Browsing by Subject "Scanning"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    Publication
    Open Access
    A proposal for a reading strategies training programme for secondary students.
    (2001) Criado, Raquel; Cánovas-Gambín, Francisca; Filología Inglesa
    Even though the Spanish Official Curriculum stresses the use of autonomous learning strategies, there are paradoxically scarce studies regarding strategies instruction in Foreign Language Learning in Spain. The present paper is the summary of a proposal of a reading strategies training programme included in a wider project. The authors' experience, the Curriculum and the specialised literature were used in its conception and design. This resulted in a twelve-week explicit strategy training programme introductory in nature and addressed to sixteen-year-old Spanish native students, their level of English being low-intermediate. The aim of the training programme was to develop the skill of reading for different purposes (confirming expectations, getting general and specific information) by means of the strategies of predicting, skimming and scanning respectively. These would be exploited in eighteen hours, which comprised a "Preparation" and an "lntroduction" session followed by a "Presentation", "Practice" and "Evaluation" stage for each one of the strategies. A "General Practice and Evaluation" section plus an "Expansion" class were included at the end. We also address the rationale behind the different decisions taken.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Publication
    Open Access
    Untrained secondary students’ use of predicting, skimming and scanning in L2 English within the first phase of a reading strategies training programme. Pedagogical implications.
    (Universidad de Jaén, Servicio de Publicaciones, 2003) Criado, Raquel; Cánovas-Gambín, Francisca; Filología Inglesa
    This paper presents the results of the implementation in real life of the first phase of our reading strategies training programme: "Preparation" (Criado and Cánovas 2001). The subjects were fifteen sixteen-year-old Spanish native students with a low-intermediate level of English. Our main goal was to implicitly develop their awareness of the strategies of predicting, skimming and scanning by means of two reading activities- requiring the use of these strategies -plus a questionnaire about how they performed the tasks. A mostly ineffective reading originated as a consequence of lack of attention to the reading purpose, unknown topic and unknown vocabulary. These undermined the positive influence of the use (when applicable) of the strategy of predicting. Mainly inadequate background knowledge seemed to account for the activation of a bottom-up processing of reading too. Generally, results appear to indicate that inefficient reading comprehension is both a language and a schemata problem, at least at this level. Pedagogical implications point to explicit instruction on the need to focus on the purpose and strategies to face unknown words (such as inferencing). We also include some suggestions for improvement of future applications of our programme in the light of these findings.