Chunked Texts in Reading Class: The Case of Turkish Learners of English

Abstract

The present study aims at determining the effects of one of those reading strategies, namely, chunking on the reading comprehension of learners of English. The study was conducted with the preparatory class students at the Department of English Language Teaching of the Faculty of Education of Ondokuz Mayıs University in Turkey. The learners were assigned to experimental and control groups randomly. The study was employed non-equivalent control group pretest-posttest design where the number of subjects was a total of 36. While chunking was implemented in reading classes of the experimental group, ordinary reading texts were implemented in control group. In conclusion, chunking, as an effective reading strategy, improved the reading skills of the learners of English.

Selected research in applied linguistics and English language teaching in Turkey: 2010–2016

“…The most frequently addressed topic in this area is that of reading. Several works have explored the effectiveness of different materials or methods (Kıroğlu & Demirel 2012; Göksu & Genç 2013; Koçer & Turgut 2013) on improving reading or reading-related skills. The materials covered are graphic organizers (Öztürk 2012), comic strips (Merç 2013), and graphic novels (Öz & Efecioğlu 2015).…”

“…Turning to particular methods of reading instruction, two focused on reading strategies and university level EFL students. Kıroğlu & Demirel (2012) make a powerful argument for the teaching of ‘chunking’ as a reading strategy, showing that, particularly for weaker readers, a treatment period in which chunking strategy was taught resulted in significantly higher scores not only on an immediate post-test for reading comprehension but also on a delayed post-test two months afterwards, suggesting that the students had indeed internalized that strategy use. On the other hand, Koçer & Turgut's (2013) study on students’ use of various reading strategies found that even with explicit training, an experimental group failed to show a significant difference from a control group in terms of use of cognitive and, in particular, metacognitive strategies, nor did the treatment group score higher on a post-experiment reading comprehension test.…”