THE EFFECTS OF RECIPROCAL TEACHING ON THE LANGUAGE

COMPETENCE OF L2 LEARNERS

SITI WARDAH BINTI SALIM

UNIVERSITI TEKNOLOGI MALAYSIA

PSZ 19:16 (Pind. 1/97) UNIVERSITI TEKNOLOGI MALAYSIA

BORANG PENGESAHAN STATUS TESIS

JUDUL: THE EFFECTS OF RECIPROCAL TEACHING ON THE LANGUAGE COMPETENCE OF L2 LEARNERS.

SESI PENGAJIAN: SEMESTER II SESI 2005/2006

Saya SITI WARDAH SALIM mengaku membenarkan tesis (PSM/Sarjana/Doktor Falsafah)* ini disimpan di Perpustakaan Universiti Teknologi Malaysia dengan syarat-syarat kegunaan seperti berikut: 1. Tesis adalah hakmilik Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. 2. Perpustakaan Universiti Teknologi Malaysia dibenarkan membuat salinan untuk

tujuan pengajian sahaja. 3. Perpustakaan dibenarkan membuat salinan tesis ini sebagai pertukaran antara institusi

pengajian tinggi. 4. **Sila tandakan ( )

SULIT (Mengandungi maklumat yang berdarjah keselamatan atau

kepentingan Malaysia seperti yang termaktub di dalam (AKTA RAHSIA RASMI 1972) TERHAD (Mengandungi maklumat TERHAD yang telah ditentukan oleh

organisasi/badan di mana penyelidikan dijalankan)

TIDAK TERHAD Disahkan oleh

Alamat tetap: 38 JALAN KAMPONG ARAB PM KHAIRI IZWAN ABDULLAH 83000 BATU PAHAT Nama Penyelia JOHOR Tarikh: 27 APRIL 2006 Tarikh: 27 APRIL 2006

CATATAN: * Potong yang tidak berkenaan. ** Jika tesis ini SULIT atau TERHAD, sila lampirkan surat daripada pihak

berkuasa/organisasi berkenaan dengan menyatakan sekali sebab dan tempoh tesis ini perlu dikelaskan sebagai SULIT atau TERHAD.

Tesis dimaksudkan sebagai tesis bagi Ijazah Doktor Falsafah dan Sarjana secara penyelidikan, atau disertasi bagi pengajian secara kerja kursus dan penyelidikan, atau Laporan Projek Sarjana Muda (PSM).

“I hereby declare that I have read this thesis and in my

opinion this thesis is sufficient in terms of scope and quality for the

award of the degree of Bachelor of Science and Education (TESL)”

Signature :

…………………………………………….

Supervisor’s Name : PROF MADYA KHAIRI IZWAN ABDULLAH

Date : APRIL 2006

THE EFFECTS OF RECIPROCAL TEACHING ON THE LANGUAGE

COMPETENCE OF L2 LEARNERS

SITI WARDAH BINTI SALIM

This report is submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the award

of the degree of Bachelor of Science and Education (TESL)

Faculty of Education

Universiti Teknologi Malaysia

APRIL, 2006

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“I declare that this thesis entitled “The Effects of Reciprocal Teaching on the

Language Competence of L2 Learners” is the result of my own research except as

cited in the references. The thesis has not been accepted for any degree and is not

concurrently submitted in candidature of any other degree”.

Signature :

Writer’s Name : SITI WARDAH SALIM

Date :APRIL 2006

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

“In the name of Allah,

the most compassionate, the most merciful,

Praise be to Allah, Lord of Creation”

“I thank Allah for each person He permitted to be a part of this experience

and gave me both mind and the will to pursue my education”

In the course of exploring knowledge and completing this study, I have been

assisted by many individuals. I would like to wholeheartedly acknowledge their

assistance, cooperation, and encouragement to make this study possible. Otherwise,

this study would not have been completed.

I would like to extend my sincere appreciation to PM Khairi Izwan, my

mentor and supervisor. He has guided me through completion of this precious

project. PM Khairi always listened to me patiently and carefully, challenged me to

think critically, and guided me to perform well. His knowledge and insight were

beneficial when I had difficulty and needed guidance. It is an honour for me to have

him as my supervisor for my project. Thank you Sir!

A special word of thank should also be expressed to Kak Azah for her

willingness to help me throughout this research. Without your kindness, I’m

positive that I could never have achieved this success. Syukran Kak Azah.

And to all students of 2KB1 and 2KB2 from Sek. Men. Keb. Taman Kluang.

Thank your for your cooperation!

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I also wish to say thank you to my family; my parents for their unconditional

love and their faith on my average abilities, abah, umi thank you so much! To my

sisters and brothers, Aisyah, Hajar, Husna, Hana, Shakir and Shahir. All of you are

always in my heart !

Lastly, to all my dear friends. Thank you for your support and all the sweet

and unforgettable memories that we shared through our 5 years here. I am going to

miss every one of you. Love you guys a lot! Mucha gracias!

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-DEDICATION-

To my beloved umi and abah, whose love and support and their

faith in my average abilities has made what I am today, and to my

sisters and brothers who always there for me and lastly to all my

dearest friends…. Thank you for everything.

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ABSTRACT

Reading has always been considered ‘the core’ in language learning. The

ability to read successfully will lead to better understanding. Equipping students

with effective reading skills is therefore vital as it will help the students adopt

appropriate reading skills while attending to reading material, in or out of the

classroom. The purpose of this investigation is to examine the effects of the

Reciprocal Teaching (RT) approach on students’ reading comprehension, general

grammatical competence and achievement in summary writing compared with a

non-RT approach. Two classes of form two students from a sub-urban school in

Kluang were selected to participate in this study. The data for this study were

collected in stages. Firstly, the English teachers from the selected school were

interviewed to select the appropriate students as subjects and to gather some

background information on the students. A pilot test was administered to the

students 4 weeks before the intervention, followed by a 60-minute pre-test which

was given a week before the intervention started. There were 3 sections in the pre-

test, a multiple choice section to measure students’ reading comprehension, a cloze

passage to measure grammatical competence and a section on summary writing.

The same set of questions was used for the post-test. During the treatment period,

students from the experimental group received the RT treatment for four weeks

while in the control group, the teacher used the non-RT approach. A week after the

intervention, all the subjects were given a post-test. The results from the pre-test

and post-test were recorded and analyzed. Mean post-test scores were compared

with the mean pre-test scores. The results indicated that students receiving the RT

treatment had higher mean scores in the comprehension and summary sections than

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the group receiving the non-RT treatment. However, the mean scores for treatment

group in the grammar section were slightly lower than those for the control group.

An overall analysis of the composite scores for the 3 sections showed that the

overall mean scores for the treatment group were better than those of the control

group. The results of this study, therefore confirm that RT strategies have a positive

impact in improving L2 learners’ language competence.

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ABSTRAK

Aktiviti membaca selalu dianggap sebagai ‘pusat’ di dalam pembelajaran

bahasa Inggeris kerana kebolehan membaca adalah pemangkin kepada pemahaman

yang jitu. Di atas faktor inilah, memperlengkapkan para pelajar dengan teknik-

teknik membaca yang berkesan amatlah penting dalam membantu pelajar-pelajar ini

memilih teknik membaca yang sesuai semasa mereka membaca samada untuk

kegunaan bilik darjah ataupun digunakan untuk aktiviti membaca luar bilik darjah.

Kajian ini dijalankan bertujuan mengkaji keberkesanan teknik Reciprocal Teaching

(RT) ke atas kefahaman para pelajar, ke atas asas tatabahasa mereka dan prestasi

mereka dalam penulisan rumusan berbanding dengan teknik selain daripada RT.

Untuk kajian ini, seramai 68 pelajar daripada sebuah sekolah menengah di daerah

Kluang telah terpilih untuk menyertainya. Data-data telah dikutip dalam pelbagai

peringkat. Pada mulanya, guru-guru Bahasa Inggeris telah ditemubual bertujuan

untuk membantu pengkaji memilih subjek untuk kajian ini disamping mengumpul

maklumat tentang latar belakang para pelajar yang dipilih. 4 minggu sebelum

kajian dijalankan, para subjek telah diberikan kajian rintis (pilot test) diikuti dengan

ujian-pra yang diberikan seminggu sebelum latihan diberikan. Terdapat 3 bahagian

dalam ujian-pra tersebut iaitu soalan objektif yang dibina bertujuan menguji

kefahaman para pelajar, soalan isi tempat kosong (cloze) yang bertujuan menguji

tatabahasa mereka dan penulisan rumusan. Ujian ini dijalankan dalam tempoh masa

60 minit. Set soalan yang sama juga digunakan untuk ujian-pos. Pelajar-pelajar dari

kumpulan eksperimen menerima latihan menggunakan kaedah RT untuk tempoh 4

minggu. Seminggu selepas latihan tamat, semua subjek diberikan ujian-pos.

Keputusan yang diperolehi daripada ujian-pra dan ujian-pos direkod dan dianalisis.

Berdasarkan keputusan analisis, kaedah RT ternyata memberi kesan yang positif

terhadap kemahiran membaca secara khusus dan pembelajaran bahasa Inggeris

secara amnya.

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TABLE OF CONTENT

CHAPTER CONTENTS PAGE

Thesis Status Declaration

Supervisor’s Declaration

Title Page

Declaration (Author) ii

Acknowledgement iii

Dedication v

Abstract (English) vi

Abstrak v

Table of Contents ix

List of Tables xiv

List of Figures xv

List of Abbreviation xv

List of Appendices xvi

x

I INTRODUCTION

1.0 Introduction 1

1.1 Background of the Study 2

1.1.1 The Importance of Reading 2

1.1.2 Teaching of Reading Strategies 3

1.1.3 Reciprocal Teaching 4

1.2 Statement of Problem 5

1.3 Objectives of the Study 7

1.4 Research Questions 7

1.5 Significance of the Study 8

1.6 Scope of the Study 9

1.7 Definition of Terms 10

II REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

2.0 Introduction 11

2.1 The Nature of Reading: An overview 12

2.1.1 Reading Comprehension 13

2.1.2 Models of Reading 18

2.2 Metacognitive instruction 20

2.3 Reading Strategy Instruction 22

2.4 Reciprocal Teaching 26

2.4.1 Research on RT 29

2.4.2 The Strategies in RT 35

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2.4.2.1 Clarification 35

2.4.2.2 Questioning 37

2.4.2.3 Summary 38

2.4.2.4 Prediction 39

2.5 Comprehension Hypothesis 40

2.6 Cloze Test 40

2.7 Summary of the Chapter 42

III METHODOLOGY

3.0 Introduction 43

3.1 Research Design 43

3.2 Participants of the Study 44

3.3 Data Collection 46

3.3.1 Pilot Test 46

3.3.2 Pre-test 47

3.3.3 Post-test 49

3.3.4 Instruments for collecting Qualitative 50

Data

3.4 The Treatment 50

3.4.1 RT Instruction 50

3.4.2 RT Procedures in the Treatment Group 51

3.5 Data Analysis 54

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IV FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

4.0 Introduction 56

4.1 The effects of the RT Strategies on 57

Students’ Reading Comprehension

4.2 The Effects of RT on Students’ Summary 58

Writing

4.3 The Effects of RT on Students’ General 59

Grammatical Competence

4.4 Comparison of Overall Mean Scores for the 60

Treatment and Control Groups

4.5 Discussion of Findings 62

4.5.1 Research Question 1 62

4.5.2 Research Question 2 63

4.5.3 Research Question 3 63

4.6 Qualitative Findings 64

4.6.1 Classroom Observation 65

4.6.2 Teacher’s Perception toward RT 66

V CONCLUSION

5.0 Introduction 69

5.1 Summary of the Study 70

5.2 Summary of the Results 71

5.3 Implications of the Study 71

5.4 Limitations of the Study 73

xiii

5.5 Recommendations on Implementation 74

Procedures

5.6 Suggestions for Further Studies 76

5.7 Conclusion 77

VI REFERENCES 78

VII APPENDICES 88 - 149

xiv

LIST OF TABLES

TABLE NO. TOPIC PAGE NUMBER

2.1 No. of students in the low proficiency 48

group

2.2 No. of students in the intermediate 49

group

2.3 No. of students in the advance group 49

4.4 The mean scores for the experimental 57

and the control groups in comprehension

section

4.5 The mean scores for the experimental and 58

control groups in summary section

4.6 The mean scores for the experimental and the 59

control groups in grammar section

4.7 The overall mean scores for the experimental 61

and control groups

4.8 The list of students in the low proficiency 67

group

4.9 The list of students in the intermediate 68

proficiency group

xv

LIST OF FIGURES

FIGURE NO. TOPIC PAGE NUMBER

2.1 The Interactive Model: Adapted from 19

Rumelhart, 1977

3.2 The Research Design 45

3.3 The Treatment Procedures

53

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS USED

RT - Reciprocal Teaching

1

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

1.0 Introduction

Reading has always been considered the most important skill among the four

language skills. In Malaysia, when students reach secondary school, and any institution

of higher education, the need for strong reading comprehension becomes significant if

students are to work effectively in their classroom. Students who reach secondary

school and institution of higher education with poor reading comprehension ability are

not likely to be able to deal with the reading materials with ease, and therefore are at

great risk of poor academic achievement. For this, reading comprehension instruction

at secondary school is important in assisting students to perform well in their studies.

This study was conducted in a sub-urban secondary school in Kluang. The purpose of

this study is to investigate the effectiveness of Reciprocal Teaching strategies, a kind of

reading instruction, on form two students’ language competence.

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1.1 Background of the Study

1.1.1 The Importance of Reading

In Malaysia, the English language is being taught and learned as a second

language. The Ministry of Education in Malaysia has mandated English as a required

subject to be taught in school and this subject has been mainly treated as an academic

subject in schools. The importance of the English language in the Malaysian Education

System has become more prominent with the introduction of Teaching Mathematics and

Science in English (ETeMS) and the subject, English for Science and Technology

(EST) in January 2003. Starting from that year, English has become a tool to teach and

a mean to transfer knowledge and not merely as a subject to be learned. The position of

the English language as a ‘knowledge language’ has further been strengthened with the

revolution of Information Communication Technology (ICT) and the Internet. “There

are estimates that 75 percent of the information contained on the internet is in English.

Thus, it is important that we equip our students with the necessary language to enable

them to master the vast knowledge available to them” (Minister of Education, 2004).

Mastering the English language is thus very important since it is one of the main

languages for knowledge seekers throughout the world. Students need to be able to use

English to seek information in their quest for personal and professional development

and for this purpose, they should possess good reading skills as information could only

be attained if the students are able to extract it from the written form. “It is reading,

more than any of the other language skills, that offers access to information”, (Grabe,

1996).

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The importance of reading is also reflected in the view that language could only

be acquired if students are exposed to enough comprehensible input before they are able

to produce good output, be it in the written or spoken form (Krashen, 2004), and the

main sources for comprehensible input besides listening, is reading. This shows how

reading skills play an important part in helping students acquire the language. Reading

is also “a source for teaching grammar and vocabulary”, (Shehadeh, 1997). In other

words, the inability to read hinders language acquisition.

Reading is also an important skill for academic success. For many students,

reading is the most important of the four language skills which also include listening,

speaking and writing. There is a close relationship between reading and school

achievement and language development (Salager-Meyer and Uljyin, 1998). Grabe

(1996) states that “strong reading abilities in English represent a resource that will be

useful to people who need to exchange information internationally”, especially those in

the academic field. Therefore, the comprehension of English text becomes an important

component for receiving information on a variety of topics. Therefore, the ability to

read English well has become an essential tool for academic and educational success.

1.1.2 Teaching of reading strategies

In the view of the importance of reading for gaining access to information, for

second language development and for academic success, there has been a growing

demand for effective reading strategies that could improve students’ comprehension.

Research in second language has begun to focus on teaching students the appropriate

strategies in reading. Previous research conducted (e.g. Palincsar and Brown, 1986;

Singhal, 1999; Tsai, 2000; Brimmer, 2004) show that strategies do work in reading

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comprehension. Strategies are effective because they encourage the development of the

text representations that may not develop in the absence of instruction (Pressley &

Wharton-Mcdonal, 1997).

Since reading skills and strategies are important for language acquisition and

academic performance, the need to teach these skills is crucial and students should

receive explicit instruction on how and when to use these strategies. As Brynt (1999)

says, teaching students effective reading strategies that increases comprehension is “one

of the most significant goals of educators”. It is this aim of preparing teachers to teach

reading in an effective way to produce independent readers that forms the goal of this

research.

1.1.3 Reciprocal Teaching (RT)

For many years, various strategies on reading has been developed and

researched to aid students’ comprehension, some of which include building background

knowledge, creating graphic organizers, finding main ideas, recognizing text structures

and summarizing.

Pressley (2000) recommends that training on effective strategies in

comprehension involves direct explanations and teacher modeling, followed by guided

practice. He also mentions that strategies that have proven effective includes prior

knowledge activation, question generation, construct mental images, summarizing as

well as analyzing stories into story grammar components. All these strategies can be

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used before, while and after reading process. All these strategies are included in a

strategy of teaching reading termed Reciprocal Teaching.

Reciprocal teaching (hereafter termed RT) strategy is an instructional approach

which was developed by Palincsar and Brown in 1984 through a series of studies which

were conducted at the University of Illinois. This approach consists of four strategies

which are prediction, summarization, question generation and clarification. Palincsar

(1986) asserts that the strength of RT is that it focuses on reading to learn rather than

learning to read. The ultimate goal for this approach is to improve reading skills for

students. RT seems to be effective and it is worthy of further exploration in a

Malaysian setting.

1.2 Statement of problem

As discussed earlier in the previous section, English is important throughout our

life-span and acquiring the language is important and necessary and through reading,

the level of proficiency can be improved. Unfortunately, in Malaysia, academics and

the government have expressed their concern over the deteriorating level of proficiency

in the English language among students in Malaysian schools. Most students in

Malaysia have always had problems in their English subject. This has been further

proven by the fact that there is little or no improvement at all in the grades of students

who sat for their PMR (Lower Secondary Assessment) English paper in the previous

years. In the year 2000, 40.2% of students who took the PMR failed in their English

paper. This percentage has been increasing since and it was only in the year 2004 that

the result for English subject showed a slight improvement in terms of candidates

achieving the minimum passing level of at least grade D. A total of 70.1% of 384,022

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passed the English paper and this was the best result ever achieved over 12 years.

However, the percentage of students who obtained A for English subject is still

disappointing - only 13.9 %, (Source: News Straits Times, 30/12/2004).

As this study was conducted in Johore, it is imperative to discuss the students’

performance in the English subject based on their PMR results for the year 2003 and

2004 at the state level. According to State Education Office of Johore, the percentage

of students who obtained A for the English paper in 2004 dropped by almost 3.0%

percentage point to 9.77%. Compared to other subjects, English is far left behind. As

for the PMR results in 2004, while the average percentage of passes in all subjects is

greater than 80.0%, the past rate for the English subject remained the lowest at 65.0%

(Refer to Appendix A and B). – (Source: State Education Office of Johore)

The discussion above on students’ performance indicates that Malaysian

students still have problems in the English language. One of the possible reasons for

the low proficiency is that they do not have sufficient exposure to English through

reading. Improving reading skills may therefore encourage them to read more and this

could result in more exposure to English and hence better command of the language.

RT is one of the strategies that could be used by teachers in helping students to

improve their reading ability. This approach which has been around for more than 20

years has been used successfully in different educational settings, from elementary level

to tertiary level. In the original study by Palincsar and Brown (1983), students who

were trained in RT strategies dramatically improved their ability to answer

comprehension questions about passages they read.

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For the present study, the effect of RT will be examined to ascertain whether

this strategy could help to improve students’ reading ability specifically and develop

students’ general language proficiency.

1.3 Objectives of the study

The purpose of the present study is to investigate the effectiveness of RT

strategy in improving students’ comprehension on reading text. Further, based on the

theoretical assumption that improved reading ability will result in the availability of

more comprehensible input which in turn will enhance language proficiency, the

researcher plans to examine whether RT strategy has any effect on students’ general

grammar competence as well as on summary writing.

1.4 Research questions

This study aims to find answers to the following research questions:

1. What are the effects of Reciprocal Teaching (RT) strategies on form two students’

reading comprehension as evidenced by scores achieved on a test of reading

comprehension?

2. What are the effects of the reciprocal teaching (RT) strategies on students’ summary

writing as evidenced by scores achieved on a summary writing test?

3. What are the effects of the Reciprocal Teaching (RT) strategies on form two

students’ general grammatical competence as measured by a cloze test?