Improving Adult College Students' EFL Reading Ability Through Reciprocal Teaching: An Empirical Study

Affected by the theoretical basis for reciprocal teaching and promoted by the effectiveness of reciprocal teaching in EFL or ESL contexts reported by previous researchers, the researcher conducted an empirical study using the pretest-posttest control group design to investigate whether reciprocal teaching is more effective in improving EFL adult college students'reading ability (reading comprehension and strategy use) than traditional teaching.To fulfill the research purpose, three research questions were prepared to guide the research. Reading comprehension tests, reading strategies questionnaire, and guided think-aloud interview were used as the research instruments. All data were analyzed using SPSS (15.0). The significance level was set at P=.05 throughout the study. In accordance with the purposes of the study, independent samples t-test, Mann-Whitney test, analysis of covariance, and Pearson correlation tests were used to analyze the collected data.The results reveal no significant differences between the two groups'posttest reading performance. But significant differences were found between two classes in terms of students'strategy use frequency after the experiment.More detailed investigation into students'strategy use was conducted through the guided think-aloud interview. The results reveal that 70% of the subjects in the experiment group performed well in the think-aloud interview; while 30% of the students had difficulties in the same process. After matching each student's performance in think-alouds with the change in reading performance, the researcher found among the 28 students who performed well in think-alouds, 20 students made progress in reading performance. This indicates that strategy use is beneficial to students'reading comprehension to some extent. 8 students did not change in reading performance. This implies that strategy use is not the only factor influencing reading comprehension. In addition, there is significant correlation between students'strategy use frequency and reading performance, which supports the necessity of strategy instruction in EFL teaching.The researcher concludes that, in this experimental condition, reciprocal teaching is more effective in improving students'reading strategy use frequency but not necessarily more effective in improving students'reading performance than traditional teaching. When teaching less proficient students, strategy instruction should be combined with vocabulary teaching.The results were interpreted based on the theories stated in this thesis. Limitations of the study were stated. Implications were presented and recommendations for future research were given.