Arabic-speaking English instructor prepared an Arabic version of the SORS and the Year One students were given the questionnaire in their regular English classes by their class instructor and were asked to respond using either the English or Arabic version. Students were advised to consider the strategies they used when reading academic material. Instructors were available to answer questions or provide clarification during the questionnaire administration. Questionnaires for Year Four students were given out by the researcher at the end of a required lecture, with the permission of the lecturer. Students were given a brief explanation of the purpose of the questionnaire and advised to think about strategies they used when reading medical texts. The researcher was available to answer questions or provide clarification during this administration. The questionnaire results were tabulated for individual strategy use, average strategy use in each group (metacognitive, cognitive and support) and overall strategy use for all students in each year, and also for groups with low and high initial English proficiency (as measured by initial TOEFL scores) for each year. Results: The SORS aimed to answer two research questions: 1) Are there differences in the reported use of academic reading strategies among Arabic-speaking medical students studying through the medium of English at different years of instruction? Although Year Four students used more Metacognitive strategies than Year One students and also, Year One students used much more Support strategies related to translation than Year Four students, both years reported high use of all reading strategies and their rankings were highly correlated. Analysing the results we see that the awareness of metacognitive strategies increases over the years of study, what guides us to conclude that the students´ability to plan, monitor and evaluate their reading increases with their experience. 2) Do students of low initial English language proficiency report using different reading strategies than students with high initial proficiency in English? Apart from test scores, there were a few significant differences in the reported reading strategy use of low and high proficiency students. Students in the later year reported using strategies more similarly, regardless of initial proficiency level and students with low initial proficiency in English showed to be more dependent on translation. Questions to be answered: 2- Do the article writers provide readers with some sort of justification for their work? In the article “A case study on foreign English teachers’ challenges in Taiwanese elementary schools”, to justify their work the authors (Cheryl Wei-yu Chen and Yuh-show Cheng ) remark that “with the spread of English as the global language, many people from English-speaking countries go to foreign land to work as English teachers”. Upon reviewing the literature, they recognize that there is some study about intercultural team teaching, but they also advocate that these foreign teachers’ voices are rarely heard; that there is little research on these teachers’ teaching-abroad experiences. Justifying their work the authors state that in an attempt to fill this gap in the literature, this article is based on three intercultural teachers’ experiences and the challenges they encounter. In the article “Reading strategy awareness of Arabic-speaking medical students studying in English”, the author, Diane Malcolm, says that the focus of recent reading strategy research remains the same as before, which is to compare reading practices of less versus more proficient readers. According to Diane Malcolm, what happens outside the English class setting is less studied. To examine the extent of awareness about reading strategies and how this relates to initial English language proficiency and on-going reading experience, the learners whose reading practices are investigated in the study are Arabic L1 medical students studying through the medium of English in a medical college in the Arabian Gulf. These students have little formal institutional support for their English needs and such support is limited to the first year. After that, students of widely varying initial English proficiency are thrown into a sea of texts, averaging well over 100 pages of specialized medical reading weekly. These inexperienced readers are pushed to develop and refine effective strategies for reading academic texts, particularly the metacognitive strategies associated with planning, monitoring and evaluating their reading. Concerning this study to a more frequent and popular topic- cognition-metacognition etc, the author seems not to worry about a detailed explicited justification of it, although she does justify her work, mainly when she states what the study examined, in order to gain an understanding of how the above related students cope in the setting already described . 4- How important is the description of procedures and methods adopted in the study being reported The description of procedures and methods is vital to get to clear and full understanding of both studies reported. Study number 1 has the adapted methods and procedures detailedly described, specifying not only who the participants are as also which examinations and questionnaires were used, how, when and where they were applied, besides reporting the results in tables, what helps to confer relevance and validity to them. Study number 2 is a qualitative case study, [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] |
|
Forum timezone: GMT-8 VF Version: 3.00b, ConfDB: Before posting please read our privacy policy. VoyForums(tm) is a Free Service from Voyager Info-Systems. Copyright © 1998-2019 Voyager Info-Systems. All Rights Reserved. |