Reading Strategies Used by Grade 9 English as Foreign Language Pupils at “Colégio Nº 110º - 27 de Março Anexa Betel”

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the reading strategies used by 9th grade English as a Foreign Language tudents of "College No. 110 -27 March Anexa BETEL". It was noticed that the students of the above mentioned school, tend not to use reading strategies while reading in English. As a consequence, the students fail to ctively participate in reading, they fail to get the maximum benefit from the reading activities done in the classroom and to use them meaningfully outside the classroom environment. For this reason, 57 students taking gender into consideration, 25 males and 32 females were selected to participate as the sample. A student questionnaire was used as the only research instrument for data collection. Thus, the main results revealed that: (1) Students used all three types of reading strategies in general such as; problem-solving reading strategy, supportive reading strategies and global reading strategies. (2) For ESL students, the requency of reading strategies fell in the group of high and moderate averages used of general reading strategies. (3) The reading strategies most used by students are: read slowly and carefully to understand; when the text becomes difficult, pay more attention to reading; take notes during reading to aid comprehension; and finally, check whether assumptions about the text are right or wrong. With this research project, it is hoped that the results of the study will provide a significant impact for ESL students, teachers, and curriculum planners to integrate reading strategies into teaching and learning that lead to effective and subsequently successful reading comprehension in ESL