READING COMPREHENSION BY PROVIDING BACKGROUND

KNOWLEDGE IN PRE-READING AMONG A GROUP OF

UNDERGRADUATES IN UNIVERSITI TEKNOLOGI MALAYSIA (UTM),

SKUDAI.

SO CHIAU CHING

Faculty of Education

Universiti Teknologi Malaysia

MARCH 2004

This thesis is submitted in fulfillment

of the requirements for the award of the degree

of Bachelor of Science and Education (TESL)

ii

iii

For The Lord Al-Mighty and my beloved family

iv

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

I will like to put up my thankfulness to the Al-Mighty God for bringing me

through in completing my thesis. I thank my Lord for being with me at all time to

give me endurance and strength throughout the whole process to complete my study.

The most important person that I will like to extend my utmost gratitude will

be my supervisor, Dr. Norazman b. Abdul Majid for his constant encouragement,

persistence as well as the beneficial input that he generously passed to me in guiding

me through every steps of my research. I will remember that I have a supervisor who

never turns his back away from me but willing to sacrifice his holiday to discuss my

work with me. The appreciation that I wish to convey definitely goes beyond the

description of words, but I sincerely hope that the blessing from the Lord will

abundantly be with Dr. Norazman always for his consistent dedication, patience, and

thoughtfulness in helping me to complete my project.

I will like to thank my two examiners for their insightful comments in my

project. I am grateful to Dr. Zaidah Zainal for giving me useful references that

greatly help me in my write-up for Chapter Four, which is Discussion & Data

Analysis and all the suggestions that she gave. I extend my thank you to Dr.

Zubaidah Awang because of the time she spent in checking my project despite her

busy schedule.

I feel grateful for having my family members’ support whenever I needed a

listening ear to all the problems that I faced in completing my thesis. I thank my

family for not giving me up when I feel utterly hopeless in my performance.

v

My appreciation to all my church brother and sisters for remembering me in

their prayer, especially to E. L. Goh for her effort to find the appropriate contacts for

me. Last but not least, I will like to thank my coursemates, Daniel Pan and Gina Lee

for the great help they gave in my project as well as S.Y. Wong, and S.M. Yong for

their constant care and regards. Thank you to Y.Y. Lee, my helpful and kind junior

for helping me to find the suitable respondents for my research.

vi

ABSTRACT

The core problem in reading faced by undergraduates today is the lack of

effectiveness in reading comprehension. Background knowledge plays an important

role to help learners in getting the meaning from the text without relying solely on

the syntax and words that are found in the text. In this context, background

knowledge that exists in the schema of an individual should be utilized in order to

help a learner in reading comprehension. The importance of background knowledge

in reading comprehension has brought up the main concern in this study. This study

seeks to investigate the effectiveness of the background knowledge provided in

reading comprehension of a reader. In this study, background knowledge will be

provided in the pre-reading stage of reading to guide respondent in understanding the

content found in the text. Undergraduates from the engineering majoring are invited

to participate in this study. Besides this, interviews and answers from the

comprehension question formed the main source of data to be analyzed. The results

from this study suggest that background knowledge provided in the pre-reading does

help reader to comprehend a text. The interaction of a reader’s existing knowledge

with the background knowledge provided enables the respondent to attain better

comprehension in reading.

vii

ABSTRAK

Masalah teras yang dihadapi oleh siswa-siswi hari ini adalah keberkesanan

dalam pemahaman bacaan. Pengetahuan sedia ada memainkan peranan penting untuk

membantu para pelajar memahami sesuatu pembacaan tanpa bergantung kepada

pemahaman bahasa dan struktur bahasa semata-mata. Oleh itu, pengetahuan sedia

ada perlulah wujud pada setiap individu untuk mencapai pemahaman bacaan.

Kepentingan pengetahuan sedia ada merupakan salah satu elemen penting untuk

mencapai pemahaman bacaan. Di dalam projek ini, keberkesanan untuk

membekalkan pengetahuan sedia ada kepada individu dalam pembacaan akan

diselidik. Dalam kajian ini, keberkesanan untuk membekalkan pengetahuan sedia ada

dalam peringkat awal proses pembacaan membolehkan seseorang individu untuk

lebih memahami kandungan dalam bacaan. Siswa dan siswi dalam jurusan

kejuruteraan dipilih untuk menjadi subjek dalam kajian ini. Temuduga dan jawapan

daripada soalan pemahaman akan dijadikan sumber utama dalam analisis kajian.

Keputusan kajian mencadangkan bahawa pembekalan pengetahuan sedia ada dalam

peringkat awal pembacaan dapat membantu dalam pemahaman pembacaan. Interaksi

di antara pengetahuan yang dibekalkan dengan pengetahuan sedia ada individu akan

membawa lebih keberkesanan dalam pemahaman bacaan.

viii

TABLE OF CONTENT

CHAPTER SUBJECT PAGE

PAGE TITLE i

DECLARATION PAGE ii

DEDICATION iii

ACKNOWLEDGMENT iv

ABSTRACT vi

ABSTRAK vii

TABLE OF CONTENT viii

LIST OF TABLE xi

LIST OF SYMBOL xii

LIST OF APPENDIX xiii

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Introduction 1

1.2 Background Problem 5

1.3 Statement of Purpose 8

1.4 Objective of Research 8

1.5 Research Questions 8

1.6 Significance of Study 9

1.7 Limitations of Study 9

1.8 Operational Definitions 10

1.8.1 Reading 10

1.8.2 Reading Comprehension 10

1.8.3 Background knowledge 11

1.8.4 Prior knowledge 11

1.8.5 Pre-reading 11

1.8.6 Schema 11

ix

1.8.7 Schemata 11

CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Introduction 12

2.2 Reading comprehension in ESL reading 13

2.3 Role of background knowledge 17

2.4 Cultural schema and reading 18

2.5 Pre-reading in providing background 20

knowledge

CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY

3.1 Introduction 22

3.2 Research design 23

3.3 Respondents 25

3.4 Instrumentation 26

3.4.1 Pre-interview 26

3.4.2 Materials selection 27

3.4.3 Comprehension question 28

3.4.4 Retrospective interview 29

3.5 Procedures of Research 30

3.5.1 Pre-reading 30

3.5.2 While reading 32

3.5.3 Post reading 33

3.6 Data Analysis 34

3.7 Specific Terms Used In Research 35

3.8 Conclusion 36

CHAPTER IV DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION

4.0 Introduction 37

x

4.1 Effectiveness of Providing Background

Knowledge to Respondents 38

4.1.1 Individual analysis of Respondent A 39

4.1.2 Individual analysis of Respondent B 40

4.1.3 Individual analysis of Respondent C 44

4.1.4 Individual analysis of Respondent D 45

4.1.5 Individual analysis of Respondent E 47

4.2 Introduction for Section Two 48

4.2.1 Comparison of Respondent’s

Performance Between the Experimental

and the Control Group 49

4.3 Background Knowledge Acts as Catalyst

for Thinking 53

4.4 Discussion 56

CHAPTER V SUMMARY, CONCLUSION,

RECOMMENDATION

5.0 Introduction 62

5.1 Summary 63

5.2 Conclusion for the research 65

5.3 Recommendations 66

5.3.1 Pedagogical Implications for ESL

Teaching 66

5.3.2 Recommendations for Future Research 69

REFERENCES 70

APPENDIX 77

xi

LIST OF TABLE

TABLE NO. TITLE PAGES

3.2 The design of the research 24

3.6 Scale for the measurement of open-ended questions 34

4.2.1 Comparison of scores (%) of comprehension questions between

Respondents from the experimental group and the control group 49

4.2.2 Findings of the highest score from the experimental group

(Respondent B) and from the control group (Respondent V) 52

4.2.3 Findings of the lowest score from the experimental group

(Respondent E) and from the control group (Respondent II) 52

xii

LIST OF SYMBOL

etc - and others of the same type

R - Researcher

S - Respondent/subject

(.) - Pause

(1) i.e. with number in it - Significant pause/pregnant pause with time

(smiles) - To show the action of smiling

(nods) - To show the action of nodding head

R: [[ ]]

S: [[ ]]

R: ………… (**) - When couldn’t figure what someone is saying

S: I don’t think like- - Stopped talking without finishing his lines

R: The things hurt lik – - Start a new sentence without finishing a

word/sentence for the previous sentence

R: ……………. =

S: =……………..

R: Wow!!! - If the person get really excited

R•

S•

•

R: I know they are not, - Lines that are irrelevant to the data analysis

and I said (•••)

Words in italic style ( words - Words in other language with it’s translation in

in bracket) English

R: ………… (phone ringing) - Showing interruption

- Showing two people talking at the same time (interrupting one another)

- R stops but B continues with the conversation without stopping i.e. letching

- Few lines omission because it’s irrelevant to the data analysis

xiii

LIST OF APPENDIX

APPENDIX TITLE PAGE

A Script used to provide background knowledge 77

B Checklist and pre-reading questions 79

C Reading article 80

D Open-ended comprehension exercises

E Authentic pictures of foot binding 85

F Answer for the open-ended comprehension exercises 87

G Transcript collected from pre-interview 88

H Transcript collected from retrospective interview 96

I Answers of the comprehension exercises by the respondents 98

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Introduction

Reading is an essential skill and an ability to be mastered by every individual

in this world today. As stated in the Macmillan Dictionary (2002), “reading is the

process of recognizing written or printed words and understanding their meaning”.

With this, reading revolves interaction between a reader and the reading text, which

takes place when a reader understands not only the shape of a word and ways that it

is sound, but the ability to recognize the meaning derived from the reading text. A

person who holds a book and is able to read aloud all the words found in the text may

not be able to interpret the intended message of the text. This happens because

readers do not posses strategy of reading and the skill of decoding the words when

they approach a text. This affects readers to make sense of the meaning found in the

text.

According to Carrell (1983) in Lin (2002), “comprehending words, sentences

and entire texts involves more that just relying on one’s linguistic knowledge”. In

reading a text, a reader who has linguistic knowledge can easily understand the

lexical and semantic meanings with regards to the connection of words/sentences

2

found in the text. However, the knowledge of form that a reader possesses cannot

facilitate a reader to understand meaning found in the text fully. Readers may face

difficulty in understanding the text when they do not have enough exposure to the

topic of the text and purpose the text is written. In this case, readers will not be able

to comprehend the content that the author is trying to express even though he can

sound out the words, know the vocabulary words and the sentence structure found in

the text. Thus, knowledge of content plays a crucial role in getting the meaning of the

text.

A further elaboration of the above context highlights the reading lesson in

Malaysian classroom today. A situation in English language classrooms occurs

whereby teachers consider the implementation of communicative learning approach

in the lesson as priority, parallel with the government encouragement to use this

approach in the national education syllabus. This means, language teachers have the

tendency to include elements for students to use or speak in the language even in a

reading lesson i.e. teaching pronunciation, fluent and expressive speaking are being

carried out at the optimum level. A reading lesson in the classroom will be conducted

in a way that students use the language in the most authentic way possible. With this,

reading lessons have wandered off from its original purpose of letting learners to

understand a text to focusing on making students to talk.

Teachers who overtly emphasize on students reading for fluency has fostered

students’ attention to word identification in a reading lesson. Learners’ reading

proficiency is limited to recognizing meaning of the word in isolation as an

individual unit of meaning on its own. They have the ability to read out and

recognize the words in the printed text but unable to relate all the words to one

another into getting the meaning beyond the words. This implies that intensive

reading, which leads to reading comprehension of learners, is absent in the classroom

procedure. Teacher has implemented strategies of reading that could not fully equip

students to know the real purpose of reading. Learners read a text without

establishing any connection and interaction with the text to know the real meaning of

text.

3

In Carrell & Eisterhold (1983), “Goodman defines reading as an active

process in which the reader uses linguistic cues embedded in the text to reconstruct a

message that the writer has encoded in written language”. A reading text given may

involved various types of feedback from the readers. Each individual who possesses

different knowledge and experiences will have diverse interpretation towards the

meaning derived from the text. Situation like miscomprehension can occur in reading

a text when readers are unable to attach his or her knowledge and experiences to

what the author presuppose the reader to get from the text. In this context, the writer

will expect and presuppose of readers’ reading ability to understand a text. Thus, the

intended message of author may not come with detailed elaboration and thus confuse

readers with the complexity of concepts. Adding to this, miscomprehension occurs in

regards to level of reading ability in the reader himself. Nevertheless, readers who

may not be familiar with the topic in the text, have limited word-power will

encounter difficulty in getting to the meaning of the text. Readers will feel that they

are disconnected from the text when they are unable to attach the meaning from the

text to form sufficient background knowledge that facilitates them to understand the

text.

Pearson-Casanave (1984) points out that, “the text does not carry meaning; it

provides clues that enable reader to construct meaning from existing knowledge”.

This implies that a reader is responsible to bring in his/her acquired knowledge of the

text to comprehend the meaning of a text that he encounters. When a reader begins

tackling of a text, he is actually utilizing his existing knowledge i.e. general

knowledge, linguistic knowledge and world experiences to build up background

knowledge of the text. At this juncture, reader could comprehend the meaning of the

text because he shares assumptions with the author on the content, an how the

content came about. It is stated in the research by Hsiu & Graves (1995), “Efficient

comprehension requires readers to relate the material to their background knowledge

and rely appropriately on their prior knowledge and the text.”

Based on the above elaboration, the implication that “Reading is an active

process in which readers use their background knowledge, the situational context,

4

and the cues provided by an author to construct an interpretation of the meaning in

the text” (Pritchard, 1990) is being justified. A reader won’t be able to make sense

from the text without any interaction between the reader and the content of text that

the author is trying to express. If both the reader and the author could not establish

shared assumption and effort to comprehend the text, reading will not happen.

According to Hedge (1985), “It is through reading that student gradually build up the

understanding and background knowledge which allow them to read with greater

comprehension in the future.”

Another justification says that, “comprehending a text is an interactive

process involving the reader’s existing background knowledge and the text”

(Rumelhart, 1977; Stanovich, 1980). Reading comprehension takes place when a

reader successfully construct the message conveyed by the author into his/her

understanding by having the ability to embed the content of the reading text and

interact with his/her background knowledge. Thus, background knowledge plays a

significant role in reading comprehension that serves as a link to expand reader’s

understanding of the meaning found in the reading text.

The provision of background knowledge in reading text aids readers in

comprehending the text. This is because background knowledge attained by reader;

namely general knowledge, subject-specific knowledge and cultural knowledge, will

remain in the readers and will be put into use according to the type of text that they

approach. Firstly, general knowledge encompasses reader’s ability to know and

understand knowledge of the world and how the world works. The second kind is

the subject-specific knowledge that enables readers to access information before a

total new area or subject is exposed to them. Meanwhile, the third kind of

background knowledge is the cultural knowledge. “Rivers and Temperly (1978) call

this ‘sociocultural meaning’ and they define it as follows: …meaning which spring

from shared experiences, values and attitudes. When this type of meaning is not

taken into account, or when students interpret an English text according to their own

cultural experiences, distortions and miscomprehension results.”

5

In the hierarchical needs of Maslow, every individual will have to perform

certain task and generate ways as to fulfill their needs of living in this world. This

applies to the act of reading by an individual whereby different individual will read

in different ways for different purposes. The quick scanning of pages in a journal

without even looking through the introductory fraction, author of article and table of

content are very different from the careful attention you paid to each word in a legal

document. This shows that the reading undertaken by the reader serves different

purposes. During reading, a reader will seek to decode and comprehend the message

that the author is trying to express. When the message be it idea, information, fact,

feeling or an argument is being decoded and constructed in the reader’s mind,

meaning is construed.

A stage in reading called the pre-reading aims to prepare a reader for the

purpose of reading act that he/she will be performing. Pre-reading facilitates readers

in reading comprehension because it stimulates interest in the topic of the text. With

this, it helps to increase readers’ motivation to further indulge in the reading text.

Besides this, pre-reading exposes readers to the language or concepts that will appear

in the reading text. With this, it builds up the linguistic knowledge or the knowledge

of forms found in the reading text. In pre-reading, “we can get readers to organize

their knowledge or view prior to reading a text by encouraging them to assemble

pieces of existing knowledge and to reflect upon them” (Safiah Osman, 1984). Thus,

pre-reading is important for readers as it portrays to readers the whole idea and

organization of a reading text that leads to reading comprehension.

1.2 Background problem

The decision to carry out this research appears upon encountering with

undergraduates in Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) who are able to read

fluently the words and sentences found in a English reading text but are unable to

6

comprehend the content of the text. The miscomprehension in reading text that

surprisingly occurs in undergraduates’ learners in Malaysia who were widely

exposed to learning English as a Second Language (ESL) back in their secondary

school contributes to the background problem for this research.

With this, the focus of this research is set on the population of engineering

undergraduates in UTM. Engineering students are being selected as the subject of

study due to the orientation of the course. It is undoubtedly essential for the

undergraduates in the engineering field to keep themselves updated with the current

development in their majoring field through weekly magazines, journal etc.

One problem in learning arises when the engineering undergraduates are not

exposed to all the reading materials as most of the references available are published

in English language. On the other hand, lectures and tutorials that are mostly

conducted in Bahasa Malaysia add on to their difficulty in understanding the

available readings that is visibly confusing for them. However, these undergraduates

need the exposure with more information as the information obtained through lecture

or tutorial could not facilitate them to achieve complete understanding in their field

of discipline.

The above situation has not been the latest issue. A newspaper article,

published in News Straits Times on the 11th December 1997 portrayed a similar

situation. Based on a research conducted by two lecturers, Dr. Ambigapathy Pandian

and Dr. Abdul Latiff Ibrahim from Universiti Sains Malaysia; students who excel in

the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) examination spend very little time reading. The

findings from the research indicate that a general lack of interest occurs where

students found less interested to read from the books, magazines and newspapers.

The difficulty in comprehending the text may constitute one of the causes of

the lack of interest in the reading materials. These undergraduates who could not

7

assimilate what they normally obtained from the lecture in the reading that they

encounter will most likely lose the interest to further their reading. The motivation to

further their reading in texts of their discipline will be noticeably reduced when they

could not comprehend the information found in the text. With reference to the above

problem, this research aims to view the difficulties in reading comprehension that the

undergraduate readers encounter and to come up with the method of providing

background knowledge to these undergraduates as a measure to solve their reading

difficulty.

The inability of students to understand a reading text but having the

capability to read fluently the words found in a reading text also reflects the language

learning syllabus that widely focus on the communicative elements in it. The

communicative approach found in the learning syllabus emphasizes on the student’s

ability to use the language. This resulted in teachers conducting reading lesson but

neglected of the primary purpose of reading, i.e. to enable students to understand the

language and the content found in the reading. Students were brought up in a

classroom setting that provides literal text and typical to just having activity like

completing their comprehension question after the lesson. The above-elaborated

situation does not end after secondary education but has incurred the problems of

reading comprehension right up to tertiary education, in particular the undergraduate

readers, when they do not know the ways to integrate and relate the reading into their

prior knowledge so that reading comprehension can be attained not by depending

solely on the literal clues. With this, the type of learning exposed to undergraduates

since their secondary schooling has formed the problem faced by the undergraduates

today.

8

1.3 Statement of Purpose

The purpose of this research is to measure the effectiveness of providing

background knowledge in the pre-reading that leads to reading comprehension

among a group of undergraduates in UTM. The level of reading comprehension

obtained by subjects in this study will be measured using comprehension questions.

This research also serves to find out by comparing how much subjects can improve

in their reading comprehension when background knowledge is provided and when

not provided to them. The importance of providing background knowledge in

reading text is being highlighted in this research.

1.4 Objectives of Research

The objectives of this research is to find out:

1. the importance of background knowledge to learners in comprehending a

reading text.

2. the effectiveness of providing background knowledge in the pre-reading to

reading comprehension of engineering students.

1.5 Research Questions

Research questions for this study will be:

1. Does providing background knowledge to respondents in the pre-reading

stage lead to a better understanding on the reading topic of the text?

9

2. Did learners who were given background knowledge in pre-reading

comprehend a reading text better than those who were not?

3. How does background knowledge help in the process of reading?

1.6 Significance of Study

The results of this research act as justification that the background knowledge

provided in pre-reading leads to a more effective reading comprehension for ESL

learners in Malaysia. The result also proves that reading comprehension in ESL

learning involves background knowledge and not focus on linguistic knowledge

solely. This study aims to help readers in activating their background knowledge in

the process of comprehending a text. Apart from readers, this research is used to

extend awareness to the education practitioners especially ESL teachers in secondary

schools not to deviate from the real purpose of reading activity in class. Through this

study, it acts as a reference for teachers to accommodate the kind of method or skill

in planning an effective reading lesson that is able to lead learners to reading

comprehension. This is important to teachers who will be teaching students to

activate their background knowledge. The importance of pre-reading stage in order

to comprehend a text is put into view. Besides this, the results obtained acts as

another evaluation to determine whether activities related to providing background

knowledge facilitate subjects to reading comprehension.

1.7 Limitations of Study

Based on the findings from this research, several limitations are being

identified: