Republic of the Philippines Philippine Normal University The National Center for Teacher Education
A Research Proposal in READ 506
L i nguistics in R eadi ng
Chunking As a Strategy to Improve Reading Comprehension of Grade 11 Students
Bonjovi Hassan Hajan
M.A.Ed in English Language Language Teaching The Researcher
Heidi Barcelo-Macahilig, Ph.D.
Course Instructor 1
Chunking As a Strategy to Improve Reading Comprehension of Grade 11 ESL Students
Bonjovi Hassan Hajan M.A.Ed in English Language Teaching Philippine Normal University- Manila
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Introduction
I.
Background of the Study
In the Philippine contexts where English is used a Second Language (ESL), reading competence has been reasonably an issue. In fact, the number of learners with low reading competence continues to decline each year. Luz (2007) reported that in elementary schools, particularly in the Division of Manila, PhilIRI (Philippine-Informal Reading Inventory) test scores disclosed that only onesixth to one-third of pupils have the ability to read independently at the desired grade level. By the end of the elementary cycle (Grade 6), report showed that over one-third of elementary graduates were determined as ―frustrated‖ readers whereas another one-third were ―instructional‖ readers. Both levels actually fell below the desired reading level at the end of the elementary cycle. It was probed then that if this was the actual phenomenon in Metro Manila, then much lower levels of reading competence of learners in other regions of the country could be anticipated since less provisions and educational facilities are made available within those areas as compared to the National Capital Region. Reading is pivotal in learners‘ academic performance and endeavor in life. It is the bedrock of instruction for all learners regardless of their ability level because it sets the premise for future progress and achievement in almost all other phases of life (Scott 2010; Luckner & Handley 2008). It is an influential learning mechanism, an instrument of meaning-making and knowledge acquisition (Pretorius, 2002). Thus, the ability to read and make sense of what is read is immensely significant.
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Research has shown that there could be several reasons behind learners‘ difficulties and failure in reading. Suzuki (2005), for example, highlighted that such factors which tend to have incremental effects include a limited vocabulary and insufficiency of grammatical knowledge. Poor mastery over vocabulary or the lack of lexicons, habit of cramming instead of learning and understanding, weak sentence structure and tenses, not using the tricks to infer the meaning from context, no habit of reading the newspapers, articles, novels and other books, and a lack of interest from both sides (from teachers and students in developing the skill) are also some major factors causing poor reading comprehension (Iqbal, et. Al, 2015). More often than not, in an ESL context as in the Philippines, students would find it difficult to comprehend English texts which are syntactically complex in nature. In this case, not only is vocabulary knowledge important, the ability to parse complex sentences and break them down into pieces that will be made comprehensible enough becomes quite necessary. It follows eventually that when this happens, students may require an ample time to process the information. Sometimes, students lack clarity in understanding a text or require a substantial amount of time to comprehend it because of a lack of exposure to English language texts. The teaching of the English language skills, specifically reading should focus on low-level processing, including vocabulary, phrase/syntactic structures, and filling knowledge gaps. This study thus considers one essential aspect which is phrase and sentence processing. Since failure in reading is largely rooted in the way learners deal with the syntactic structure, an investigation of a strategy that aids in processing such a complex syntactic structure which, in turn, has a potent impact on comprehending the text becomes relatively indispensable.
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II.
Statement of the Problem This study is an effort to look into the effectiveness of chunking as a reading strategy on reading comprehension of Grade 11 ESL students. In particular, it seeks to provide answers to the following research questions: 1. What does the reading comprehension of Grade 11 ESL students portray? 2. Does chunking as a reading strategy have an impact on reading comprehension of these students? 3. Does chunking as a reading strategy have an impact on the development of chunking skills among these students?
III.
H ypothesis of the Study Ho1: There is no effect of chunking as a reading strategy on reading comprehension of students. Ho2: There is no effect of chunking as a reading strategy on the development of chunking skills among students.
I V.
Scope and Limitation This study will be limited to Grade 11 students of MFI Polytechnic Institute Inc., Pasig City, Philippines to determine the effectiveness of chunking as a reading strategy in improving reading comprehension.
V.
Significance of the Study The findings of the study may be useful to the following: Learners. The learners will benefit from this study since they are at the receiving end of the strategy used by the teachers which is chunking. 5
Teachers. The result of the study will yield pedagogical implications useful for teachers to practice empirically proven strategies to improve reading comprehension of learners with reading difficulties. Administrators. The administrators/principal can use the result of the study as a basis for motivating teachers to reflect on the reading and comprehension issues of students. Future Researchers. Future research may take off from the findings of this study to continuously innovate solutions to teachers and improve reading problems experienced by learners in schools.
VI .
Review of Related Literature In recent years, research has tended to pay attention to chunking as part of English language instruction. Chunking is the process where one ‗chunk‘ is joined to another in a sequence (Tanaka, 2006). A ‗chunk‘ is a semantically and structurally distinctive unit established in series within the sentence. Nishida (2009) formally defined a chunk as ―a unit of memory organization, formed by bringing together a set of already formed elements in memory and welding them together into a larger unit‖ (p. 7). When re ading a text, the reader goes through a number of processes. First, there is vocabulary processing where morphological awareness is much needed, then understanding phrase units based on chunks, followed by sentence processing/comprehension, which occurs in relation to syntactic structure. In sentence processing where chunking is supposed to be done, the knowledge on syntax is highly necessary as it facilitates the process of
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understanding the texts and aids the reader in restructuring and organizing the content of each sentence. Reading comprehension does not only entail the ability to chunk, but also the ability to understand the syntactic structure and how each chunk functions accordingly in the sentence to give the meaning of a whole. Thus, it is imperative that the teaching of chunking in reading bank on explanations about the relationship between different chunks and the structure of the sentence (Hijikata, 2010). Grabe (2002) defines reading comprehension as a set of indispensable processes including rapid, efficient, interactive, strategic, linguistic, flexible, comprehending and evaluating processes. Reading comprehension is a combined product of the various processes mentioned. It does not simply occur by one process alone and all of the processes shared are perceived to be relevant for fluency in reading English. Poor reading comprehension has almost always been attributed to the fact that many learners are struggling to process phrases because their familiarity on phrase structure is sufficiently low. Tenma (2002) pointed out that without much knowledge on how to parse certain words, the learner is likely to have difficulty understanding where one semantic unit begins and another ends. Interestingly, even if the learners carry out phrase processing, when adding information from newly read chunks to the previously read English text, they fail to understand the relationship between the new and old chunks without knowledge of the syntactic structure — thus, leading to the misinterpretation of text. In order to foster reading comprehension, chunk reading is needed as it helps the learner understand how meanings in English are created (Tanaka, 2006). Furthermore, the teaching of
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phrases and syntactic structures is also pivotal in enhancing grammatical knowledge. As proposed by Kuhn and Stahl (2004), chunking is one important ingredient in reading fluency. It has the benefits for : strengthened processing speed (Yubune, 2012; Nishida, 2009; Ellis, 2003; Newell, 1990); enhanced reading comprehension (Ellis, 1996, 2001; Tuchiya, 2002; Ushiro, 2002); and the stimulation of direct reading with direct understanding (Shiokawa, 2008; Terashima, 2002). However, research shows that the connection between comprehension and the ability to chunk is rather questionable. Studies conducted by Ohtagaki and Ohmori (1991), Tan and Nicholson (1997), and Komaba (1992) whereby advanced learners were taught chunking unearthed that chunking veils a positive effect on reading comprehension. On the other hand, a study by Komaba (1992) wherein both beginners and intermediate learners were taught chunking yielded that no effect of chunking was observed on reading comprehension. Interestingly, the reading proficiency level necessary for the maximum impact of chunking is widely disputed. While Nishida (2009), Rasinski (1990), Yubune (2012), and Yubune, Kanda, & Tabuchi (2009) outlined an effect of chunking among beginning learners, Oikawa (1996) revealed that the effect was displayed only by intermediate learners.Notably, it is difficult to compare both reading proficiency of the participants and the level of text difficulty used in these studies. Moreover, Nishida (2013) unearthed that ―consistent practice of chunking successfully decreased the number of chunking errors, which is because repetition of the chunking process increased participants‘ knowledge of chunks and chunking, resulting in a shift from use of declarative to procedural memory‖ (p. 179).
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Pereyra (2015) supports this claim exposing that extensive reading practices do enhance intermediate learners‘ knowledge on lexical chunks. However, further study is needed in order to determine whether chunks are effective and whether reading proficiency impacts the ability to chunk. It should be noted that none of the studies mentioned looked into whether chunking has a significant impact on reading comprehension of Grade 11 students specificall y in the ESL context of the Philippines and whether, as a reading strategy, it has an effect on the development of chunking skills among these students.
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Methods
I.
Research Design The study will make use of experimental research design. The employment of pre and post tests in this research is a ― preferred method to compare and evaluate the degree of change appearing as a result of treatment or interventions among participant groups‖ (Mackey & Gass, 2005).
II.
Participants The study will employ 215 Grade 11 ESL students of MFI Polytechnic Institute Inc. who are enrolled in Reading and Writing classes during the school year 2017-2018. Participants will be divided into two groups: one experimental and the other control. Experimental group 1 comprising 108 will be taught on how to effectively use chunk reading and knowledge of phrase/syntactic structure, while control group 2 consisting of 107 students will be given no instruction at all.
III.
Procedure
Test The teaching period will take place for 12 weeks which is equivalent to 3 months. The pre-tests will be administered at the beginning of the semester and the post-tests in the middle (during the 12 th week). The first will be a chunking test consisting of a 352-word English passage where participants are required to divide the text into chunks. The second test will be a reading test. Both the preand post-reading tests included three reading passages. The participants will read
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all three passages (which ranged from 310 to 367 words) and then answer four multiple-choice questions, assessing their level of understanding. Two passages will be taken from the Eiken Pre-Second Grade test (Test in Practical English Proficiency) designed for second-year high school students and another from a Second Grade test for high school graduates. There will be 15 questions in total (resulting in a maximum score of 15). The time limit for the test will be 25 minutes.
Material The English passages in the experimental classes will range between 256 and 647 words, with Flesch Reading Ease levels between 67.0 and 59.5 and Flesch-Kincaid Grade Levels between 6.2 and 8.2. The level of difficulty of the texts will then gradually be increased, while care will be taken not to set it too high for the participants.
Instruction The instructions for experimental group 1 will be as follows. (1) Printouts of English passages will be distributed at the end of each class. On the printouts, slashes are inserted into the text to identify each chunk unit. As class prep work, the participants may write the Filipino translation under each respective chunk in order to demonstrate their understanding of the content. (2) During the class, participants are taught the correct meaning of the English text. While doing this, a teacher carefully explains, as appropriate, how the different phrases are connected together. During this process, the English text will be comprehended not by reading and translating, but by reading each chunk
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from left to right without converting it to Filipino. In addition, instructions on the phrase and syntactic structure are given. (3) The participants will practice by inserting slashes into different English text (about 100 words) to mark the chunks off themselves, after which they then will submit their work. The control group will not receive any instructions. They will be given the English passage to read and are required to summarize each paragraph and then answer questions to assess their level of understanding.
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References
Ellis, N. C. (2003). Constructions, chunking and connectionism: The emergence of second language structure. In C. J. Doughty & M. H. Long (Eds.), The handbook of second language acquisition (pp. 63-103). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. Ellis, N. C. (2001). Memory for language. In P. Robinson (Ed.), Cognition and second language instruction (pp. 33-68). New York: Cambridge University Press. Ellis, N. C. (1996). Sequence in SLA: Phonological memory, chunking, and points of order. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 18, 91-126. Grabe, W. (2002). The nature of reading abilities. In W. Grabe & F. L. Stoller (Eds.), Teaching and researching reading (pp. 9-39). Essex: Pearson Education. Hijikata, Y. (2010). Reading chunks (phrases). In S. Kadota, T. Shiki (Eds.), English reading instruction handbook (pp. 52-61). Tokyo: Taishukan Shoten. Iqbal, M., Noor, M., Muhabat, F., & Kazemn, B. (2015 ). Factors Responsible for Poor English Reading Comprehension at Secondary Level. Communication and Linguistics Studies 1, 1-6 Komaba, T. (1992). Computer-based reading instruction for communication: Phrase reading and speed skill. STEP BULLETIN, 4, 88-105. Kuhn, M. R., & Stahl, S. A. (2004). Fluency: A review of developmental and remedial practices. In D. E. Alvermann, N. J. Unrau & R. B. Ruddell (Eds.), Theoretical models and processes of reading (pp. 412-453). Newark, DE: International Reading Associ ation. Luz, M. J. (2007). Literature and Literacy: A Nation of Non-Readers. Retrieved on Februar y 5, 2016. Retrieved from http://pcij.org/stories/a-nation-of-nonreaders/ Luckner, J.L. & Handley, C. M., 2008, ‗A summary of the reading comprehension research undertaken with students who are deaf or hard of hearing‘, American Annals of the Deaf 1, 6 – 36. Macky, Alison and Gass, M. Susan: Second Language Research: methodology and techniques. New Jersey, 2005. Newell, A. (1990). United theories of cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Nishida, H. (2013). The Influence of Chunking on Reading Comprehension: Investigating the Acquisition of Chunking Skill. The Journal of Asia TEFL, 10 (4), 163-183 Nishida, H.(2009). Comparison of reading aloud, chunking, and grammar as instruction techniques for reading comprehension. KWANSAI REVIEW, 25 & 26, 21-30. Ohtagaki, M., & Ohmori, T. (1991). The advantage of ‗progressive‘ reading activities using sense groups for Japanese English learners: An experimental study. ARELE, 2, 83-92. Oikawa, K. (1996). An empirical study on the effects of learners‘ vocabulary and phrase reading. The Bulletin of the Kanto-Koshin-Etsu English Language Education Society, 10, 15-23. Pereyra, N. (2015). Extensive Reading in Enhancing Lexical Chunks Acquisition. The Reading Matrix: An International Online Journal, 15 (2), 218-234 Pretorius, E.J., 2002, ‗Reading and applied linguistics: A deafening silence?‘ Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 20, 91 – 103. Rasinski, T. V. (1990). The effects of cued phrase boundaries on reading performance: A Review. ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 313689. Scott, R.M., 2010, ‗Word study instruction: Enhancing reading comprehension‘, The Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat . Shiokawa, H. (2008). Reading instruction focusing on chunks. Unicorn Journal, 68, 2-5.
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Suzuki, J. (2005, April). Integration of theory and practice of English education: How to raise English proficiency of students with limited English proficiency. Paper presented at t he 50th meeting of Kansai English and English Literature Society, Hyogo, Japan. Tan, A., & Nicholson, T. (1997). Flashcards revisited: Training poor readers to read words faster improves their comprehension of text. Journal of Educational Psychology, 89, 276-288. Tanaka, S. (2006). Chunking method. In S. Tanaka, Y. Sato & H. Abe (Eds.), Practical instruction giving learners an English awareness: Core and chunk usage (pp. 183-236), Tokyo: Taishukan Shoten. Tenma, M. (2002). What is reading? In The Reading Study Group of the Research Institute for Languages and Cultures at Tsuda College (Ed.), Reading English: Process and instruction (pp. 1-16), Tokyo: Taishukan Shoten. Terashima, M. (2002). The challenge of direct reading with direct understanding in English. Tokyo: Asunaro sha. Tsuchiya, N. (2002). Effects of word length and influence of chunking in L2 listening passages. In Proceedings of the 28th Japan Society of English Language Education Kobe Research Forum (pp. 479-482). Ushiro, Y. (2002). Reading comprehension working memory as a crucial component of Japanese EFL reading. IRICE PLAZA, 12, 68-79. Yubune, E. (2012). Development of web-based material for chunk-based reading aloud and shadowing. The Bulletin of the Institute of Human Sciences, Toyo University, 14, 83-94. Yubune, E., Kanda, A., & Tabuchi, R. (2009). Effects on learning in English speed reading exercises using CALL chunk indications. Language Education & Technology, 46, 247-262
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