UNIVERSIDAD DE ORIENTE NCLEO DE SUCRE ESCUELA DE HUMANIDADES Y EDUCACIN DEPARTAMENTO DE IDIOMAS MODERNOS APPLIED LINGUISTICS II

INFLUENCE OF TEACHING STRATEGIES IN THE READING PROCESS.CASE: INSTRUMENTAL ENGLISH STUDENTS AT UNIVERSIDAD DE ORIENTE - NCLEO DE SUCRE II-2010

WRITTEN BY: MUOZ LEOMARIS ID.: 17897583 NORIEGA DANIELA ID: 15933478 CUMAN, MARZO DE 2011.

PROBLEM STATEMENT:

Reading is a highly complex, integrated activity that daunts as many as 33 percent of the population. Many children and young people become proficient readers regardless of how they are taught. However, for children and youth who experience difficulty learning to gain meaning from print, reading must be systematically and carefully taught.

In relation to this, it is very important to mention in a deeper way that the teaching process of this foreign language involves several elements. Martinez (2004): emphasized the necessity to explore strategies and at the same time to explore instructional concepts: which have the main purpose to establish which are the necessities and expectations and also the learning difficulties that students can have. She says that the teaching process should be creative and significative.

Nowadays, many could be the reasons by which a great deal of people is interested in learning a second language (school curriculum, target language community, English for specific purposes, culture and so on). Which involve that foreign language teacher must share the difficult challenge of teaching a second language ,taking into consideration all the necessary tools or techniques that can give them favorable conditions to teach and at the same time provide students what really they want to learn, so that achieve their purposes in the classroom. Further, it is important to mention that in all circumstances the

assimilation of the content does not depend on the attention that students can show. It is also responsibility of the teachers, the way and conditions in which they teach and the persuade also to the students in order to make the classroom productive.

Even though the success of students in educational institutions is measured by academic performance, there are numerous elements related in a direct or indirect way to the participants (teacher- student). Considering this, some students shows less interest in improve their academic performance. For this reason, they do not put in practice the adequate reading strategies.

Based on this Background, the study was designed to provide answers to the following questions namely: Which are the teaching strategies for reading skills applied by English teachers? Case: Instrumental English Students at Universidad de Oriente Ncleo de Sucre II-2010. How can teaching strategies influence in the reading skills of Instrumental English Students?

JUSTIFICATION:
In the reading classroom, the teacher is a motivator/stimulator. The teacher should foster student expectations about the reading and arouse their interest to read. This can be done by asking them warm-up questions or giving them a purpose for reading. In this way, students will enjoy learning language and develop a positive attitude towards reading. Consequently, the purpose of presents research is to know about teaching strategies used by English professors. Likewise, the influence of teaching strategies on Instrumental English students, Universidad de Oriente II- 2010.

GENERAL OBJECTIVE:
TO ANALYZE THE INFLUENCE OF TEACHING STRATEGIES IN THE READING PROCESS.CASE: INSTRUMENTAL ENGLISH STUDENTS AT UNIVERSIDAD DE ORIENTE- NCLEO DE SUCRE II- 2010.

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES:

TO DESCRIBE THE TEACHING STRATEGIES FOR READING APPLIED BY ENGLISH TEACHERS. CASE: INSTRUMENTAL ENGLISH STUDENTS AT UNIVERSIDAD DE ORIENTE- NCLEO DE SUCRE II2010.

TO EXPLAIN THE INFLUENCE OF TEACHING STRATEGIES IN THE READING SKILLS OF INSTRUMENTAL ENGLISH STUDENTS.

LITERATURE REVIEW:
INSTRUMENTAL ENGLISH (007- 1913): It is a subject applied in Basic level at Universidad de Oriente- Ncleo de Sucre with 2 theoretical hours and 2 practical hours. Besides, this subject is recognized as English for Specific Purposes (ESP). Because of its particular intention that it is involves in the socio- humanistic area which are conformed by Educational and Sociology careers. The main objective of Instrumental English is to try to develop comprehension skills in English Text. For this reason, its methodological strategies imply to comprehend written material in this language; the study and acknowledgment of certain basic patterns relate to pre- reading, reading and post- reading strategies. Thats why teaching strategy it is based on procedures and arrangement that agents of teaching use in a flexible and strategic way in order to promote the majority of quality and quantity about the significant learning on student. Barriga (2002). On the other hand, the individual aspects of students represents a relevant point because, the meaning comprehension is given when students recognize and assimilate the information and depend on intellectual capacity that they have, in order to weave the cognitive net. According to Martin (1999), the meaning comprehension is focused on: The intention to comprehend. Strong interaction with the content. To relate new ideas to the background knowledge.

Obviously, the role of teacher and students in teaching process is very important, because they have to make an effort in order to manage the

language. In this case, teachers should apply activities in which students have the opportunity to relate the information given and also they have to facilitate instructional materials, for instance: textbooks, pictures as audiovisuals help and others. Also, they should create activities of comprehensions, lecture, grammar, vocabulary that can serve as challenge for students following interactive strategies in group, etc.

On the other hand, the reading is complicate in some cases; there are researchers (Goodman, 1976; Gough, 1985; Rumelhart, 1985; Stanovich, 1980 and others). Who recommend models of the reading process, these models can be divided into three categories: bottom up, top down, and interactive models.

Bottom-up models: (Specific to general), the reader constructs meaning from letters, words, phrases and sentences in the text. Reading is a process in which small portions of the text are analyzed and gradually added to other portions until they become meaningful.

Top-down models: (General to Specific), in these models of reading the process goes from the top (higher mental activities) to the bottom (the text). The reader uses his/her background knowledge to predict content and confirms or rejects those predictions as the reading progresses.

Interactive models: assume that there is an interaction between the reader and the text. The readers background knowledge is as important

as the information provided by the text, so both types of processing topdown and bottom-up operate simultaneously.

According to the above mentioned, students can fine the best reading strategies, which are cognitive procedures of personal kind that allow to reader use his own knowledge and the texts information in a flexible way. According to Seneca (1996), there are different reading strategies which students will be used:

Pre-reading strategies: You can do before you read. Predicting: focus and concentrate on the subject through titles, sub-titles, pictures, etc. Predict content information. Brainstorming: It is a group creativity technique designed to generate a large number of ideas for the solution of a problem. Pre-questioning: It involves presenting students with a set of written questions or having students generate their own questions on the topic of the reading passage. Identify word classes; describe the use of verbs and the noun phrases etc.

Reading strategies: You can do while you read. Locate unfamiliar words and looking them up.

Recognize topics in paragraph. State the main idea or thesis of the text. Analyze the function of specific sentences and paragraph. Infer the main idea, using patterns and other clues. Using semantic map, etc.

Post-reading strategies: You can do after you read. Write a summary of the text. Associate the text with what you already know and reflect about it. Compare the material with other sources on the same subject. Write some practice questions and answer them. Draw conclusions, etc

In short, we can say that the use of teaching strategies applied by teachers in the Reading process and the influence of these teaching strategies on Instrumental English Students are very important, in this way professors can explain how students perceive, filter, store, and recall information, in relation to a second language. At the same time they (professors) can advice the best strategy for students in order to improve their reading process.

PREVIOUS RESEARCH:

Brown (2001) Indicates that in the phase of pre-reading the teachers have to help the students in the activation of the knowledge before inclined to strategies that they allow them to use the interactive model (with both processing: descending and ascending). In the phase during the reading the teachers must help the apprentices to reach comprehension while the reading process takes place, for what it is necessary to do a follow-up while it is reading.

Now well in the strategies of post-reading, they owe to realize diverse activities those allow verifying the comprehension of text. The above mentioned activities can be: production of summaries, mental and conceptual maps, schemes, directed questions and others. Considering this, we can say that in the introductory phase or pre-reading the students must be motivated towards the reading, across utilization of diverse strategies that they allow them, not only the activation of the previous knowledge, but also to use as bridge between old information and the new one, and an aim to fix them in the reading.

Padrn (2001), who made a research with the purpose of determining the influence of learning strategies in the reading comprehension of English students with specific ends, using for it, a design of descriptive type where they were applied three instruments to evaluate the results. First it was applied an instrument to measure if the students use or not the learning strategies of reading comprehension, immediately afterwards other one was applied to

measure the efficiency of the above mentioned strategies, and finally a last instrument to demonstrate which the strategies were meta-cognitive applied by them. The conclusions indicate that English students who apply meta-cognitive learning strategies there have better academic levels of reading

comprehension, that those do not use this type of strategies. We can say that this research is related to our present study since it raises the importance of the use of reading strategies like important elements of English reading comprehension like foreign language. Likewise, there is emphasized that the use of learning strategies is a fundamental aspect to assure comprehension of texts in Instrumental English Students or with specific ends.

Method

Type of Research (Qualitative)

A qualitative research explores attitudes, behavior and experiences through such methods as interviews or focus groups. It attempts to get a detailed opinion from participants. As it is attitudes, behavior and experiences which are important, fewer people take part in the research, but the contact with these people tends to last a lot longer. Also, in a qualitative research we can find participators, field work, case study, words, categories and many aspects at that time. Finally, we can say that the present research is a qualitative type because we will take into consideration the aspects mentioned above.

LEVEL OF ANALYSIS
The level of this research will be construction of categories, because is a qualitative approach. According to Albert (2008), a category is a generic name for a set of items that relate in some way. Therefore, we can say that the categories are recurring patterns that are present in the data shown in the research.

SAMPLE SELECTION
This research will be constituted by 60 students of Instrumental English (Humanistic Sciences) who bring from High School their previous knowledge about this subject. The participants are divided in two sections

with 1 professor who has an academic level of Magister Scientarium in English Teaching as a Foreign Language with ten (10) years imparting her classes (Instrumental English) at the U.D.O Nucleo de Sucre.

TECHNIQUES AND INSTRUMENTS OF DATA COLLECTION

Two instruments will be used: 1. The semi-structured interview as a technique that will allow presenting the questions following a specific order. This technique will imply as instruments a predesignated guide which will contain the questions for interviewer and the digital records in order to engrave the interviewers answers. On the other hand, the topics will be covered in this research are related to the influence of teaching strategies in the reading process. Besides, we are going to plan this interview taking into consideration sixty (60) sessions of the sixty (60) students above mentioned.

Some examples of the questions that we are going to use in the present research are the following:

What do you think about the teaching strategies applied by your teacher in the reading process? What are your expectations about the use of teaching strategies in the reading process?

 How do you assimilate the content information of a specific task at the moment of reading? According to the reading strategies: Pre- reading, reading and Postreading. What is your opinion about each of them?

2. The observation will allow collecting the information taking into account a predesignated guide as instrument that will show in the specific way the aspect which should be observed. According to the present technique, we will be observed thirty two (32) hours distributed in eight (8) weeks of classes, taking an hour in each class.

Considering this, we will be observed strengths and weaknesses that students show at the moment of applied the reading strategies. Another important point will be observed the way in which the teacher makes a productive class. That means, if the teacher takes additional material in relation to the class which she will be to explain, encourage to students participation or the teacher advice them a particular strategies at the time to read the contented information and so on.

REFERENCES

Albert, Maria (2008). Qualitative Research: Theoretical Keys Barriga, Arceo (2002). Teaching strategies for meaningful

learning: a constructivist interpretation. Distrito Federal, Mxico Brown, D. (2001). Teaching by principles: An interactive approach to language pedagogy. San Francisco State University: Longman. Martin, Joseph (1999). Meaning Comprehension Martnez, Mary (2004). Estrategias Metodolgicas. Trabajo de Ascenso. Universidad de Oriente, Venezuela Padrn, E. (2001) Influencia de las estrategias de aprendizaje en la comprensin lectora del Ingls con propsitos especficos. Tesis de grado. Universidad del Zulia, Maracaibo. Salem, Nadia (2000). Teaching Second Language Reading Sandim, Esteban (2003). Qualitative Research Seneca, Lucio (1996). Study guides and Strategies