The Reading Strategies Awareness among English as a Second Language (ESL) Learners in Malaysia’s University

Abstract

Abstract-This research paper aims to measure the awareness level of reading strategies of the English as Second Language (ESL) Learners in Universiti Teknologi MARA, Penang. This study has included the measurement of their perceived use of reading strategies while reading academic materials since reading of specialized academic material in the second language is beginning to receive attention. This type of academic reading is also important to test the learners' reading comprehension skills and their knowledge of the text. An instrument of the Survey of Reading Strategies (SORS) was used for this study where it consists of three broad categories of reading strategies namely, Global Reading strategies, Problem Solving Strategies and Support Strategies. Analysis of the collected data revealed that the learners perceived the three strategies with a different frequency level depending on the purpose of reading academic materials. The data also provided evidence that they were able to practice them. The findings of the reading strategies awareness of ESL learners are discussed.

An Analysis on Reading Strategies based on Metacognitive Awareness and Gender

“…In addition, the sequence pattern of reading strategies subscales by the students fell into Problem Solving Strategies followed by Global Reading Strategies, and Support Reading Strategies which were similar to previous studies (Poole, 2005;Li, 2010;Aziz, et al, 2011;Riazi & Alhaqbani, 2012;Magogwe, 2013;Ahmad, 2015;and Alami, 2016) which employed SORS questionnaire to investigate the use of reading strategies in different contexts. However, there was no clear explanation of why the similarities of preference occurred among EFL and EFL students.…”

Foreign language reading strategy use of intermediate level adult Turkish EFL learners

“…This finding concerning moderate overall use of reading strategies is compatible with the findings of Sheorey and Mokhtari (2001), who administered the SORS to a group of ESL learners coming from different L1 backgrounds along with a group of native speakers of English, and Aziz et al (2011), in which sixty Malay learners of English responded the same survey. On the other hand, the present study slightly differs from Chumworatayee (2012), who used SORS to measure the students' metacognitive awareness of reading strategies while reading academic materials, in the sense that there is a minor difference between the overall score average of the reading strategies in the present study (M=3.40, Moderate overall use of reading strategies) and the Chumworatayee's (2012) study (M=3.54, High overall use of reading strategies).…”

“…This finding is in line with Aziz et al (2011) andChumworatayee (2012), who also reported that Malay EFL learners and Thai EFL learners respectively used problem-solving strategies more often than global reading strategies and than supplementary reading strategies. However, the present study differs from Sheorey and Mokhtari (2001) and Tercanlıoğlu (2004), who stated that EFL/ESL learners employ global reading strategies more often than problem-solving strategies.…”

Cognitive Reading Strategies Employed by Form Three Malaysian English as Second Language (ESL) Students

“…They will be more proficient readers, as these strategies aid them to read accurately and follow the text more closely. Aziz et al (2011) also added that these strategies give students an idea of the content and message in the text. All these clearly indicate that without ESL reading strategies, students will face challenges in comprehending the reading comprehension texts.…”