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Constructivistpedagogyinstrategicreadinginstruction:ExploringpathwaystolearnerdevelopmentintheEnglishasasecondlanguage(ESL)classroom

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Constructivist pedagogy in strategic reading instruction:exploring pathways to learner development in theEnglish as a second language (ESL) classroom

Lawrence Jun Zhang

Received: 23 November 2005 / Accepted: 15 March 2007 / Published online: 3 April 2007� Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2007

Abstract The study explored English as a Second Language (ESL) learner development.

In particular, it focused on investigating learners’ understanding of reading and their

willingness to be engaged in strategic reading in participatory classroom activities. It also

examined possible effects of such pedagogy on reading performance. The context was a

two-month strategy-based reading instruction program, set within a constructivist frame-

work. The program emphasized developing students’ academic reading proficiency. The

study, quasi-experimental in design, involved a control group and an experimental group,

both of whom were ESL students from the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The students

were expected to satisfy an intensive English communication skills requirement in order to

be successfully matriculated into English-medium universities in Singapore. The results

showed that the teacher’s strategy-based instructional intervention evolving around par-

ticipatory activities affected changes in the ESL students’ use of reading strategies and

improvement in comprehension. These findings are discussed in relation to PRC students

in study-abroad contexts, especially the cultures of learning that they bring along with

them. Recommendations for further research are also made.

Keywords Constructivist pedagogy � Strategy-based reading instruction �Chinese cultures of learning � Reading strategies � Chinese ESL learners �China � Singapore

I have been granted permission to use all the materials presented in this article and I declare that theparticipants’ names that are referred to in this study are not their real names.

L. J. Zhang (&)English Language & Literature Academic Group, Arts Building, NIE3-03-98, National Institute ofEducation, Nanyang Technological University, 1 Nanyang Walk, Singapore 637616, Republic ofSingaporee-mail: lawrence.zhang@nie.edu.sg

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Instr Sci (2008) 36:89–116DOI 10.1007/s11251-007-9025-6

Introduction

The utility and power of reading in helping learners develop general language proficiency

and reading skills in content learning have been widely recognized among reading

researchers and literacy educators (Bernhardt 2005; Kucer 2005; Smith 2004). The role of

reading in helping second language learners acquire and develop language skills has also

been documented in the literature (e.g. Krashen 1993). Some writers have argued strongly

for more target language input in order that English as a Second Language (ESL) learners’

reading abilities can be improved, so that they can tackle authentic reading materials

confidently (e.g. Day and Bamford 1998). This is especially important in an era when

communicative language teaching (CLT) is a prominent feature in classroom practice.

Recent research has also provided evidence that student awareness, or, metacognition, of

aspects pertaining to successful second language learning in general and reading com-

prehension in particular, including learning strategies, is correlated with student success

(e.g. Anderson 1991; Block 1986; Chamot et al. 1999; Oxford 2001; Wenden 1991; Zhang

2002b). Building on work in first language strategic reading instruction (e.g. Dole et al.

1996; Palincsar and Brown 1984), within the metacognitive framework (Flavell 1992;

Pressley 2002), language and literacy educators have also become increasingly interested

in examining the strategies which second language learners use in reading and the effects

of related pedagogy on reading improvement (Anderson 1999; Carrell et al. 1989; Cohen

1998; Cotterall 1990; Harris 2003; Jimenez et al. 1996).

Given the important role reading plays in English-for-academic-purposes (EAP) pro-

grams, these research efforts have significant implications for tertiary-level students who

have to acquire academic literacy skills in a second language, especially reading, to suc-

ceed during their university years. They are particularly relevant to the students on EAP

programs, whose main purpose is to help improve the general English proficiency of the

students, who are faced with a huge amount of reading material through which their

reading skills are to be developed. How effectively they complete this task depends on how

good they are as second language readers. In order to enhance their reading skills for

university degree studies through the medium of English, they have to be instructed so that

they are metacognitively ready to become efficiently strategic readers (Anderson 1999;

Carrell 1998; Paris et al. 1994; Pressley 2002). This pedagogy should be implementable

because cognitive and educational research has shown that learner metacognition of the

task at hand can affect learning outcomes, which is generally reflected in learners’ efforts

towards ameliorating change and enhancing progress (Flavell 1992; Hartman 2001). This

is also where good and poor language learners can be distinguished from each other in

terms of their control over strategy use (Cohen 1998; O’Malley and Chamot 1990; Naiman

et al. 1978/1996; Oxford 2001; Wenden 1991; Rubin 2001).

In studies on students learning to read in ESL, similar findings have been reported that

point to the teachability of strategies that are within the control of these students by virtue

of their metacognitive awareness of the cognitive resources available for use to enhance

reading comprehension (e.g. Anderson 1999; Carrell 1998; Zhang 2001). In the literature

on teaching reading strategies to such learners, results show that teacher instruction can

bring about learner development in both first language (Alexander 1995; Brown and

Palincsar 1982; Loranger 1997) and second language situations (Carrell et al. 1989; Janzen

and Stoller 1998).

Confucian learning culture favors teacher-led activities (Cortazzi and Jin 1996; Watkins

and Biggs 1996; cf. Wertsch 1985). Moreover, the learning context has a powerful effect

90 L. J. Zhang

123

on learner perceptions about the generalized cultural patterns according to which they are

classified as different from others (Littlewood 1999; see also Gan et al. 2004). An inter-

esting research question that arises from this is how Chinese ESL students would respond

to strategic reading instruction, within the framework of constructivist pedagogy. Also, a

review of studies on the effects of strategic reading instruction on learner development

shows that they were conducted in contexts where the learners were heterogeneous in

ethnicity and they had to use English as the medium for communication among them-

selves. How a homogenous group from the PRC, the participants in the present study, who

were studying in a multilingual and multicultural society in Asia (Singapore), would

respond to such instruction remains unclear. In addition, although the literature does

provide examples of lesson sequences (Chamot et al. 1999), there are few illustrations of

the classroom interaction through which strategy-based reading instruction takes place.

This study set out to fill this void. In the following sections I present the key concepts

involved in this study, briefly review related research and explain the context in which this

study was conducted, before I report on the study itself.

Constructivist pedagogy for learner development

The term ‘‘learner development’’ refers to a composite of factors contributing to learner

growth in language skills (Wenden 2002). In connection with the present study, learner

development is related to learners’ steady increase in confidence and reading competence

reflected in their proactive interest in becoming efficient readers. In specific terms, this

refers to the fact that students will be attitudinally inclined to learn to be strategic in

approaching written texts. Social constructivists argue that in the learning process meaning

is constructed through dialog and learning takes place at a level just beyond the current

competence of the learner, i.e. within her/his ‘‘Zone of Proximal Development’’ (ZPD)

through the co-construction of knowledge (Vygotsky 1986). Dialogic learning, in this

view, is crucial to learner development. Procedurally, learning takes place on an inter-

personal plane and then on an intrapersonal one. Idea appropriation proceeds from dialog

between an ‘‘expert’’, or a more competent learner/peer, and a ‘‘novice’’, during which the

latter internalizes the new concepts under the teacher’s guidance. Language, which serves

the function of a ‘‘tool’’, facilitates the learning of knowledge and skills (Vygotsky 1986).

With regard to language learning, it is not sufficient to focus only on conceptual devel-

opment. Instead, skill-oriented approaches to learner development through interactional

participatory activities evolving around teaching/learning tasks were considered to benefit

learners more meaningfully (Donato 1994; Lantolf and Pavlenko 1995). In other words, the

idea of adopting constructivist pedagogy for learner development is based on the under-

standing that learners’ mastery of how to learn is more important than the learning act itself

(Chamot et al. 1999; Rubin 2001; Wenden 2002; Zhang 2000a).

As Donato (1994, p. 40) explains, in the field of ESL instruction, this type of scaffolding

or guided support is helpful in that it provides ‘‘a situation where a knowledgeable par-

ticipant can create supportive conditions in which the novice can participate, and extend

his or her current skills and knowledge to higher levels of competence.’’ In the words of

Aljaafreh and Lantolf (1994, p. 468), ‘‘the teacher, the learner, their social and cultural

history, their goals and motives, as well as the resources available to them, including those

that are dialogically constructed together’’ are all brought together by the concept of ZPD.

Nassaji and Swain’s (2000, p. 48) research has equally convincingly shown that ‘‘help

Constructivist pedagogy in strategic reading instruction 91

123

provided within the ‘ZPD’ was more effective than help provided randomly.’’ Therefore,

systematically developing reading strategies through such a pedagogical emphasis on

learner participation and interaction in the classroom context might be more suitable than

that of only developing decoding or automaticity skills. This is also because research has

shown that successful readers do not process written linguistic input at the decoding level

only; instead, language processing and reading for meaning occur at multiple levels in an

interactive manner (Bernhardt 2005; Koda 2005; Kucer 2005; Zhang 2002a). In the process

of learning, learner metacognition about what is done is crucial to learning success (Flavell

1992; Pressley 2002; Wenden 2002; Zhang 2001).

Flavell (1992) and Pressley (2002), in particular, argue for giving greater attention to the

role of metacognition in helping students’ self-regulation of their own learning (see also

Hartman 2001). They maintain that student metacognition, i.e. their awareness of, and

cognitive control and regulation over, learning, can enhance learning efficiency and self-

efficacy (Alexander 1995; Veenman and Beishuizen 2004). Wenden (1991) has incorpo-

rated Flavell’s metacognitive knowledge framework into language learning and teaching

situations, arguing that obtaining information about learners’ understanding of themselves

as learners (person knowledge), of learning tasks (task knowledge) and of learning strat-

egies (strategic knowledge) is essential to facilitate successful learning. This is especially

relevant to the present study. The issue at hand now is how classroom teachers can

maximize students’ own potential to develop them into more proficient, self-regulated and

autonomous learners in and outside the second language classroom based on their

understanding of what effective learning should be (see also Rubin 2001). Consequently,

strategy-based instruction has the potential of approximating the goal of helping learners to

improve performance through enhancing their metacognitive awareness, because through

dialogic classroom processes of strategy-based instruction, learners are offered more op-

tions to actively engage in the sociocultural interactions in the classroom (Pavlenko and

Lantolf 2000), where teachers and students deconstruct the learning processes for the

purpose of constructing meaning. Collectively, both the metacognitive and constructivist

ideas are useful for implementing a strategy instruction program aimed at learner devel-

opment, especially in terms of enhancing efficiency and scaffolding learner autonomy in

language learning (Chamot et al. 1999; Cohen 1998; Harris 2003).

Strategy-based instruction in language teaching

Strategy-based instruction: what is it?

Strategy-based instruction refers to classroom procedures where the teacher incorporates

language learning strategies in language teaching (Cohen 1998; Chamot et al. 1999). It is

proposed because a rich body of literature shows that higher-proficiency students are more

likely to use learning strategies than their lower-proficiency counterparts and that the former

tend to use them more flexibly and effectively in relation to the context that requires the use

of such learning strategies for maximal learning outcomes (see Cohen 1998; Harris 2003;

McDonough 1999; O’Malley and Chamot 1990; Oxford 2001; Zhang 2003, for reviews).

O’Malley et al. (1985) report on a study that identified appropriate learning strategies

for students and demonstrated that explicit instruction in the use of the strategies signifi-

cantly improved student performance. The authors concluded that the teaching of learning

strategies, coupled with the application of those strategies in a subject-area discipline,

greatly enhanced student learning. Oxford’s (1990, 2001) work over the years has

92 L. J. Zhang

123

consistently shown the role that learning strategies play in helping learners improve their

language proficiency. She also reports on the usefulness of strategy training in language

learning. Chamot and her colleagues’ attempts to implement systematic change in the way

language instruction was carried out deserve a special mention here (e.g. Chamot and

O’Malley 1994; Chamot et al. 1999; O’Malley and Chamot 1990). Their Cognitive Aca-

demic Language Learning Approach (CALLA) was designed to ‘‘connect the learning

experiences of ESL students’’. Content teaching, language improvement and strategy

instruction were integrated in the approach so that students were provided with an array of

support strategies for academic development. The results also showed obvious progress in

those students who received the CALLA training.

Wenden (1991, 2002) proposes a knowledge-based approach to learner training by

following Flavell’s framework, as mentioned earlier. She argues that strategy training can

benefit learners tremendously. Cohen (1998), in reviewing studies on language learning

strategies, points out the challenges of such instruction, but states that strategy-based

instruction is possible. He describes possibilities of how strategies such as tackling pre-

assessment and pre-planning, on-line planning and evaluation, and post-evaluation of

language learning activities and of language use events can be taught in language learning.

He says that teacher instruction or learner training in the ESL reading curriculum would

not involve insurmountable tasks because such strategies allow learners to control their

own cognition by enabling them to coordinate their planning, organizing, and evaluating of

the learning processes within their ‘‘ZPD’’, with the final aim of developing learner

autonomy.

Strategy-based reading instruction in L1 and L2 situations

Strategy-based reading instruction has always been regarded as very important in educa-

tional psychology and reading pedagogy in first language (L1) learning situations, as

learners’ internal monitoring and controlling of their learning processes are pivotal to

effective learning (Flavell 1992; Pressley 2002). Research along this line indicates that the

process at the metacognitive level plays a crucial role in the development of intelligence

and helps learners to take active control of their learning (Dole et al. 1996; Pressley and

Afflerbach 1995). As extensions of the studies on the differences between good and poor

readers, follow-up studies on the effects of reciprocal strategy instruction have also been

reported to have positive effects on learners’ reading improvement (Brown and Palincsar

1982; Loranger 1997; Palincsar and Brown 1984; Pearson and Fielding 1991), and lend

support to the benefit of strategy instruction. In all these studies, learners have demon-

strated improvement in performance by virtue of the strategy instruction program they

have gone through.

In almost the same vein, researchers in second language (L2) contexts conducted studies

that were aimed not only at uncovering possible reading strategies which learners used

(Anderson 1991; Block 1986; Jimenez et al. 1996; Zhang 2001), but also the effects of

strategic reading instruction on reading improvement (e.g. Anderson 1999; Carrell et al.

1989; Janzen and Stoller 1998). Carrell et al. (1989), for instance, by setting up a control/

experimental design, conducted research on two metacognitive strategies—semantic

mapping and an ‘‘experience-text-relationship’’ method. The results showed that

metacognitive strategy training was effective in helping the experimental group improve

second-language reading, while the control group did not show any obvious progress. They

also noted that the effectiveness of one type of training versus another might depend on

Constructivist pedagogy in strategic reading instruction 93

123

how reading was measured. In addition, their results also indicated a close correlation

between the effectiveness of the training with students’ learning style differences. They

concluded, therefore, that in second language reading pedagogy, especially for adult

learners in academic ESL settings, inclusion of explicit, comprehension-fostering

metacognitive strategy instruction would benefit learners.

Another recent study by Janzen and Stoller (1998) involved helping second-language

readers to develop as expert, or more strategic, readers, through instructed practice, i.e.

integration of strategic reading in second language instruction. As reported, the research

had four steps: (1) choice of a text at an appropriate difficulty level, (2) selection of

strategies for instruction, (3) structuring of lessons and the writing of transcripts for

guiding the presentation of strategies, and (4) the adaptation of instruction to suit learner

needs and reactions to in-class modeling, practice and discussion. They found that,

through the four-step systematic strategy instruction and practice, their students learned

how to read effectively, and became autonomous and aware of the processes involved.

The kind of teaching reported is similar to reciprocal teaching (Brown and Palincsar

1982; Palincsar and Brown 1984; Winograd and Hare 1988), which is an approach to

enhance students’ reading comprehension competence by directly engaging them with

texts, especially through student–student or teacher–student dialogs in the classroom. In a

way, reciprocal teaching seems to be a welcome addition to the L2 reading classroom in

recent years (Cohen 1998; Cotterall 1990; Janzen and Stoller 1998; see also Harris

2003).

Carrell (1998) proposes explicit teaching of reading strategies to L2 readers, but ten-

sions exist among those who are interested in strategy-based instruction in L2 teaching as

to how explicit the teaching of language learning strategies should be. Grabe (1991)

cautions that in L2 teaching ‘‘effective strategy training is not a simple or easy matter’’ (p.

393), as the duration of instruction, clarity of procedures, student responsibility, and

strategy transfer are variables influencing strategy instruction results. These are important

considerations in conducting strategy instruction programs. If a research study were con-

ducted within constraints, some of these aforementioned issues would have to be taken into

account. McDonough’s (1999) article on language learning strategies also reminds readers

of potential difficulties for strategy training. Similarly, Harris (2003), in reviewing tensions

surrounding strategy-based instruction, presents O’Malley and Chamot’s (1990) concerns

over the degree of explicitness in strategy instruction. The question is ‘‘should it be

embedded in the materials or made explicit?’’ While Wenden (1991) advocates a con-

textualized approach to emphasize the relevance of strategy instruction, Harris takes the

principle of ‘‘simplicity’’ that Chamot et al. (1999) advocate as a key consideration in her

own research project that focuses on strategy instruction. In addition, Chamot et al.

emphasize the explicitness in strategy instruction, arguing that developing student

awareness of the strategies they use—that is, teacher-modeling of strategic thinking, stu-

dent-practicing in using new strategies, student-evaluating of the strategies used and

practicing in transferring strategies to new tasks—are factors that teachers should consider

in designing strategy-based instruction. They also argue that strategy instruction should be

integrated into the language curriculum instead of being offered as a separate course.

Strategy-based instruction with Chinese ESL learners

Due to the fact that many of the research studies in L2 situations were conducted on a

short-term basis, mostly in Western cultural settings, strategic reading instruction with

94 L. J. Zhang

123

respect to PRC students has not been sufficiently documented. There are reservations as

regards teaching reading strategies to ESL students from the PRC. The usual worry is that

they might resist group work or learner-centered pedagogy because of their cultural ties to

the Confucian learning tradition, where the teacher is highly respected and expected to

perform a teacher’s duty, i.e. to teach, as traditionally conceived (Szalay et al. 1994;

Watkins and Biggs 1996). The limited literature based on anecdotal evidence seems to

suggest that PRC learners are different from their Western counterparts in their learning

approaches and teaching reading strategies to them can be very frustrating (e.g. Field 1985;

Kohn 1992). The Chinese way of teaching and learning EFL reading would strike native

English speakers as very different from the common practice in the West. For example,

Kohn (1992) reminds American teachers that they should be well-aware of some of the

widely accepted beliefs when teaching reading to PRC students. He claims that

[American] students can rely on their knowledge of a familiar context, that they will

guess meanings from context, and that they will then volunteer those meanings aloud

as part of a classroom discussion are all expectations quite alien to Chinese class-

rooms. (Kohn 1992, p. 122)

The classroom situation summarized by Kohn has to be borne in mind in reading strategy

instruction. However, it is also necessary for us to look at the issue contextually and

culturally. The situation Kohn described might have been quite common in the late 1980s,

when Chinese students or teachers were not exposed to Western approaches to language

teaching due to the country’s closure to the outside world, particularly within territorial

boundaries in the PRC itself. But recent reports tend to view the issue from the perspective

of social change, which, in turn, has led to some innovation in pedagogical practice

reflected in learner behaviors (cf. Gu 2002; Parry 1996; Wu 2001; Zhang 2002b). This

suggests that PRC learners are not a static social group and that they may welcome

teachers’ initiatives to teach them useful reading strategies if they realize their value

(Watkins and Biggs 1996). Szalay and his colleagues’ survey (1994, p. 98) indicates that

‘‘the PRC students are particularly inclined to view their teachers in an idealized role

endowed with a great deal of authority, esteem and respect’’, suggesting that they value

teacher input and instruction and emphasize the teacher–student relationship. Conse-

quently, the power of teacher authority offers the teacher an advantage to enhance learner

behavior change as reflected in the use of language learning strategies related to language

proficiency (Wen and Johnson 1997; Zhang 2001, 2003). Similarly, Stephens (1997) re-

ports that PRC students in the United Kingdom were put under ‘‘stereotypical shadows’’

and that they were actually very cooperative if not restricted by their limited language

proficiency. Recent studies by Gao (2003) and Gan et al. (2004) also show that learner

attitudes and motivation are closely associated with student learning and use of strategies,

casting doubt on the stereotypic notions of passive and dependent Asian learners.

The above information was taken into account in conducting strategic reading

instruction in the present study, especially since these participants were learning EAP in

Singapore, a foreign country to them, where the predominant linguistic input greatly

differed from that in their home country. It was especially important in the selection of

reading strategies for inclusion in the training program in the present study. In addition, as

reported in the literature (e.g. Zhang 2000b) the cultural unfamiliarity with which they

were faced and the anxiety that they experienced might have been driving forces for their

higher locus of control and higher motivation level as exhibited in their greater efforts to

succeed.

Constructivist pedagogy in strategic reading instruction 95

123

Research questions

The present study set out to examine two things: (1) how willingly a group of ESL students

from the PRC, when put into a foreign learning culture, would engage themselves in

strategy-based reading instruction and (2) whether such instruction would lead learners to

adopt certain reading strategies in relation to reading comprehension improvement. Spe-

cifically, the following research questions were tackled:

1. What was the degree of willingness of a group of Chinese ESL/EFL learners to engage

in strategy-based reading instruction when they were learning to read English material

in a foreign context?

2. Was there any improvement in students’ reading performance in relation to their

perceived use of reading strategies?

The study

Context of the study

The study was conducted in Singapore, where the PRC students were studying EAP on an

English Communication Skills Program, whose main objective was to improve students’

English proficiency to qualify for entry into university degree programs. Singapore is a

multilingual and multicultural society where English functions as a lingua franca among

different ethnic groups. Also, because of its colonial legacy, Singapore is one of the few

countries which has the national policy whereby English is stipulated not only as one of the

four official languages but also the first language in the school curriculum. The mother

tongues of different ethnic groups (Malay, Chinese, and Tamil) are offered as the second

language. Because of this, Singapore society in general is greatly exposed to English, and

English is not only the medium of instruction in education, but also the language of the

media, the law and government administration, which means that it is not only one of the

four official languages, but also a language which is functioning as the de facto language

for practical and functionary purposes (Pakir 2004). By virtue of the paramount importance

of English in the education system, high proficiency in English is a prerequisite for aca-

demic success.

The PRC students in the present study had to exert much greater efforts in order to

achieve a near-equivalent level of English proficiency to mingle with their Singaporean

counterparts, who had already passed at least 4 ‘‘A-Level’’ (Advanced-Level) subjects on

the Cambridge-Singapore GCE (General Certificate in Education) examinations, including

GP (General Paper), a high-level English reading and writing exam, to qualify for bach-

elors’ degree studies in either of the two local universities. Further information about the

program is provided below.

The bridging program and reading instruction

The EAP program was tailored to meet the needs of foreign students, whose English

proficiency was too low to cope with content learning at the universities. After seven

months of intensive English remedial lessons, totaling 672 classroom contact hours, the

students were expected to be proficient in listening, speaking, reading and writing in

96 L. J. Zhang

123

English in addition to acquiring other study skills, for example, the basic skills and con-

ventions in writing up a research paper.

The objective of the intensive program was achieved by integrating the application

of language skills with some training in the use of information communication tech-

nology (ICT) so that they were well prepared to meet future challenges in their aca-

demic studies in the universities. Students had on average 28 weeks of program time

and they had 6 h of Reading Comprehension (RC), 6 h of Writing Skills (WS), and

10 h of Aural Oral Communication (AOC), in addition to 2 h of Tutorial Self-access

(TSA) each week. Students were given opportunities to manage their own study,

especially learning how to regulate their own progress. This practice implied that

equipping them with basic study skills, particularly strategies for attacking academic

texts in English, would be of great importance to their future degree studies in engi-

neering fields. It was also hoped that by engaging them in such an intensive program

their study skills would be extended to such an extent that they would become inde-

pendent and autonomous learners.

Also, the guidelines given to the reading teachers clearly stipulated that CLT ap-

proaches were encouraged in the teachers’ classroom procedures. For the reading course, a

similar rationale was supposed to be followed, and a variety of authentic texts were used in

the class, ranging from newspaper cuttings, magazine feature articles, and selected on-line

reading materials to prescribed textbooks. Although other materials were optional in

classes, the textbooks were the core material in the program. The coordinators encouraged

all the teachers to use the core textbooks and prepared different kinds of materials for use,

but they also gave all the teachers freedom to use other kinds of material of their own

choice in their respective classes. The course syllabus was generally skill-based. In order to

arouse students’ interests and to further enhance their reading ability, reading teachers also

designed a variety of classroom activities.

Experimental vs. control group design

As the study focused on strategy training to examine student willingness to be engaged in

strategic reading instruction and its possible effects on reading improvement through

teacher instruction, reciprocal teaching took up the bulk of classroom activities, where the

teacher was a facilitator, participant and interactant throughout the whole lesson. To this

end the present study involved an experimental group undergoing a two-month reading

strategy training program integrated with language instruction, and a control group, a

comparison group that remained intact, exposed only to the relatively more traditional,

teacher-centered, mode of language instruction. What this means is that the teacher/re-

searcher did not deliberately teach the control group how to use the reading strategies

which were systematically taught to the experimental group. The training program con-

sisted of two stages, the first of which concerned the enrichment of metacognitive

knowledge through awareness-oriented interactional and participatory discussion and di-

rect instruction in small groups; and the second, the cultivation of self-regulation by means

of self-questioning and self-reflection (Brown and Palincsar 1982; Janzen and Stoller 1998;

Palincsar and Brown 1984; Vygotsky 1986). Due to the length of the training program

(48 h) and financial constraints, not all sessions were video recorded, and the teacher/

researcher relied heavily on field notes and audio-recordings.

Constructivist pedagogy in strategic reading instruction 97

123

Participants

A total of 99 PRC students from two cohorts of matriculation were invited to be partici-

pants. Their average age was about 18. Their previous school EFL curricula had prepared

them with approximately 2,800 basic vocabulary words after starting learning EFL at

around 12 years of age when they were first-year Junior Middle School students (MOE

2000). Altogether, they had a cumulative period of 5 years in EFL learning at the time

when the data were collected. They were highly motivated. They came from a country

generally described in the literature as Confucian in learning and cultural orientations,

meaning that they tended to be respectful of the teacher and were relatively reticent in

contributing to classroom discourse—though various reasons may account for this (see e.g.

Gan et al. 2004; Littlewood 1999).

As a design feature, two groups of EFL students were purposefully chosen so as to

compare the results of the strategy-based instruction. The control group and the experi-

mental group were comprised of 49 and 50 students respectively. The two groups were

assigned randomly into a control or experimental group because of their equitable level of

EFL reading proficiency which was measured at the outset of the bridging program.

Analysis of their pre-test results indicates that the two groups were not statistically dif-

ferent in terms of their perceptions of the utility of the reading strategies, nor were they

different in their proficiency level or reading scores.

The two groups were assigned the same reading materials in their Academic Reading

course and they were taught by the same instructor to guarantee the validity of the

experimental study. But the control group did not receive strategy training as did the

experimental group during the 2-month period of this experiment, as explained earlier. It

needs to be pointed out that in order not to shortchange the students in the control group,

the same instructor implemented the strategy-based instruction procedures with them

immediately after the experiment study was completed.

Selected reading strategies and texts

The literature on language learning strategies generally makes a distinction between

metacognitive, cognitive and socioaffective strategies (O’Malley and Chamot 1990;

Oxford 1990). For example, O’Malley and Chamot (1990, pp. 44–45) state that

metacognitive strategies are higher-order executive skills which may entail planning

for, monitoring, or evaluating the success of a learning activity...Cognitive strategies

operate directly on incoming information, manipulating it in ways that enhance

learning...Socioaffective strategies represent a broad group that involves either

interaction with another person or ideational control over affect.

However, in the literature on reading strategy instruction, such a distinction is not strictly

made. Nevertheless, I had to understand clearly which were cognitive, metacognitive and

socio-affective strategies so that I could spend my classroom time reasonably. Therefore,

my strategic reading instruction began with a sharing of Holschuh and Kelley’s (1988) list

of possibly useful strategies with the participants in connection with a longer reading text

taken from Holschuh and Kelley (1988, pp. 1–18). The strategies shared included mainly

cognitive strategies such as ‘‘previewing or surveying a text’’, ‘‘reading headings or

subheadings to get a gist of a text’’, ‘‘scanning for highlighted words or expressions’’ and

‘‘summarizing main ideas of a text by re-reading it’’ and metacognitive strategies such as

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‘‘checking correctness of comprehension’’ and ‘‘checking the effectiveness in strategy

use’’. Most of these reading strategies were reported by researchers as facilitative of

reading comprehension (e.g. Anderson 1991; Block 1986; Jimenez et al. 1996).

The reading materials were used together with the strategy list. The typical reading

textbook was Quest (Hartman and Blass 1999). Other strategies later identified from the

literature as helpful to reading comprehension were added to their original list. These

included ‘‘self-questioning’’, ‘‘self-monitoring’’ and ‘‘making inferences of the meaning

of unknown words using contextual clues’’ and so on (see Table 1 for other strategies; see

also Carrell 1998; Cohen 1998, for summaries). Although a clear understanding of the

above framework was relevant to this study, for easier classroom implementation, the

reading strategies considered to be useful for learners were classified into three groups with

reference to pedagogical operationalization; i.e. whether they were used during pre-reading, while-reading or post-reading stages. The expanded list of these strategies is

described in Table 1.

Pretest and posttest

The Reading Comprehension section of the International English Language Testing Sys-

tem (IELTS) was used as pre-test and post-test measures. The test itself was new to all

students at the time when this study was conducted. The IELTS scores of the participants

in both groups were collected after the two tests were administered in order to examine the

possible effects of strategy instruction on their reading behavior change in relation to

improvement in reading comprehension. Given the quantitative orientation of the research

design, think-aloud was not considered as a tool for data collection in this study although it

has been proven to be a very productive instrument for revealing the thinking processes of

the reader (Pressley and Afflerbach 1995; see also Cohen 1998). In order to locate any

instructional effect, a list of reading strategies in a questionnaire format was prepared on a

7-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (extremely infrequently) to 7 (extremely frequently) as

shown in Table 1. The questionnaire was intended to elicit participants’ reported frequency

of using these reading strategies, which could suggest the degree of their willingness to use

them as well. The strategic reading instruction was based on this knowledge. The ques-

tionnaire was distributed to all the participants who were invited to complete it before and

after the strategy-based reading instruction program.

Classroom procedures for strategy-based reading instruction

For the purpose of ascertaining participant interest and willingness to be engaged in the

strategic reading instruction program, four simple questions were asked of both the

experimental and the control groups about the change in their learning environment: (1)

Have you experienced any differences in the learning contexts between China and Sin-

gapore? (2) Have you ever heard of the term ‘‘yuedu celue’’, or, reading strategies? (3) If

you have heard of the term ‘‘yuedu celue’’, what specific strategies did you use in reading

while you were in China? (4) Do you want to learn more about how you can read more

effectively?

Bearing in mind the contentions mentioned earlier regarding strategy-based instruction

in the learning strategy research literature as highlighted in Harris (2003), I took the advice

from O’Malley and Chamot (1990) and Chamot et al. (1999) as cited in Harris (2003, p. 5);

Constructivist pedagogy in strategic reading instruction 99

123

i.e. ‘‘the optimum way of grouping strategies’’ is ‘‘to minimize potential learner confu-

sion’’. I started with Winograd and Hare’s (1988, pp. 123–124) framework, highly rec-

ommended by Carrell (1998), and my instructional procedures were based on the following

six principles, as shown in Table 2. (For a review of different strategy training models in

L2 teaching, see Chamot et al. 1999; Cohen 1998; Harris 2003; Oxford 2001.)

Metacognitive awareness-raising

Recent general consensus on strategy-based instruction shows that metacognition can be

integrated in a training program (Anderson 1999; Chamot et al. 1999; Harris 2003). Based

Table 1 Reading strategies selected for instruction

Reading strategies Description

Pre-reading stage Instructional stage where preparations are made for thestart of a reading lesson

Previewing or surveying Advance look at text to see its layout, illustrations, etc

Activating schema knowledge Getting ready to read by using what is already known oftext

Predicting content Anticipating possible content of text

Scanning for highlighted words orexpressions

Looking for highlighted words or expressions

While-reading stage Instructional stage where learners are fully engaged in thecomprehension process

Reading headings, subheadings, etc. Attending to organizational aspects of text

Self-questioning Asking questions about text

Self-monitoring Self-checking comprehension

Focusing on meaning, not form Paying attention to meaning, rather than form

Relating meaning to what is already known Connecting what is read with what is already known

Reviewing main ideas after each ‘‘chunk’’of reading

Summarizing main ideas either orally or in written form

Asking how the main idea or purpose isrelated to previous paragraph

Looking for logical relationships between paragraphs

Looking for familiar affixes and roots inunknown vocabulary

Trying to solve vocabulary problems usingmorphological knowledge

Using context to make inferences of themeaning of unknown words/expressions

Guessing at unfamiliar vocabulary items throughcontextual clues

Identifying main ideas and supportingdetails

Looking for relationships between main ideas (topicsentences) and details

Identifying organizational patterns of text Looking for the organizational aspects of text in terms ofits typical structure (e.g. cause–effect, compare/contrast,etc.)

Post-reading stage Instructional stage where reading task is completed

Evaluating reading Examining how well text is understood

Giving personal response Making critical/personal comments on text

Reviewing to summarize text meanings Reading text again to summarize text meanings

Checking effectiveness in strategy use Reflecting on how effectively a strategy was used

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on both groups’ responses to the last two questions and the six principles, interactive

discussion with the experimental group about the definitions of strategies followed. This

activity functioned as awareness-raising among the participants in addition to giving useful

feedback to learners’ understanding that could be drawn on as part of a constructivist

approach. After this preliminary discussion, all the participants were referred to the reading

strategies listed in a table format similar to Table 1, but the definitions were not provided.

The whole class was then divided into small groups and asked to talk about what each of

the strategies meant to them by supplying definitions, what situations would be appropriate

for using such strategies so that reading comprehension would be enhanced, and why such

strategies should be used. After the discussions, while the text was collaboratively pro-

cessed, the participants were asked to explain what strategies should be used, and how,

why, when and where such strategies should be used. Integrating strategy instruction into

the reading curriculum became a design feature throughout the training program.

Scaffolding, practicing, monitoring and evaluating strategy use

When teaching reading strategies through passages from Holschuh and Kelley (1988, pp.

1–18), as a follow-up procedure, the teacher/researcher intentionally involved the partic-

ipants in the discussion of the strategies and then asked them to use them in the reading

tasks in small groups with reference to pre-, while-, or post-stages in reading. The rele-

vance and effectiveness of such strategy use were shared immediately among the members

of each group of 4–5 students prior to any class presentations. The activities were

supervised and the participants were ensured of opportunities to talk about their strategy-

use experiences after the teacher/researcher’s explaining, modeling and evaluating and so

on were completed. With the passage of time, the teacher-scaffolding was gradually re-

moved to make sure that the students started using these strategies on their own so that

learner autonomy or self-regulation could be regarded as an ultimate goal for the strategy-

based instruction program. This strategy instruction program lasted for 2 months, totaling

48 h of in-classroom instruction.

Table 2 Principles and procedures in strategy instruction

Pedagogical focus Teacher roles and classroom procedures

What was the strategy? Teacher described critical, known features of the strategy and provided adefinition of the strategy

Why should a strategy belearned?

Teacher told the students why they were learning about the strategy byexplaining the purpose of the reading strategy instruction componentand its potential benefits for their self-regulated learning

How was the strategy used? Teacher broke down the strategy, explaining each component of thestrategy as clearly and articulately as possible and show logicalrelationships among the various components

When should the strategy beused?

Teacher illustrated the use of the strategy with reference to particulartext types

Where should the strategy beused?

Teacher showed examples of when the strategy should be used afterdescribing appropriate circumstances under which the strategy wouldbenefit reading comprehension

How should the use of thestrategy be evaluated?

Teacher demonstrated how to evaluate the successful or unsuccessfuluse of the strategy, including suggestions for fix-up strategies to solveremaining problems

Constructivist pedagogy in strategic reading instruction 101

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Results

Learner willingness to be engaged in strategy-based reading instruction

Participant knowledge of the change in learning contexts or learning environments seemed

to be clear. Ninety-three students (96%) strongly realized the sociocultural differences

between the two societies, suggesting the existence of a foreign learning culture in which

they had to struggle for success. Both groups’ responses to the two questions on their

knowledge, interest and willingness to be engaged in strategy-based reading instruction

show that they were quite familiar with the term ‘‘reading strategies’’, but they were not

very sure about what the word ‘‘strategies’’ specifically meant. What they were able to

indicate were some very broad terms, which were typically represented in two—fast

reading and guessing at word meaning. Learners’ willingness to be engaged in strategy-

based reading instruction was manifest. A predominant majority (98%) expressed will-

ingness to learn more about reading strategies so that they could read more efficiently and

strategically. Eighty-nine students (93%) of the total sample said they had heard of the

term. Of the experimental group, 43 (86%) students reported having heard of it, and of the

control group, 46 (93%) had similar experiences. However, their naıve definitions of

strategies showed that their previous EFL reading strategy use experiences were limited

and their self-reports through the questionnaire were also divergent. (In the quotations that

follow, students’ identities are concealed with pseudonyms.) Jiang’s definition of a reading

strategy, for example, showed that he was not very sure of what it really was, even in

Chinese. His fuzzy understanding of it was something like a method of ‘‘how to do

reading’’. Xu, in contrast, seemed to be quite confident of what he thought should be the

defining features of a strategy, as he was able to relate to his experiences of using some of

the strategies, which were to be discussed in the later part of the lesson. Both examples are

shown below.

Extract 1: Reading strategy is...it is how to read...yeah, I don’t know. (Jiang)

Extract 2: Reading strategies is way of reading...they can help us read better. For

example, kuaisu yuedu (fast or speed reading) is useful. (Xu)

Clearly, the two participants came to the EAP program with somewhat different

perceptions of ESL/EFL reading, so both definitions differed in scope and depth. Similar

patterns were found among other participants on the defining features of ‘‘strategies’’.

Needless to say, some might have heard of the term, but actually defining it might have

proven to be a challenging task. Therefore, it is understandable that some students were

not able to name the ‘‘strategies’’ even in the mother tongue. Surprisingly, although they

reported having heard of terms such as kuaisu yuedu (fast reading) and caici (guessing at

word meanings), they did not have any other strategies in their mental stores. Kalaja

(1995) posits that learner beliefs or their metacognitive knowledge about language

learning do not necessarily lead to language improvement. This seems to be true if we do

not make a distinction between the direct and the indirect efforts learners have made to

improve language skills based on their beliefs, or reading strategies, for that matter.

However, learner beliefs or metacognitive knowledge might affect language learning or

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reading comprehension in different ways or vice versa. Therefore, the information ob-

tained for the first two questions has provided us with some useful data on learner

perceptions of EFL reading and this information also paved the way for the instructional

procedures reported in this study.

Strategic reading instruction and learner development

Reading strategy instruction seemed somewhat foreign to some of the Chinese ESL stu-

dents in the beginning of the program, but the experimental group, on being introduced to

the concept of ‘‘reading strategies’’, was keen to learn what it was. The following excerpt

illustrates how the participants involved themselves in the dialogic activities where

teaching reading strategies for better comprehension with reference to specific academic

text types was the central concern in the pedagogical procedures. The excerpts below also

serve to demonstrate the approach and to illustrate learners’ responses to it as part of the

qualitative data. Understandably, the strategy-based reading instruction in the form of

reciprocal teaching led by the teacher was relatively long.

Extract 3:1 T: Ok, class, let’s have a quick look at this passage. Can you see the title?

2 Ss: No. (quite a number of students shake their heads)

3 T: What is the first sentence, then?

4 S1: Humn ... This one ... don’t know.

5 T: Can you guess what the text will be about?

6 Ss: No. (quite a number of students shake their heads)

7 T: Why?

8 S2: Because I can’t see the rest of paragraphs, so I don’t know the meaning of

text.

9 T: You are probably right, Hewen, but let’s see if we have any other comments on

your observations from your classmates.

10 S2: Some information of first paragraph already tell us some text’s main idea.

11 T: Oh, does it? Good. Can you show us?

12 S2: The first few words [pointing to the text].

13 T: Ok, what strategies did we just try using, then?

14 S2: Umh ...

15 T: Jianjun, you seem to have something to say?

16 S3: Yeah. Actually, I think ... I think, we used some strategies ... ‘‘guess’’?

17 T: Yes, ‘‘guess’’, you mean ‘‘guessing’’ as a strategy?

18 Ss: Hmm ... [several students nod heads]

19 T: Yes. We also ‘‘predict’’ text contents by guessing. When you have some words

or expressions that are familiar to you, you can use this knowledge to get at the

meaning of those that are new. What other strategies did we use? Can someone

tell us? ... Very good.

20 S4: We first looked for the first sentence of each paragraph, then we ...

21 T: You mean we were looking for topic sentences.

22 S5: Topic sentence ...Yah.

As the above extract shows, reciprocal teaching through interactive activities imparted

to students some new information on how to read. Their interest in learning to use certain

Constructivist pedagogy in strategic reading instruction 103

123

strategies was also manifest. When asking them to predict the text content by ‘‘guessing’’,

the teacher did not explicitly tell them what strategy was to be used in the beginning.

Instead, students were encouraged to make an effort to experience how that particular

strategy could become available and useful in that context. From line 8 we can see clearly

that students (S2) were expecting to see a broader context in order to get at the meaning of

the paragraph as a whole. This is quite logical in many cases; but to proceed with a more

audacious move is also obvious in some other students. In line 10 another student (S1) said

that she was able to get at the idea of the paragraph because she had noticed that the topic

sentence in the paragraph indicated the main idea of that paragraph. Note that this process

of negotiating meaning among the teacher and the rest of the classmates also engaged all

the students in understanding the process in addition to the product of reading compre-

hension. This aspect of reading instruction seemed to have enhanced learner development

interestingly. We now turn to look at another episode of the classroom process to see how

other aspects of the strategic reading instruction were teased out.

Extract 4:23 T: In our previous lessons, we tried some strategies for efficient or better reading

comprehension. We will try some other strategies in today’s session. What ...?

Yes, Lianyi?

24 S5: Er, we did try some other strategies, such as guessing ...

25 S6: We also tried to pre... predict.

26 T: Good. Yeah, we also tried to predict what the text would be about. Predicting

means to make a logical connection between what you read of the text, , title,

subtitles, etc. and then you feel that you already roughly know the content of

the passage based on your understanding of these or the first sentence.

27 S7: We continued reading although we didn’t completely understand the text.

28 T: Right. Don’t stop reading, because, when you read on, some unclear parts will

show their meanings. Don’t you think so?

29 S8: What do you mean by ‘‘predict’’, sir?

30 T: It is a very good question. Jiemin, can you try to explain it to your classmates,

not only among your group members?

31 S8: Sir, sorry, I can’t do it in English. But I think in Chinese, it is ok for us.

32 T: You mean you know what it means to ‘‘predict’’ in Chinese?

33 S8: Yes, I looked it in my electronic English-Chinese dictionary for its Chinese

meaning yesterday. To predict mean something like guess what is going to

happen; you also explain to us last time.

34 T: Very good. Can we look at the word again and see how it is formed? Now, who

knows that meaning of ‘‘pre-’’? Any examples?

35 S9: Humn ... (a short period of silence)

36 T: Can someone think of any word that begins with ‘‘pre-‘‘?

37 S: Pre- ... (with majority looking at the teacher)

38 T: OK. I understand that we need some time to learn these. ‘‘Pre-‘‘means

‘‘before’’, and ‘‘dict-’’ means ‘‘say’’. So what does ‘‘predict’’ mean?

39 S10: It mean to say something ... earlier ... hmm ...

40 T: Very good. It means you say something before it really happens. It is

interesting to look at words in this way, isn’t it?

41 S10: Yeah. (with the majority nodding their heads).

42 T: So, you have learned another strategy. What should it be called?

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43 S11: Analyze word?

44 S12: Break word?

45 T: Yes, you can read by using familiar word parts to work out unfamiliar word

meaning... by analyzing words, or looking for word parts ... You are looking for

familiar roots, prefixes and suffixes. Again, you used another strategy ... you

used it just now in order to find out the meaning of an unknown word. What is

it, Lei?

46 S8: Using dictionary.

47 T: Quite right. Even dictionary use is not as simple as what we know about. What

will happen in one reading if you use a dictionary too frequently?

48 S13: Our reading speed will be very slow. (Many nod heads to show approval)

49 S14: We will not have enough time. (many others nod heads to show approval)

50 S16: I agree.

51 T: Right. On top of that, we can’t read fast enough to complete the reading

material.

52 S9: Also, as you said, we can guess some words. There is no need to look up every

word in dictionary.

53 T: Exactly. So you have to make quick decisions about whether you should use

the strategy, when and where and why you should or should not. Now, which

places in the first paragraph did you think you had to use a dictionary?

54 S17: Only in the later part of the text. Several new words ... We didn’t know what to

do ...

As evident, Extract 4 is a continuation of the previous lesson on finding topic sentences

in order to summarize the main idea. When the teacher started his reading lesson by

asking the students to think of other strategies they could have come up with, the

students immediately became enthusiastic. They mentioned predicting as a strategy

again. This was the opportune time for the teacher to explain and model its use as

reinforcement. To muster up student courage, the teacher focused on cultivating student

initiation to use the dictionary at this stage. Lines 34 to 53 further show the teacher’s

rationale in bringing in that strategy and the strategy of ‘‘using familiar word parts to

work out unfamiliar word meaning’’ to share with his students. This was followed by an

evaluative question from the teacher to relate students to previous experiences of reading

strategy use. Surprisingly, in line 55 (Extract 5) Liming (S20) said that he had not used

the guessing strategy before.

Clearly, the classroom processes of reading strategy instruction did not always meet

with success. Some degree of student resistance to such strategy instruction was also

perceivable. Lines 2, 6 and 8 show that, before students really saw the value of a

strategy-based approach to reading comprehension, their cooperation was not unani-

mous. Therefore, understanding the rationale for such pedagogy was very important.

However, as the sessions went on, students’ interest in strategic reading grew. Peer

collaboration and classroom talk became very vibrant. The participants finally under-

stood that reading in ESL did not only involve using lexical and grammatical knowl-

edge to derive meaning from the text but also a negotiation process wherein the

primary concern was meaning construction. Notice, however, because of our overall

concern for contextualizing strategy instruction to uncover the issue in relation to the

flow of the lesson, the excerpts are presented in larger blocks instead of in small

segments. It is hoped that in doing so the scenario of how strategy instruction went on

is more accurately depicted.

Constructivist pedagogy in strategic reading instruction 105

123

Extract 5:55 T: You read with a purpose and then you are making hypotheses or guesses about

whether the text is what you expect it is, and in your reading, some of the

wrong guesses will become clear. You confirm whether you make right guesses

and need to correct them or not. This is where ‘‘predicting’’ is necessary. But

do you think you just used the strategies effectively, Xioa Ying?

56 S20: No, first time I use it.

57 T: Why? Why did you say so? Can we have someone give us a reason?

58 S21: I was not sure if I should predict or guess.

59 T: How about you, Jennie?

60 S22: I think we should get more practice using these strategies more often; then we

will know how.

61 T: Ok. Several examples showed that we must understand what strategy we

should use, why we should use it, where and when we should use it. Got it?

62 S23: Yeah.

63 T: Now let’s see how we can more effectively use this and other strategies just

discussed in the following paragraphs ...

Effects of strategy instruction on learner development

Change in learners’ perceived use of reading strategies

The strategy instruction program started with awareness-raising activities, followed by

explaining, modeling, monitoring and evaluating strategy use. In this process the experi-

mental group benefited from group sharing and discussion of many of the instances or

contexts where particular strategies were used. However, the control group did not seem to

improve as much as did the experimental group within a period of two months’ time. The

control group and the experimental group started at the same level, both in terms of their

strategy use and second-language reading proficiency, as shown in Table 3. The mean

scores of both groups’ perceived use of reading strategies did not exhibit any statistically

significant difference on the pretest administered. However, after two months’ strategy

instruction, the experimental group outperformed the control group not only in perceived

strategy use but also in reading improvement.

Table 3 show that, of all the strategies in which the experimental group received

strategy instruction, the two most conspicuous strategies prominently distinguishing the

two groups were ‘‘previewing or survey texts’’ (experimental group M = 6.4 vs. control

group M = 3.20; t = 28.56, P < .001) and ‘‘identifying organizational patterns of text’’

(experimental group M = 6.42 vs. control group M = 3.22; t = 29.92, P < .001). On the rest

of the strategies, statistically significant differences between the two groups were found,

suggesting the effect of strategic reading instruction on students’ perceived use of reading

strategies. As can be seen, the experimental group’s overall use of ‘‘global’’ reading

strategies, namely, strategies that were more concerned with the meaning than the form of

the language, was particularly obvious. However, this does not mean that they did not use

less ‘‘global’’ strategies. For example, statistics show that the experimental group per-

formed better than did the control group on all the three: ‘‘scanning for highlighted words

or expressions’’ (M = 5.12 vs. M = 3.66; t = 12.22, P < .05), ‘‘looking for familiar affixes

and roots in unknown words’’ (M = 5.12 vs. M = 3.06; t = 17.43, P < .05), or ‘‘using

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context to make inferences of the meaning of unknown words’’ (M = 5.14 vs. M = 3.06;

t = 13.29, P < .05). Their perceived use of all other strategies except for ‘‘relating meaning

to what is already known’’ (M = 3.42 vs. M = 3.12; t = 2.93, P > .05, not significant) seems

to suggest that as long as provision of strategy instruction is made available, the students

cooperated with the teacher to construct meaning collaboratively in a form of dialogic

interaction.

As Table 4 further indicates, there was an overall change in the experimental group’s

perception of the utility of all the listed reading strategies except one. The most obvious

change was observed in their perception of ‘‘identifying the organizational patterns of

text’’. The difference before and after the strategic reading instruction is very illustrative

Table 3 Perceived reading strategy use by the two groups before and after strategy instruction (N = 99)

Treatment conditions Pretest Posttest

Experiment Control t(two-tailed)

Experiment Control t (two-tailed)

N = 50 N = 49 N = 50 N = 49

Reading strategies Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD

Previewing or surveying 3.13 .62 3.18 .74 2.12 6.40 .15 3.20 .51 28.56***

Activating schema knowledge 2.87 .51 2.85 .45 1.31 4.90 .14 2.98 .37 22.16***

Predicting content 2.10 .43 2.23 .41 1.11 5.89 .39 2.24 .21 23.29***

Scanning for highlighted words orexpressions

3.67 .72 3.72 .52 2.42 5.12 .52 3.66 .15 12.22**

Reading headings, subheadings, etc. 3.21 .32 3.22 .61 2.11 4.23 .48 3.35 .24 10.19**

Self-questioning 3.11 .67 3.00 .77 2.21 4.22 .24 3.10 .59 11.31**

Self-monitoring 3.45 .77 3.51 .71 2.52 5.08 .45 3.50 .28 10.02**

Focusing on meaning, not form 3.23 .72 3.31 .53 2.38 5.12 .44 3.35 .21 12.14**

Relating meaning to what is alreadyknown

3.21 .89 3.01 .72 1.23 3.42 .36 3.12 .34 2.93

Summarizing main ideas after each‘‘chunk’’ of reading

2.95 .68 2.86 .65 1.94 4.28 .76 3.00 .21 11.28**

Asking how the main idea/purpose isrelated to previous paragraph

3.12 .67 3.18 .57 1.78 4.34 .29 3.23 .38 10.31**

Looking for familiar affixes androots in unknown vocabulary

2.98 .56 3.01 .76 1.67 5.12 .39 3.06 .24 17.43**

Using context to make inferences ofthe meaning of unknown words/expressions

3.11 .49 3.00 .67 2.91 5.14 .76 3.06 .38 13.29**

Identifying main ideas andsupporting details

3.00 .37 2.86 .58 1.62 5.18 .52 3.04 .20 16.13**

Evaluating reading 2.91 .51 2.98 .70 2.44 4.30 .76 2.98 .14 15.17**

Giving personal response 2.84 .45 2.78 .64 1.16 4.28 .61 2.79 .44 13.72**

Reviewing to summarize textmeanings

2.89 .23 3.02 .45 2.37 4.34 .79 3.06 .32 12.91**

Checking effectiveness in strategyuse

2.69 .77 2.71 .67 1.10 5.18 .52 3.00 .35 22.73***

Identifying organizational patterns oftext

2.58 .69 2.60 .57 1.51 6.42 .46 3.22 .55 29.92***

** P < .05, *** P < .001

Constructivist pedagogy in strategic reading instruction 107

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(M = 2.58, vs. M = 6.42; t = 32.63, P < .001). This is enlightening, as, after two months of

strategy-based reading instruction, at least the teacher’s effort was reflected in the students’

deliberate articulation of the value of these strategies taught or shared in class. Surprisingly

though, they did not show any statistically significant change in ‘‘relating to what is read to

what is already known’’. This might suggest that these students still needed practice in

associating what was newly learned with what had already been in their minds. It is also

possible that in the reciprocal teaching processes, this strategy was not given sufficient

attention. Or, this strategy could be cognitively more demanding, as it involved not only

linguistic knowledge but also conceptual understanding needed for such a strategy to be

fully activated.

On other strategies, the experimental group clearly improved when compared with their

earlier perceptions of these strategies prior to the strategy instruction program. The other

noticeable one is ‘‘previewing or surveying’’ reading materials before reading (M = 3.13,

vs. M = 6.40; t = 32.12, P < .001). ‘‘Activating schema knowledge’’ (M = 2.87 vs.

M = 4.90; t = 24.21, P < .001) and ‘‘predicting content’’ (M = 2.10 vs. M = 5.89; t = 25.35,

P < .001) were highly regarded. This is logical, as most often, when predicting text

contents, readers rely heavily on the schema knowledge stored in their memory. This part

of the results seems to indicate that these students were psychologically ready to absorb

this knowledge. What is more compelling is that they realized the importance of ‘‘checking

effectiveness in strategy use’’ (M = 2.69 vs. M = 5.18; t = 26.22, P < .001). As mentioned

Table 4 Instructional effects on the experimental group’s reading strategy use (N = 50)

Reading strategies Treatment conditions

Pretest Posttest t (two-tailed)

Mean SD Mean SD

Previewing or surveying 3.13 .62 6.40 .15 32.12***

Activating schema knowledge 2.87 .51 4.90 .14 24.21***

Predicting content 2.10 .43 5.89 .39 25.35***

Scanning for highlighted words or expressions 3.67 .72 5.12 .52 15.34**

Reading headings, subheadings, etc. 3.21 .32 4.23 .48 13.25**

Self-questioning 3.11 .67 4.22 .24 12.13**

Self-monitoring 3.45 .77 5.08 .45 15.38**

Focusing on meaning, not form 3.23 .72 5.12 .44 18.21**

Relating meaning to what is already known 3.21 .89 3.42 .36 n.s.

Summarizing main ideas after each ‘‘chunk’’ of reading 2.95 .68 4.28 .76 14.34**

Asking how the main idea/purpose is related to previous paragraph 3.12 .67 4.34 .29 12.32**

Looking for familiar affixes and roots in unknown vocabulary 2.98 .56 5.12 .39 19.34**

Using context to make inferences of the meaning of unknown words/expressions

3.11 .49 5.14 .76 16.21**

Identifying main ideas and supporting details 3.00 .37 5.18 .52 17.32**

Evaluating reading 2.91 .51 4.30 .76 12.73**

Giving personal response 2.84 .45 4.28 .61 13.72**

Reviewing to summarize text meanings 2.89 .23 4.34 .79 10.69**

Checking effectiveness in strategy use 2.69 .77 5.18 .52 26.22***

Identifying the organization patterns of text 2.58 .69 6.42 .46 32.63***

** P < .05, *** P < .001

108 L. J. Zhang

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earlier, learners’ more frequent use of a strategy without flexibility and proper evaluation

does not necessarily lead to effective learning. If this is taken to be true, then the small

change we have seen here can be regarded as meaningful.

Improvement in reading performance

To see the possible effects of strategy instruction on reading improvement, the EFL reading

scores on the pretest and the posttest were compared. The two groups’ reading scores were

submitted for independent t-tests. The two groups were at the same starting level, and again

the experimental group seemed to have benefited from such instruction. Although the two

groups’ reading scores improved over a period of time, results in Table 5 show that there

were statically significant differences between the two groups’ performance on the posttest

(t = 10.71, P < .001).

The result of a post-hoc test used to test the effect size shows that the value of g2 = .34

is statistically good (Glass and Hopkins 1996, pp. 289–290), suggesting that the strategy

instruction can account for about 34% of the variances, indicating a strong association

between strategy training and reading performance improvement for the experimental

group. The control group did not seem to have gained as much on the posttest as did the

experimental group. Furthermore, their perceived reading behavior change, as seen in their

choice of strategies, was also minimal; that is, they did not seem to attribute much value to

the strategies that were given to them for choice possibly because of a lack of teacher

provision or instruction. One may argue that the experimental group’s overall growth in

language proficiency would also have contributed to the participants’ improvement in

reading performance while they were on the EAP program. However, given that the control

group did not improve in either their perceived use of reading strategies or their reading

performance, even though the same teacher used the same authentic reading materials in

both groups, it can be suggested that the strategic reading instruction program helped the

experimental group’s perceived reading behavior change as well as improvement in

reading comprehension.

Discussion

Strategic reading instruction with PRC students

The findings from this study indicate that the PRC students showed progress both in

perceived reading strategy use and reading comprehension as a result of the strategic

Table 5 EFL reading performance before and after strategy instruction for control and experimental groups

Treatment condition Pretest Posttest

Groups compared Control (N = 49) Experimental (N = 50) Control(N = 49)

Experimental(N = 50)

EFL reading scores M = 20.14 M = 20.52 M = 21.38 M = 23.84

SD = 2.20 SD = 2.24 SD = 2.27 SD = 2.19

Significance (2-tailed) t = .851, P = .397 (not statisticallysignificant)

t = 10.71, P < .001; g2 = .34, P < .001

Constructivist pedagogy in strategic reading instruction 109

123

reading instruction. There could be several reasons to explain them. The constructivist

nature of the training program, high levels of motivation and possibly the sociocultural

context in which they studied collectively contributed to their taking a positive attitude

towards strategic reading instruction. Since reading is one of the most uniquely human and

complex of all cognitive activities, helping learners to learn how to read and further

develop their reading skills will help them learn from text by themselves. Moreover,

successful reading requires many basic processes, such as the identification of letters, the

mapping of letters onto sounds, and the recognition of words and syntax, with its ultimate

goal of reading to learn from text (Bernhardt 2005; Smith 2004; Zhang 2002a). Based on

these skills, learners can move a step forward by connecting what is read with what they

already have in their minds as schemata or background knowledge and interact with the

text using this knowledge. In order to achieve these objectives, L2 readers have to continue

practicing using the strategies until they have acquired the skills necessary for independent,

self-regulated or autonomous learning. This is exactly why it is necessary to be optimistic

about the kind of strategic reading instruction conducted so far within the constructivist

framework with the PRC students, as a comparison of the data collected before and after

the instruction shows that the strategic reading instruction had effects on their perceived

reading strategy use in connection with their reading performance improvement.

Possibly because of its Western legacy, research related to reading strategies in con-

nection with PRC students is meager. Earlier reports on Chinese EFL learners seem to

suggest that strategies used by Chinese EFL students are of a low-order and that they do

not have the conceptual abilities to use those strategies strongly promoted by researchers

and teachers in the West (Field 1985; Kohn 1992). If this is true, then the instructional

procedures resulted in some degree of change in the participants’ perceived use of reading

strategies in the experimental group, whereas for the control group their reading behaviors

tended to lapse into dubiety due to a lack of exposure to strategy instruction. One

explanation for the change could be that they might have realized the value of a strategy-

based approach because they were in a new learning and social context where the

requirements for academic literacy in English were different from what they believed in

while they were in their home country, where they learned EFL simply for satisfying

graduation requirements in the Chinese education system. Moreover, such classroom

intervention was their first experience, as they realized that a predominant part of the

instruction was centered on learner contributions in participatory activities.

As we can see, the instructional component adopted in the present study covered most

of what Paris et al. (1994) have termed declarative knowledge, procedural knowledge and

conditional knowledge. The first one deals with what the strategy is and why the strategy

should be used; the second deals with how the strategy should be used; and the third one

deals with when and where the strategy should be used and how to evaluate the effec-

tiveness of the strategy used. The experimental group’s improvement in strategy use and its

reading performance seems to show that teacher explanations that were inclusive of most

of the six elements in the Winograd and Hare (1988) instructional model worked to a great

extent. Participants’ endorsement of those strategies usually regarded in the literature as

more beneficial to reading comprehension suggests that at least they made a mental move

away from clinging to basic skill utilization as represented by the use of decoding strat-

egies at the lexical and sentential levels only. Instead, they made attempts at approaching

the reading material holistically, and in addition, they also dealt with local features of the

reading tasks. Considering that Chinese students have been traditionally branded ‘‘rote’’

learners, who do not seem to know the use of the strategic resources to enhance learning to

110 L. J. Zhang

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optimal effects, this change is phenomenally rewarding, refuting some of the assertions

made about PRC ESL/EFL learners (e.g. Field 1985; Kohn 1992).

Vygotsky’s (1986) sociocultural perspectives emphasize that peer sharing and collab-

orative learning in conducive environments can lead to effective learning and learner

efficacy. The results of the present study indicate that with instructional intervention

through teacher-student dialogs within the framework of constructivist pedagogy, i.e.

within learners’ ‘‘ZPD’’, reading strategy use can be reinforced, leading to progress in

perceived strategy use and reading performance improvement; whereas neglect of strategy

training could possibly lead to the reduction of effective and flexible strategy use, nega-

tively affecting reading comprehension. Part of the results also lends support to earlier

research findings in second language acquisition research on the effects of instruction on

learner performance improvement (e.g. Anderson 1999; Harris 2003; Nassaji and Swain

2000). This may be particularly relevant when these students will have to meet future

challenges in academic settings where they are required to read large quantities of print and

non-print materials in specific science or engineering fields.

It needs to be highlighted that learners’ high levels of motivation seemed to have

boosted their engagement with the strategic reading instruction. In one way or another,

strategic reading instruction appeared to be new to some students at the outset of the

program, but when students were briefed on the importance of reading strategies in

effective reading comprehension, and when the teacher/researcher took great care in

implementing the strategic reading instruction program, students became cooperative. As

described earlier, these PRC students were highly motivated, which might be the reason

why a constructivist approach worked well in the present study. Although many of the

strategies given to them in the pre-training session were quite foreign to them, they did not

take a hostile attitude; instead, they were almost ready to learn something new, but were

anxious about how they could manage so many reading tasks by reading ‘‘more strate-

gically’’ (Zhang 2000b, p. 48). The learning context also functioned to help to take part in

the learning process actively. That accounts for why after two months of strategy training,

clear differences were observed. It has to be borne in mind, however, that these differences

in strategy preferences are only participant perceptions. Woven together with the findings

are participants’ learning style differences, which are equally important learner variables

not taken into consideration in the present study. At this juncture, it can only be speculated

that their respect for the teacher in the classroom, the change in the learning context and

career orientations in using English could also have functioned in contributing to the

success of the training program.

Alexander (1995) proposes implementing a Domain Model of Learning. She suggests

that self-regulation or metacognition may be affected by the level of knowledge learners

have in a particular domain. Thus, novice and expert learners may be distinguished from

each other in terms of the competence they have in learning to read or reading to learn.

This means that novices ‘‘are likely to engage in metacognitive activities less often and

less successfully than learners with more subject area knowledge, who are at the com-

petence stage of learning in a domain’’ (cited in Hartman 2001, p. 39). Therefore, one of

the implications of such interventional procedures reported here might be that these stu-

dents, by virtue of the didactic effects aforementioned, will start thinking about how some

metacognitive and cognitive reading strategies can be successfully translated into new

tasks in the pre-, during-, or post-reading stages and interactively. This rethinking should

be particularly beneficial to EAP students who are to read texts of different domain

knowledge prior to their being streamlined to their future areas of academic concentration.

Constructivist pedagogy in strategic reading instruction 111

123

Cultures of learning and strategic reading instruction

While the present study attempted to examine students’ perceived use of reading strategies

before and after the instructional intervention, students could have been asked to indicate

some of the new strategies they adopted and why, in relation to their cultures of learning.

As reported above, several students said that they had not expected that the reading teacher

would spend so many sessions teaching them how to read ‘‘strategically’’. What they had

waited for was the teacher’s explanation of language points through a more ‘‘intensive/

close reading’’ mode in order to get the precise meaning of texts. Nevertheless, they gained

from such instruction. Instead of resisting such instruction, they responded well. This

suggests that students’ cultures of learning changed with the new context in which they had

to struggle for academic success. It is clear that, although the Chinese have the saying that

a good reader can ‘‘read ten lines at a glance’’ (yimu shihang), the students were not taught

sufficient strategies in their L2 reading classes while they were in China, as they had

reported. It could also be true that they had difficulty transferring useful L1 reading

strategies to L2 reading when the orthographies were different. However, it is more

important that these learners should be made aware that the use of reading strategies is

essential to successful reading and some so-called bottom-up strategies such as ‘‘re-

reading’’ and ‘‘checking the exact meaning of words’’ favored in Chinese EFL classrooms

are not necessarily bad strategies; rather they should be informed that the flexibility and

appropriateness in using a particular strategy are crucial to effective reading and that there

should be an interaction between bottom-up and top-down strategies. They should also be

made aware that the orchestration of which strategy depends on whether they have the

metacognitive strategic knowledge that could guide their orchestration of other strategies

they use.

Obviously, though there was the worry that reading strategy instruction, as a concept,

was somewhat foreign to Chinese EFL students, when it was introduced to the students,

they responded to such instructional intervention, indicating their willingness to be en-

gaged in the learning processes. As a result, their strategy use and reading performance

improved. This means that reading teachers, working from an understanding of the prior

learning culture of these students, can teach reading strategies. Of course, care needs to be

taken in classroom procedures so that classroom dynamics can be maintained in partici-

patory activities.

The findings from this study seem to have reflected a scenario where an emphasis on the

effect of mediation and teacher thinking in adapting curricular contents to learning envi-

ronments benefited students. This suggests that the teaching of second/foreign language

reading is never done in a vacuum. A needs analysis can thus be a good starting point for

all curriculum and instructional designs, particularly in the case of EAP programs such as

the one reported in this study. The analysis has to take into consideration student learning

style differences, motivational levels, cultural inclinations, interests, difficulty levels of

instructional materials, the social context in which learning and teaching take place, and

literacy experiences in students’ L1 and L2 cultures.

McKay and Wong (1996) argue for a revision of code-based and individual learner-

based views of ESL learning of Mandarin-speaking Chinese students in the USA, in that

students are not only subjected to, but are also the subjects of, mutually interacting mul-

tiple discourses. Therefore, students necessarily negotiate dynamic and sometimes con-

tradictory multiple identities that are related to their exercise of agency in terms of their

positioning in relations of power in both the school and society. This makes it imperative

that teachers consider student subjectivity in the learning process, even in ESL classrooms.

112 L. J. Zhang

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Teachers’ classroom procedures that include students’ cultural inclinations and curriculum

objectives should become normal practice. This is because such an instructional envi-

ronment makes it possible for teachers and students to co-construct the meaning of text

through dialogic communication of the reading processes and other important factors

pertaining to effective and efficient reading. Such classroom procedures also offer students

chances to reveal the processes of reading in classroom activities such as think-aloud.

Through these activities teachers can get relevant information about students’ deficit in

strategic resources and students get necessary inklings of what they should be doing in

effective reading, how they should be doing it, and why, when and where they should be

doing it when encountering new reading tasks.

Conclusion and recommendation for further research

The present study was set up within a constructivist framework to explore how learner

willingness or receptiveness to strategic reading instruction could contribute to learner

development and the possible effects of such instruction on reading improvement for ESL

students from the PRC. The two assumptions that motivated the present study were: (1)

reading was a high-order skill which could be automatized when provision of sufficient

linguistic input and strategy training was accessible; and (2) reading was also a socio-

cultural and interactive process of information restructuring. The results suggest that the

PRC ESL learners responded positively to such intervention, in that the strategic com-

ponent in classroom practice provided opportunities for them to practice reading strategies

and that the kind of constructivist approach engaged them in the sociocultural and inter-

active processes of information restructuring. Moreover, the reciprocal teaching activities

promoted learner development. It appears that, although different cultures have their own

L1 literacy practices, strongly motivated EAP learners are able to accommodate change

under the guidance of the teacher through dialogic interaction in classroom contexts when

the learning environment changes, as rightly pointed out by other researchers (e.g. Gan

et al. 2004; Gao 2003; Littlewood 1999; Wertsch 1985). The findings of this study also

produced some evidence that lends further support to pedagogical initiatives that have

incorporated strategy instruction in second/foreign-language contexts (e.g. Anderson 1999;

Chamot et al. 1999; Chamot and O’Malley 1994; Cohen 1998; Harris 2003; Oxford 2001).

Given the positive effect of such teacher intervention observed in this study, it is important

that teachers acknowledge and adapt to what learners bring to the classroom.

The study has several limitations that need to be pointed out. The small number of

participants, the limited qualitative data and the inherent limitation of the questionnaire as

a research instrument all restrict the generalizability of this study. Given that the results

reported in this study are only students’ perceived use of reading strategies, which may or

may not reflect their actual use of these reading strategies in authentic reading tasks, they

should be interpreted with caution. Further work is needed to replicate this study and

validate some of the tentative recommendations so that ESL reading instruction will be

able to address the needs of the students who come from culturally divergent backgrounds.

Acknowledgments This is a revised version of a paper presented at the 37th International IATEFLConference in Brighton, April 2003, UK. I thank Professors Sandra McKay, Joan Rubin, Andrew Cohen,Anna Chamot, Rebecca Oxford, Larry Vandergrift, Neil Anderson, Sara Cotterall and Ernesto Macaro fortheir encouragement and helpful suggestions in various stages of my writing it up. I owe the Editor,Professor Peter Goodyear and the reviewers, for their very constructive comments that have substantiallyhelped improve the clarity of this paper. I am also obliged to my colleagues, Dr Heather Kay, Dr Peter Gu

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and Mrs Donglan Zhang for carefully reading through and making incisive comments on earlier versions ofthis paper. I am indebted to all the participants in this study for their warm cooperation. Any error oromission remains my responsibility.

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