ENGLISH FOR ACADEMIC PURPOSES COURSE DESIGN

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CHAPTER 3 READING FOR ACADEMIC PURPOSES

Introduction

The interconnectedness of language skills are highlighted in section 1.3. As it is suggested the reading skill is part and parcel of the development of all the other skills, inclusive of grammar instruction. In order to assist students to pay attention to the specific reading strategies that are required to extract meaning from their reading texts for the various academic departments and even subdivisions they are part of, the EAP instructor should first understand the reading process, as well as issues related to reading instruction. All these elements were instrumental in developing the MMAARR model that this study has developed, implemented and evaluated (cf. chapter 1).
This chapter starts with an attempt to define the process of reading. Thereafter, various theories of reading pertaining to the schema theory, considered to be crucial in the context of the current study, will be elaborated. The third section explores reading for academic purposes, the context of the current study; it then progressively moves to the importance of reading to science students and those doing stereochemistry in biochemistry, in particular. Thereafter a methodological model that was used to develop the reading framework for the current study is introduced and views of various scholars on similar topics are examined. Finally, the importance of action research in the reading classroom is discussed.

Definition of readin

Traditionally, all AL courses seem to include some reading skill development for students. In Chapter 2 the importance of reading skill development for university students was highlighted. The question can be asked: What exactly does this invisible process (Eskey, 2005) that involves thinking (McWhorter & Sember, 2014) entail? Reading has been described as a process or as “the ability to draw meaning from the printed page and interpreting this information appropriately” (Grabe & Stoller, 2011, p. 3). It “is what happens when people look at a text and assign meaning to the written symbols in that text … it is the interaction between the text and the reader that constitutes actual reading” (Aebersold & Field, 1997, p. 15). Rueda (2011) regards reading as the use of products and principles of the writing systems to derive at the meaning of a written text. However, these definitions do not reflect the myriad of factors that explain why individuals do not assign the same meaning to such written texts. As Cartwright (2009) states, various complexities are involved when readers attempt to coordinate multiple text features in a fluent way to create meaning, especially when reading occurs in the L2, as is the case of participants in the current study. In an attempt to define L2 reading, various aspects seem to be considered. Five pertinent aspects, as summed up in in Figure 5, will be discussed next.

Purposes of reading

It is suggested (Grabe, 2009) that students should deliberately be taught about the purposes of reading and also how to control and alter their reading skills according to the various situations and task requirements. Doing this would ultimately improve their metacognitive awareness (cf. 3.5.1.5) (Grabe, 2009). Grabe and Stoller (2011) identify five main purposes of reading. These are reading to skim and scan, to learn from texts, to integrate information, to write and to integrate texts, and finally, for general comprehension.

The nature of fluent reading comprehension

The nature of fluent reading is linked to the characteristics that good readers display, a topic that has attracted the interest of numerous researchers over the years, internationally (Aebersold & Field, 1997; Alexander et al., 2008; Cartwright, 2009; Duke et al., 2011; Grabe, 1991, 2009; Grabe & Stoller, 2011; 2013; McWhorter & Sember, 2014; Richardson et al., 2012; Shanahan, 2009; Stoller, Anderson, Grabe & Komiyama, 2013; Pressley, 2002), as well as locally (Willemse, 2006). As a result, various definitions for good, competent, skilled or active readers have been proposed. However, for the purposes of this study, the following summary presented by Pressley (2002) will be used to describe these characteristics:
Fluent reading, the key to successful reading, occurs when the reader is able to do all the above “accurately, rapidly with ease and automaticity” (Grabe & Stoller, 2011, p. 11; Grabe, 1991, p. 378). Automaticity, is “the ability to convert most written language into meaningful information so automatically that the reader does not have to think about the language” (Eskey, 2005, p. 568). This, however, takes time to develop and may not be enough to guarantee full comprehension. For example, various other factors may impact the fluency rate of reading, such as the familiarity of the topic that is being read (Grabe, 1991, 1999; Grabe & Stoller, 2011, 2013; RAND Reading Study Group, 2002) and/or the readability of the text (Sebolai, 2014; Rasinksi, Reutzel, Chard & Linan- Thompson, 2011). Both these two aspects are important for the context of this study and will be elaborated in the sections that follow (cf. 3.4.1.7; 3.4.1.9).

Components of reading abilities

In discussing the components of reading abilities, two important processes that are involved in reading are decoding and comprehension. The former refers to the translation of written signs into language and the latter to the absorption and understanding process where the aims of reading are met by giving meaning and interpretation to the text (Pretorius, 2012). Decoding involves lower-processing reading skills (cf. table 8), and it is important for this to be accurately and automatically executed to enable comprehension (Grabe, 2009). However, someone who can decode well does not necessarily comprehend well and may engage with texts at a superficial level (Pretorius, 1996). These components are discussed in section 3.2.

L2 Proficiency

It is generally accepted that reading success in any language, especially in a L2, is best predicted by proficiency in that language. Reading comprehension is not only linked to reading ability, but also to linguistic knowledge (Benabdallah, 2013; Dudley-Evans & St John, 1998; Eskey, 2005; Grabe & Stoller, 2013; Pressley, 2002; Stoller et al., 2013). Because of their exposure to English prior to being admitted for academic studies, it is assumed that most L2 students who are at academic settings will not have significant problems in this regard and will have reasonable control over word recognition and language knowledge. Consequently, most EAP courses start beyond beginning levels and do not require an extensive grammar component (Afflerbach & Cho, 2009; Grabe & Stoller, 2013). However, while it is conceded that comprehension requires a reasonable knowledge of basic grammar, L2 reading instructors are cautioned not to confuse reading courses with grammar lessons (Grabe & Stoller, 2011; Nation, 2009).

The social context of reading

The social context of reading (cf. 2.1) refers to the issue that all students, even in homogeneous classes, in other words, those enrolled for the same degree, like the students in the current study, are unique or diverse (Richardson et al., 2012). This seems to be especially true about the reading abilities of students in L2 classrooms, due to other reasons than only differences in their cognitive abilities (Grabe & Stoller, 2011). For example, every student has a prior history that includes a range of sociocultural and educational experiences that play a significant role in accounting for differences in reading abilities. Therefore, reading instructors, like all EAP instructors too, should conduct a needs analysis and enquire about issues like their students’ general reading abilities, their exposure to L2 reading, level of motivation and interest, reading experiences, prior educational background, home background and learning goals, in order to enhance instructional practices and support learning (Grabe, 2009; Brandt, 2010). Boughey (2013) argues that one should not assume that schools and homes have provided the necessary skills to support AL development at tertiary institutions, of which the development of academic reading skill is pertinent. Shanahan (2009) concurs that this knowledge (the social context of students) can guide EAP reading instruction.
In order to guide reading instruction in the current study, the social context of reading was taken into account, especially the effects of culture, the home literacy environment, as well as the age of participants. The importance of each directing EAP reading instruction will briefly be elaborated next.

Culture

Educators need to consider cultural issues in reading instruction in order to modify instructional methods that would maximise the cultural resources of students. This is because culture reflects the literacy practices that the reader are part of (Eskey, 2005; Grabe, 2009;). Eskey (2005) distinguishes between two important terms: Enculturation and Acculturation. Enculturation refers to the readers’ own culture, while acculturation refers to the new culture a reader becomes part of. As a result, it seems obvious that when students become part of the academic culture, educators should be aware of at least two ways in which culture may impede upon students’ comprehension abilities. On the one hand, they might be required to engage in a set of social practices that may be in conflict with those they are used to (Eskey, 2005) or, on the other hand, L2 readers may encounter topics that may conflict with their cultural beliefs (Grabe, 2009). For example, some L2 students may come from a culture where it is more acceptable to communicate through speaking rather than through participating in reading or writing (Pretorius, 2002).
In a Namibian study (similar in context to the current study) that examined factors that affect L2 text comprehension of students enrolled for Foundations of English Language Studies at UNAM, Murray (2013) did not find any specific relationship to indicate that the 14 different languages (indicating 14 different cultures) spoken by participants (n=86) played a role in their processing of English texts. Unlike the texts used in the current study which were all from the students’ biochemistry textbook, Murray selected 12 texts based on “aspects such as content matter, potential familiarity to participants, complexity of syntax, cohesion and vocabulary” (Murray, 2013, p. 148). She determined that where there was a match between concepts discussed in the text and the cultural background of students, comprehension was facilitated, despite other textual constraints. It should be noted that even though this study is similar in context to the current study in the sense that they were both conducted in Namibia and also at UNAM, these two studies represent participants from different faculties and also indirectly of different academic abilities (cf. 1.1.4.1). The current study also had a different overall objective (cf. 1.4).

Exposure to literacy

Children’s exposure to print is a strong factor that promotes literacy levels as they benefit from print-rich environments. This issue is evident in a number of ways, such as the number of books at home, the amount of reading to the child, the manner of interaction around the print, the number of rare words used in the home, the number of library visits or even factors like children seeing their parents read (Grabe, 2009; Moje, Stockdill, Kim Kim, 2011). Students from such print-rich homes are more motivated to read and have higher vocabulary scores than those with less access (Krashen, 2004; 2013; Komiyama, 2013; McQuillan, 2006).
Stanovich and West (1989) developed the Author Recognition Task (ART), and the Magazine Recognition Test (MRT) in which the students who participated were given a list of names of authors and or magazines, half of which were real (and half of which were not), and asked to identify the names they believed to be authentic. When these same tests were used in other studies, it was generally agreed by the researchers that students who recognised more authors and titles had read more and were living in more print-rich environments. They also appeared to have larger vocabularies, spell better and have more phonological awareness (Bauman, 2009; Krashen, 2013; McQuillan, 2006). Since the development of this ART and MRT tests, (Stanovich & West, 1989) different versions of this test were developed in different contexts, for example, in the current study.

Age of readers

The age of readers should also be considered in the reading classroom, especially in text selection, while considering the evidence that most students who do reading for academic purposes are at the time adolescents, and, therefore, they display characteristics very different from primary and secondary school readers. Alexander and Fox (2011) argue that adolescents will become more literate if appropriate reading texts are exploited by course developers; hence the suggestion to take cognisance of the following traits regarding the habits of adolescents, who were also the target group of the current study (cf. 4.9.3)

CHAPTER 1 . INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY 
1.0 Introduction
1.1 Background
1.1.1 EAP/ESP course development
1.1.2 Overcoming the challenges experienced by EAP instructors
1.1.3 Academic Literacy practices
1.1.4 Academic Reading.
1.1.5 Conversational and academic language proficiency
1.2 The research context of the current study
1.3 Problem statement
1.4 Rationale for the current research
1.5 Aims of the current research
1.6 Research questions
1.7 Data collection procedures
1.8 Limitations of the study
1.9 Ethical considerations
1.10 List of abbreviations of terms and concepts
1.11 Organisation of thesis
1.12 Conclusion
CHAPTER 2 ENGLISH FOR ACADEMIC PURPOSES COURSE DESIGN 
2.0 Introduction
2.1 Academic literacy
2.1.1 Theorising academic literacy
2.1.2 Influences on development of academic literacy
2.2 English for Specific Purposes
2.2.1 Stages in ESP development
2.3 EAP as a branch of ESP
2.3.1 General ELT vs. ESP
2.4 Content-based language instruction (CBI)
2.4.1 Different CBI prototypes
2.5 Adjunct courses
2.5.1 Origins of adjunct courses
2.5.2 Benefits of adjunct courses
2.5.3 Developing adjunct courses
2.5.4 Engagement with faculties
2.6 Challenges encountered by EAP/ CBI instructors
2.7 EAP course design
2.7.1 Needs analysis
2.7.2 The Syllabus
2.7.3 Materials development
2.7.4 Teaching Methodology
2.7.5 Evaluation of the course
2.8 Other important considerations in course design
2.9 Summary and conclusion of Chapter 2
CHAPTER 3 READING FOR ACADEMIC PURPOSES 
3.0 Introduction
3.1 Definition of reading
3.1.1 Purposes of reading
3.1.2 The nature of fluent reading comprehension
3.1.3 Components of reading abilities
3.1.4 L2 Proficiency
3.1.5 The social context of reading
3.2 Theories of reading
3.2.2 Top-down models of reading
3.2.3 Interactive models of reading
3.2.4 Schema theory
3.2.5 Kintsch’s Construction-Integration Model of Comprehension (CI)
3.2.6 Grabe’s Two-Model Account of comprehension
3.3 The challenges of academic reading
3.3.1 Academic texts
3.3.2 Reading for specific disciplines
3.4 EAP reading instruction
3.4.1 A generic framework for EAP reading instruction
3.5. Conclusion to Chapter 3
3.6 Summary of Chapter 3
CHAPTER 4 METHODOLOGY
4.0 Introduction
4.1 General research methodology
4.2. Research approaches
4.3 Action research
4.4 Data collection methods
4.5 Data analysis
4.6 Data interpretation
4.7 Considerations in data collection
4.8. Introduction
4. 9 PHASE 1: Exploration
4.10 Conclusion to Chapter 4
CHAPTER 5 CONDUCTING THE NEEDS ANALYSIS 
5.0 Introduction
5.1 Step 9: Narrowing down the focus of enquiry
5.2 Step 10: Set criteria for developing reading adjunct
5.3 Discussion and interpretation of results
5.4 Conclusion to Chapter 5
CHAPTER 6 DEVELOPING A NEW SUBJECT SPECIFIC READING COURSE
6.0 Introduction
6.1 Phase 3: Design and evaluation of an academic English reading course for specific purposes.
6.2 Phase 4: Developing the new reading course
6.3 Conclusion to Chapter 6
CHAPTER 7 EVALUATION AND REFLECTION ON THE NEW READING COURSE 
7.0 Introduction
7.1 Phase 5: Evaluating the reading course
7.2 Discussion and interpretation of results
7.3 Phase 6:
7.4 Conclusion to Chapter 7
CHAPTER 8 
CHAPTER 9
CONCLUSION
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