Reading Comprehension Of College-Level LCD Students

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The purpose of this study is to ascertain the effects of MRS instruction on the reading comprehension of college-level LCD students. Can increased awareness of metacognitive reading strategies and brief, focused instruction on how to use them have a measurable effect on students’ use of such strategies? Can instructors truly make a difference in students’ reading comprehension of academic texts at this level? This research aims to discover if students are able to successfully employ MRS on their own after explicit MRS instruction and to what extent it might affect their reading comprehension skills.
The topics that will be covered in the literature review include an overview of the reading research related to both second language (L2) and …show more content…

Cohen (1996) acknowledges this lack of clear consensus amongst researchers and suggests two basic criteria: Are the strategies in question language learning strategies or language use strategies? Language learning strategies have the direct goal of assisting learners in improving their knowledge in a target language. For example, learning new vocabulary through reading in the target language or writing sentences in a notebook that use new words in context in the target language would be examples of language learning strategies. On the other hand, language use strategies “focus primarily on employing the language that learners have in their current interlanguage” (Cohen, 1996, p. 3). One example of a language use strategy would involve employing a cover strategy aimed at creating the impression that the learner has control of the target language when they do not. Describing one’s way around an unknown word would be considered a cover strategy used in speaking or writing that attempts to compensate for gaps in target language …show more content…

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