Title: Metacognitive Online Reading Strategies among Graduate Students: Does the Proficiency Level Make a Difference?
Abstract: 1. IntroductionPeople who are studying English for whether academic or non -academic purposes like self-study for long life learning, in order to be knowledgeable and successful in English have to learn all four language skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. However, reading is the most essential skill, because the ability to read in English will make progress and attain greater development in all academic areas for learners in ac ademic and non-academic contexts (Anderson, 1999). Therefor readin g can be done by traditional offline or printed materials like textbooks, and by online materials such as Internet. The focus of this study was to reading on the Internet for academic purposes.Within the era of information technology reading on the Intern et is increasingly important by EFL learners, because they access to a huge bulk of information on different webpages, specifically for their academic pu rposes. On the importance of the Internet in reading comprehension Coiro claims that Electronic texts introduce new supports as well as new challenges that can have a great impact on an ind ividual's ability to comprehend what he or she reads. The Internet, in particular, provides new text formats, new purposes for reading, and new ways to interact with information that can confuse and overwhelm people taught to extract meaning from only conventional print (2003, p. 458).Is reading offline (printed) or online materials enough to be a good learner or to get prosperity in learning in general, and language learning in particular? The answer is too clear, ''NO''. If language learners want to be successful in their language learning process, they have to be equipped with the ability to exploit some on - the-spot measures, commonly known as ''learning strategies'', to enhance learning efficiency while involved in the process of learning. Oxford (1990) defines them as specific actions employed by a learner to make the learning task easier and faster by giving it the qualities of enjoyment, self-directedness, effectiveness, and transferability to other situations.Therefore there is a classification which bunches these strategies in different groups. Oxford (2003) classifies learning strategies into six groups: cognitive, metacognitive, memory-related, compensatory, affective, and social. These six categories (which underlie the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL) used by Oxford and others for a great deal of research in the learning strategy field) were further divided into direct strategies (those which directly involve the target language such as reviewing and practicing) and indirect strategies (those which provide indirect support for language learning such as planning, co-operating and seeking opportunities). The six groups can be utilized for all the language skills i.e. listening, speaking, rea ding, and writing.In the scope of reading comprehension ability the learners can use and be aware of three types of metacogn itive strategies whether encountering offline or online texts: 1) Global Reading Strategies, 2) Problem-solving Reading Strategies, and 3) Support Reading Strategies. Specifically, in the era of digital information, having the skills and strategies to comprehend and respond to information on the Internet [as the most important online source] undeniably plays a crucial role in students' success, Pookcharoen (2009, p. 2) asserts. The reason of this claim is that the new technology has been altered as an inevitable part of the teaching and learning process, particularly language curriculums. The focus of this study was on the above three metacognitive strategies used by the learners who wanted to read academic texts on the Internet.1.2. Statement of the ProblemReading is a source of difficulty for second language (L2) learners. The pr oblems that they encounter could be due to a number of factors including lack of appropriate reading strategies, lack of background knowledge related to the topic, the target language, or attitudes toward reading, to mention a few (Al - Tamini, 2006). …
Publication Year: 2014
Publication Date: 2014-12-01
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 3
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