The effects of cultural familiarity on reading comprehension - ERIC

The effects of cultural familiarity on reading comprehension - ERIC

2009 • 18 Pages • 205 KB • English
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Summary of The effects of cultural familiarity on reading comprehension - ERIC

Reading in a Foreign Language April 2009, Volume 21, No. 1 ISSN 1539-0578 pp. 60–77 The effects of cultural familiarity on reading comprehension İsmail Hakkı Erten and Salim Razı Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University Turkey Abstract This study investigated whether cultural familiarity influences comprehension of short stories and whether nativizing the story or using reading activities can compensate for the lack of such familiarity. The study was conducted with 44 advanced-level students of st English at a state university in Turkey. In a 2 × 2 experimental research design, the 1 nd group of students read an original short story without any activities while the 2 group of rd students read the original short story with some activities. The 3 group read the th nativized version of the text without any activities while the 4 group read the nativized nd version with the same set of activities as the 2 group. The analysis of variance indicated a better comprehension of the nativized story. The activities contributed to the comprehension of the original story, but the difference caused by nativization remained intact, indicating a powerful impact of cultural schema on comprehension. Keywords: reading comprehension, schema theory, cultural schema, nativization Readers, when engaged in reading, are believed to go through an active and interactive process (Anderson, 1999; Grabe & Stoller, 2002). Such a process presumes that readers have or should have some background knowledge about the topic of the text. Anderson, for example, explained reading as follows: Reading is an active, fluent process which involves the reader and the reading material in building meaning. Meaning does not reside on the printed page. … Synergy occurs in reading, which combines the words on the printed page with the reader’s background knowledge and experiences. (p. 1) Reading as an interactive process requires various mental operations to be performed concurrently or very closely in time. When students read, they are likely to proceed from processing the text in smaller units of language to larger conceptual units (Perfetti, 1985). In fact, readers tend to deal with both micro-level text-driven features, such as pattern recognition, letter identification, and lexical access, and macro-level reader-driven features, such as activation of prior knowledge and monitoring comprehension (Berhnardt, 1991; Brantmeier, 2004). Each of these processes requires valuable memory space and may sometimes overload the working memory, which is limited in capacity (Baddeley, 1997; McLaughlin, Rossman, & McLeod, 1983; Miller, 1956; Pulido, 2003).

Erten & Razı: The effects of cultural familiarity on reading comprehension 61 Such limited capacity can be further overloaded by the extra efforts that students make when reading. Readers’ efforts to deal with micro-level linguistic features may place so much demand on the readers that not enough resources can be allocated to macro-level textual analysis (Afflerbach, 1990; Alptekin, 2006). It has been argued, however, that the cognitive load can be lessened by activation of the background knowledge that readers bring to the text (Carrell, 1988; Ellis, 2001; Nassaji, 2002; Pulido, 2004). When readers bring relevant background knowledge to the reading process, they can allocate more attentional space for textual analysis and interpretation. In this sense, existing background knowledge may contribute to the functioning of what are described as automatic processes by McLaughlin (1987), sparing valuable attentional space for more unfamiliar and newer elements in the text. The place of background knowledge in the reading process has been discussed within schema theory (Bartlett, 1932; Carrell & Eisterhold, 1983). Schema theory deals with “preexisting knowledge structures stored in the mind” (Nassaji, 2002, p. 444) and how readers combine their previous knowledge with the text (Ajideh, 2003; Alderson, 2000; Alptekin, 2006; Anderson, 1999; Carrell, 1983; Carrell & Eisterhold, 1983; Grabe & Stoller, 2002; Johnson, 1981, 1982; Ketchum, 2006; McKay, 1987; Murtagh, 1989). In the rest of this paper, the terms schema and background knowledge will be used synonymously and interchangeably. Background knowledge that readers make use of during their engagement with the text is thought to be of various types (Carrell & Eisterhold, 1983; Nassaji, 2002; Oller, 1995). Of the different types, the most frequently referred to and discussed are formal and content schemata. Formal schema, also called textual schema (Singhal, 1998), is defined as knowledge of language and linguistic conventions, including knowledge of how texts are organized and what the main features of a particular genre of writing are (Alderson, 2000; Carrell, 1987, 1988; Carrell & Eisterhold, 1983). Research into formal schema suggests that “texts with familiar rhetorical organization should be easier to read and comprehend than texts with unfamiliar rhetorical organization” (Carrell, 1987, p. 464). Content schema, which is described as knowledge of the content (Carrell, 1983), can further be divided into two different types: background knowledge and subject matter knowledge. The former refers to the knowledge that may or may not be relevant to the content of a particular text, and the latter is directly related to the text content and topic (Alderson, 2000). A third type of schema, which is more relevant to this study, is cultural schema (Yule, 1996). It is also called abstract schema (Nassaji, 2002; Oller, 1995), story schema (Mandler, 1984), or linguistic schema (Ketchum, 2006). Ketchum proposed cultural schema as a culture-specific extension of content schema because it refers to the role of cultural membership that is needed to fully comprehend the meaning intended by the writer. Abstract in nature, cultural schema involves cultural familiarity and helps readers to reconstruct the story line through referring to more personally and culturally relevant scripts (Oller, 1995). One effect of this is a lessened workload to reconstruct scripts and make personal interpretations, because such texts entail involvement with “real material persons, events, places, and sociocultural relations with which [readers] can identify and find some common ground” (Oller, Reading in a Foreign Language 21(1)

Erten & Razı: The effects of cultural familiarity on reading comprehension 62 1995, p. 299). This is probably because different concepts may have different referents in different cultural contexts and may thus generate different expectations on the reader’s part. Such cultural specificity can be seen in the example of breakfast (Alptekin, 2008). Although most people from the same society will understand similar things about having breakfast, Turkish and British readers may have different expectations about breakfast. Turkish readers may often expect to have cheese, olives, jam, honey, tomatoes, cucumber, and brewed tea (with no milk at all) for breakfast. British readers may expect to have cereal, toast, butter and jam, honey, and tea (with or without milk) or coffee; or for a cooked breakfast, to have sausages, bacon, baked beans, hash browns, fried eggs, and grilled tomatoes. Thus, cultural schema, not dependent on the surface forms utilized in the formation of the text, involves more than a mere literal comprehension of the content of the text (Alptekin, 2006). Several studies have reported positive effects of cultural familiarity on reading comprehension (Alptekin, 2006; Steffensen, Joag-Dev, & Anderson, 1979) and vocabulary learning (Pulido, 2003, 2004). Steffensen et al., for example, demonstrated that when students are familiar with cultural norms, they make a better interpretation of the text than when they are not. Further, in cases of unfamiliar cultural norms, students tend to refer to their own cultural properties, which results in poor interpretations of the text. More recently and more relevant to this study, Alptekin (2006) illustrated that when cultural elements of a short story are nativized to make the text culturally more familiar, students can make better inferences than when they read the original but culturally-remote story. Alptekin’s findings give support to Oller’s (1995) assertion that changing certain words in authentic texts with more familiar ones helps readers to achieve better comprehension. Alptekin’s (2006) work is different from other schema-related studies (e.g., Carrell, 1988) in that he did not use two texts of similar difficulty but made use of the same text only by changing some cultural elements, such as the names of people and places, and by adapting them to the students’ own cultural context. This, according to Alptekin, reduces the possible bias posed by varying levels of conceptual density and complexity in different texts. He claimed the role of cultural background knowledge . . . needs to be investigated not necessarily in the framework of two texts that are thought to be syntactically, lexically, and rhetorically equivalent, but in the context of the same text used in two different ways, one being the original and the other a culturally nativized version. Nativization refers to the pragmatic and semantic adaptation of the textual and contextual clues of the original story into the learner’s own culture, while keeping its linguistic and rhetorical content essentially intact. (p. 497) Alptekin’s (2006) approach is plausible as he attempts to minimize possible intervening variables in the experimentation process. It would be worth replicating and extending his study to achieve a better understanding of the phenomena. Further, minimizing possible intervening variables in such a procedure could also lend itself to the investigation of other elements involved in the reading process. One such element is the activities used in a reading class. Working through nativized texts may prove convenient to measure how effective the use of activities is in compensating for the lack of relevant cultural schema. Thus, this research aimed to extend Reading in a Foreign Language 21(1)

Erten & Razı: The effects of cultural familiarity on reading comprehension 63 Alptekin’s work and to show whether activities can make up for the lack of cultural familiarity. Reading Activities From a more pedagogical standpoint, suggestions have been made to use certain activities for activating readers’ existing schema or at least providing learners with crucial information about the topic they will be reading (Ajideh, 2003; Brown, 2001; Chastain, 1988; Chen & Graves, 1995; Grabe, 1991). The use of reading activities can promote strategic reading behaviors by students at pre-, while-, and postreading (Alyousef, 2006; Ur, 1996) stages. In turn, reading activities can promote interpretation of the text through the interaction between the reader and the text (Wallace, 1992) and thus play a vital role in schema activation in order to comprehend and interpret the text better (Chen & Graves, 1995; Grabe & Stoller, 2002). Despite the fairly well-documented impact of background knowledge on reading comprehension and a host of activities suggested, it still remains to be explored whether, or to what extent, the lack of cultural knowledge can be compensated through the use of reading activities. Erten and Karakaş (2007) noted that our knowledge on the value of these activities mainly stems from pedagogical recommendations or personal experiences and often lacks scientific scrutiny. Only a handful of studies have investigated which is more effective, using a particular activity on the same text (e.g., Karakaş, 2005) or making use of different activities on the same text with different groups of students (e.g., Chen & Graves, 1995; Erten & Karakaş, 2007; Shen, 2004). Karakaş (2005), for example, showed that a combination of previewing and brainstorming is more effective than merely using brainstorming with short stories. Along the same lines, Chen and Graves (1995) explored the effectiveness of previewing and providing background knowledge and concluded that previewing is more effective than providing background knowledge. A contrasting finding comes from Shen (2004), who found that providing background knowledge, in fact, could help learners better with their comprehension. Finally, Erten and Karakaş (2007) reported that some activities (e.g., a combination of previewing, providing keywords, scanning, skimming, clarifying, asking and answering questions, and drawing conclusions) contributed to the literal comprehension, while others (e.g., a combination of brainstorming, surveying, reciprocal teaching, evaluation, inferring, re-reading, thinking aloud, and discussion), contributed better to the evaluative comprehension of short stories. With due acknowledgment to these efforts, it is necessary to note that there has not been an attempt to compare the influence of the presence or absence of cultural familiarity with the effect of classroom activities used. It therefore remains to be investigated whether cultural schema influences reading comprehension, and more importantly, whether the use of activities can make up for the absence of cultural knowledge. This study aims to contribute to our understanding of these issues. It addresses the following two research questions: 1. Does readers’ familiarity with the cultural content of short stories affect their comprehension? 2. Do reading activities used with short stories make up for the lack of cultural schema? Reading in a Foreign Language 21(1)

Erten & Razı: The effects of cultural familiarity on reading comprehension 64 Based on the above literature review, the study hypothesized that cultural familiarity has a significant impact on reading comprehension and that although reading activities contribute to comprehension, the impact of cultural familiarity remains a significant factor. Method The study was conducted in the English Language Teaching Department of the Faculty of Education at a state university in the west of Turkey. The department was considered suitable for the study because the teacher training program included a short stories component. The Short Stories course, taught by a colleague of the authors, offered an appropriate medium for research as well as constant access to the students. Participants Forty-four students from the department participated in the study. The participants were young adults (aged 20–23). They were all being trained to become teachers of English. At the time of rd the data collection, they had studied English for 7–9 years (M = 7.5) and were in their 3 year of university education. The participants had an advanced level of English language proficiency and thus met the minimum language requirements to be included in the study. They had been accepted into the department after a very competitive nationwide university placement exam, administered by the University Entrance and Placement Centre of the Turkish Higher Educational Council. Students enrolled in the department often fall into a very narrow band of the top 10%. Therefore, the researchers expected the participants to have similar levels of English proficiency. The participants were randomly assigned, according to their grade point average (GPA), into four groups to create a 2 × 2 experimental research design. For the sampling, the participants’ cumulative GPAs at the end of their fifth term in the department were calculated by taking account of only the English-based courses and English-medium-teacher-training courses. Once the cumulative GPAs were calculated, the GPAs were grouped into nine ranges, as illustrated in Table 1. Table 1. Ranges of participants’ GPAs Group Range 1 4.0–3.75 2 3.74–3.50 3 3.49–3.25 4 3.24–3.0 5 2.9–2.75 6 2.74–2.50 7 2.49–2.25 8 2.24–2.0 9 1.9–1.75 Reading in a Foreign Language 21(1)

Erten & Razı: The effects of cultural familiarity on reading comprehension 65 Finally, 11 students from different ranges of GPAs were assigned evenly to different treatment groups so as to form homogenous groups that were later labeled Treatment 1 (original text no activities, henceforth “ONA”), Treatment 2 (original text with activities, henceforth “OWA”), Treatment 3 (adjusted text no activities, henceforth “ANA”), and Treatment 4 (adjusted text with activities, henceforth “AWA”). Table 2 shows the mean GPA values for each treatment group. Table 2. Mean GPA values for each treatment group Name of the Group N M SD Original text no activities 11 2.57 0.43 Original text with activities 11 2.52 0.28 Adjusted text no activities 11 2.60 0.29 Adjusted text with activities 11 2.57 0.42 An analysis of variance revealed no significant differences among the treatment groups, F = 0.095, p < .96, indicating a reasonable homogeneity of these groups. Materials The reading text. The short story “The Girls in their Summer Dresses” by Irwin Shaw (2000), a popular classic first published in 1939, was chosen for the study. The story is about a couple trying to take a Sunday off in the city of New York. The story was nativized for research purposes. The nativization (Alptekin, 2006) functioned as an independent variable and provided students with a locality that they were culturally familiar with. For clarity, it needs to be noted that the terms nativized and adjusted are used synonymously and interchangeably in the rest of this paper. In the nativization process, the names of the characters were changed to Turkish names. Care was taken while adjusting the narrated city plan of New York to Çanakkale, a coastal Turkish city. All the names of the places, streets, and buildings had to make sense in readers’ minds in order to activate their schema about the city of Çanakkale. Furthermore, the sequence of actions had to conform to the original story. For example, in the original story, the couple leaves the Brevoort and starts walking towards Washington Square along Fifth Avenue. In the nativized story, the couple leaves Barışkent (a suburb in the city of Çanakkale) and starts walking towards Republic Square along Kordonboyu (the seafront). Apart from these changes, some conceptual cues also had to be changed in order to complete the nativization process. For example, in the nativized story, the characters planned to eat fish (which was steak in the original story) because Çanakkale is a coastal city along the Dardanelles. The main changes are illustrated in Table 3, and some samples from each version of the story are given in Appendix A. Reading test. A recall test (see Appendix B) was administered at the end of the reading session. The test was written for the two different versions of the story: nativized and original. The posttest included three different elicitation techniques: The first group of questions used “True/False/Not Given,” the second group of questions involved “Putting scrambled actions into Reading in a Foreign Language 21(1)

Erten & Razı: The effects of cultural familiarity on reading comprehension 66 the correct order,” and the third group used “Open-ended short-answer questions” to test comprehension. Students were not allowed to refer to the reading text during the posttest period, nor were they allowed to use dictionaries. Table 3. Examples of differences between the two versions Original short story Nativized short story Character Michael (Mike) Loomis Coşkun Umutlu Frances Özlem The Stevensons Nalan & Tarık Place New York/City of New York/State of New Çanakkale/City of Çanakkale York Alice Maxwell’s house Tarık Uyanık’s house Fifth Avenue Kordonboyu The Brevoort Barışkent Washington Square Republic Square Eighth Street Golf Tea Garden/Republic Square Football game Basketball game—Turkish women’s championship Culture Rolls and coffee Turkish baguettes and tea An extra five pounds of husband An extra several kilos of husband A steak as big as a blacksmith’s apron A fish as big as a man’s arm A bottle of wine A big bottle of rakı A new French picture at the Filmarte A new Turkish picture “O Şimdi Asker” (He’s in the army now) at the AFM cinema Reading activities. In addition to reading the text, class activities were chosen to address the three stages of a normal reading class: prereading, while-reading, and postreading. The activities were used with only two groups: the OWA group and the AWA group. The activities used in the class have been described by several authors (e.g., Chastain, 1988; Grabe & Stoller, 2002; Lazar, 1993; Ur, 1996; Wallace, 1992) as typical of classes where short stories are examined. This study did not intend to compare the effectiveness of different reading activities. Rather it aimed to compare the differences in readers’ comprehension with or without reading activities in the two reading conditions (i.e., original text and adjusted text) created for the research purposes. Therefore, we aimed to construct the typical flow of a short-story class with which participants of the study were familiar. This resulted in the use of the same activities in conditions where their use was planned. Since the students were acquainted with the activities, the researchers did not feel the need to spend extra time explaining and illustrating these activities. The activities selected will be outlined in detail below. Procedure The first group of participants was given the original text without activities, while the second group did some reading activities as the participants read the original text. The third group read Reading in a Foreign Language 21(1)

Erten & Razı: The effects of cultural familiarity on reading comprehension 67 the nativized version without activities. Finally, the last group was asked to perform some activities while reading the nativized version. Table 4 illustrates the lesson plans for each group of students. Table 4. Procedures for each group of students Treatment 1 Treatment 2 Treatment 3 Treatment 4 ONA OWA ANA AWA Original text was Prereading activities: Nativized text was Prereading activities: given without Brainstorming (3’) given without Brainstorming (3’) activities (30’) Pre-questioning (3’) activities (30’) Pre-questioning (3’) While-reading activities: While-reading activities: Reading the story (35’) Reading the story (35’) Scanning (2’) Scanning (2’) Skimming (2’) Skimming (2’) Clarifying (2’) Clarifying (2’) Reciprocal teaching (2’) Reciprocal teaching (2’) Inferring (2’) Inferring (2’) Postreading activities: Postreading activities: Thinking aloud (2’) Thinking aloud (2’) Asking and answering Asking and answering questions (2’) questions (2’) Posttest (15’) Posttest (15’) Posttest (15’) Posttest (15’) Total 45’ Total 60’ Total 45’ Total 60’ Note. ONA = Original text with no activities; OWA = Original text with activities; ANA = Adjusted text with no activities; AWA = Adjusted text with activities. ’ = minutes. At the prereading stage, the participants were first asked to brainstorm on expectations in a relationship. They were then guided to some questions that they could answer by referring to their background knowledge, such questions as how they would plan a free Sunday with their girl or boy friends. Approximately 3 minutes was allocated for each activity of this stage. Although the timings were not strictly controlled, care was taken not to allocate uneven amounts of time for a particular activity with the two activity groups. This was also true for activities at the other two stages of reading. After the prereading activities, the participants were instructed to move onto the while-reading stage during which they were asked to read the short story silently. This period took approximately 35 minutes, during which the silent reading process was interrupted by a number of while-reading activities. For example, the participants were asked to explain the relationship between Michael and Frances (Çoşkun & Özlem in the adjusted text) by skimming the text. Since this relationship can be inferred in the very early parts of the story, this activity was completed in nearly 2 minutes. Similarly, participants were required to scan the short sections of the text within very short periods of time. For example, the participants scanned the first paragraph of the story to find out where the couple lived. Clarifying was done when the need arose. As participants read the text, they were encouraged to indicate any confusion that prevented understanding the text. When needed, other participants were encouraged to make clarifications. The class teacher provided clarifications where other Reading in a Foreign Language 21(1)

Erten & Razı: The effects of cultural familiarity on reading comprehension 68 participants could not. Thus, clarifying was done as a separate activity that preceded reciprocal teaching rather than being a component of it. Following this, the participants were involved in the other three components of reciprocal teaching: summarizing, questioning, and predicting. These were teacher-led activities for research purposes. Within a short period of time they were asked to summarize and ask questions about what they have read and predict what might happen later in the story. As the last activity in the while-reading stage, the participants were asked to say what could be inferred from particular parts of the story. During the postreading stage, the participants were asked to think aloud on the text to identify possible comprehension problems and then answer questions such as “Why did Frances (Özlem in the adjusted text) cry?” Data Analysis Marking the papers. Two independent raters marked the students’ papers for comprehension only and ignored the grammatical mistakes in their answers to the open-ended questions in order to minimize the effect of any variation among the students’ writing skills, as otherwise they would have been assessing writing skills rather than reading comprehension. The ordering part of the posttest was marked according to the Weighted Marking Protocol (Razı, 2005), which enabled partial evaluation. The marking procedure in this protocol is based on correcting the wrong order of events provided by the participants and reducing their marks with reference to their mistakes. This protocol works on the basis of giving some marks to students even if they do not put all the events in the right order, thus awarding partial success rather than giving no marks at all. Interrater reliability for marking the papers. The marks given to the students’ papers by the two independent raters were analyzed through the Pearson Correlation Coefficient Test. A high correlation coefficient was found between the two sets of marks, r = 89, p < .01, which was considered to be consistent enough to proceed with further statistical analysis. Statistical analysis. The participants’ posttest scores were analyzed by using ANOVA, and a post-hoc LSD (least significant difference) test was employed to find out where the group differences occurred. Cohen’s d was also used to calculate the effect size. Results The descriptive statistics are presented in Table 5. As can be seen, considerable differences existed between the groups’ performances. The two groups that received the nativized version of the story scored higher than the other two groups, with the AWA group being the most successful. The differences observed between different treatment conditions were statistically significant, F = 6.85, p < .001. Group differences were examined through a post-hoc LSD Test. The results are illustrated in Table 6. Reading in a Foreign Language 21(1)

Erten & Razı: The effects of cultural familiarity on reading comprehension 69 Table 5. Mean scores of groups Treatment condition N M SD AWA 1 79.18 9.98 ANA 1 69.91 10.28 OWA 1 64.5 10.25 ONA 1 60.45 13.03 Note. ONA = Original text with no activities; OWA = Original text with activities; ANA = Adjusted text with no activities; AWA = Adjusted text with activities. Table 6. Results of the post-hoc LSD test on group differences Conditions Mean Difference p Cohen’s d ONA vs. OWA -5.00 .277 0.35 ONA vs. ANA -10.36* .028 0.81 ONA vs. AWA -19.64** .000 1.61 OWA vs. ANA -5.36 .244 0.52 OWA vs. AWA -14.64** .003 1.45 ANA vs. AWA -9.27* .048 0.92 Note. ONA = Original text with no activities; OWA = Original text with activities; ANA = Adjusted text with no activities; AWA = Adjusted text with activities. *p < .05. **p < .01. As can be seen in Table 6, highly significant differences existed between the treatment groups. The first hypothesis of this study (that cultural familiarity has a significant impact on reading comprehension) was sufficiently supported by the between-group differences, which confirmed that cultural familiarity did influence the students’ comprehension. The ANA group outperformed (M = 69.91) the ONA group (M = 60.45), with a considerable effect size (d = 0.81). The second pairing yielded even bigger differences: The AWA students (M = 79.18) did significantly better than the OWA students (M = 64.55), indicating a large effect size (d = 1.45). The second hypothesis (that although reading activities contribute to comprehension, the impact of cultural familiarity remains a significant factor) was also supported by the results obtained from the cross-comparisons between the groups. As expected, the AWA students (M = 79.18) outperformed the ANA students (M = 69.91), showing the effects of reading activities on reading comprehension. The difference also indicated a large effect size (d = 0.92). Similarly, the AWA students also did much better than the ONA students (M = 60.45), with a large effect size (d = 1.61). However, the difference between the OWA and ONA students was not statistically significant (d = 0.35), implying that the activities did not help comprehension much with the original text. Similarly, no significant difference was observed between the OWA students and the ANA students (d = 0.52). The students who read the original text with some activities (M = 64.55) did not perform significantly better than the students who read the adjusted text with no activities (M = 69.91). Conversely, they did slightly worse. Discussion The present study aimed to investigate the effects of cultural familiarity on reading comprehension as well as to discover whether activities can make up for possible gaps in Reading in a Foreign Language 21(1)

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