An Investigation of Reading Comprehension Difficulties and Strategies in English Language as a Foreign Language

Abstract

The present study aims at investigating the major reading difficulties faced by third year pupils in Abd Elhamid Ben Badis Secondary School-Jijel, and their use of the reading strategies. Despite the need for the ability to read in English, the common experience of English as a foreign language teachers showed that most learners fail to achieve an adequate reading. For the sake of figuring out the major reading problems and strategies, three means of data collection were used: a reading comprehension test used to depict the comprehension level of the students and to elicit their comprehension difficulties, a pupil questionnaire to check their use of the reading strategies, in addition to think-aloud procedure to develop knowledge about learners actual strategy use in a specific reading situation (Baccalaureate exam). The obtained results revealed that pupils encounter different difficulties in the reading comprehension such as the lack of background knowledge, vocabulary, and topic genre. In order to cope with these difficulties, third year secondary school pupils applied a variety of reading strategies. The most significant finding in this dissertation is that both proficient and poor readers adopt different strategies in the reading process .Yet, low-achievers tend to read less effectively than high-achievers. They read the text in isolated items rather than as a meaningful unit. Therefore, the construction of the text meaning was not effectively executed.