Journal on English as a Foreign Language (Sep 2017)
Foreign language reading strategy use of intermediate level adult Turkish EFL learners
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate foreign language reading strategy use of a group of intermediate level adult Turkish EFL learners. The participants of the study were 87 Turkish first-year university students who were taking intermediate level English courses at a state university in Turkey. The main instrument of the study was a reading strategies survey which consisted of 30 items with three sub-scales: global or metacognitive reading strategies, problem-solving or cognitive reading strategies, and support reading strategies. Semi-structured interviews were also conducted to support the quantitative data. The quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics (mean, standard deviation, frequencies, percentages) and one-way ANOVA with repeated measures. As for the analysis of the qualitative data, tape-recorded interviews were first transcribed and then analyzed by grouping each interviewee’s response according to the sub-scales of the survey. Results of the study indicated that intermediate-level adult Turkish EFL learners show the moderate overall use of reading strategies; problem-solving strategies are the most favored strategies, and they are followed by global reading strategies and supplementary reading strategies.
Keywords