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The Reading Matrix

Vol. 7, No. 1, April 2007

READING STRATEGIES USED BY ADVANCED KOREAN AND CHINESE ESL

GRADUATE STUDENTS: A CASE STUDY

Hee Jin Bang and Cecilia Guanfang Zhao

[email protected]
[email protected]

Abstract
________________________

Research in second language acquisition and reading in particular indicate that certain
literacy skills transfer across languages. This study examines the reading strategies used by
advanced Korean and Chinese ESL learners. Particular attention is devoted to how word
recognition and processing skills developed in learners’ native languages (L1) may influence
the type of strategies used in determining meanings of unfamiliar words when reading in
English (L2). Given that Korean is an alphabetic language and Chinese is an ideographic
language, we hypothesize that Korean ESL learners would generally use phonological
processing strategies, while Chinese ESL learners would generally use visual-orthographic
processing strategies. Six graduate-level students, three from each language background,
were asked to read two different texts. Through oral recall, structured interviews, and
questionnaire of reading strategies, we examine the kinds of strategies used and the level of
comprehension achieved by the participants. Findings confirm the hypothesis that Korean
ESL learners tend to rely on phonological, while Chinese ESL learners tend to rely on visual-
orthographic strategies when reading English texts. The learners’ English language
proficiency, however, may be a more important factor contributing to the level of L2 reading
comprehension achieved rather than the strategies used.

________________________

Introduction
This study examines the reading strategies used by advanced Korean and Chinese
ESL learners when reading academic texts. We focus on the kinds of strategies used by each
group of learners and examine the characteristics of the strategies preferred by each group of
students. We explore the possibility that certain strategy preferences are effects of the transfer
of processing skills developed in L1 and that the differences in processing skills may lead to
different levels of comprehension. Although scholars in the field have studied the effects of
transfer on decoding skills with participants of different L1 backgrounds, relatively little
research has examined the influence of transfer on reading comprehension, particularly the
comparative effects of different L1s on comprehension. This study is an attempt to address
this gap in the field.
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Background Literature
Studies in both L1 and L2 reading generally indicate a binary categorization of “top-
down” strategies and “bottom-up” strategies. Top-down strategies involve identifying main
ideas, seeing how the new information fits with the overall text, using background knowledge,
making predictions, or skimming (Barnett, 1988; Carrell, 1989, as cited in Salataci & Akyel,
2002). Bottom-up strategies include focusing on identifying the meaning and grammatical
category of individual words, sentence structure, and details of the text (Salataci & Akyel,
2002). Such binary division, however, is an overly simplistic effort to distinguish between
strategies used by successful and less successful readers. More recent studies, therefore,
suggest that successful readers in fact use a combination of both the top-down and bottom-up
strategies. Saricoban (2002), for example, observed a group of successful and less successful
readers in an EFL context throughout the pre-reading, reading, and post-reading stages. He
notes that successful readers use a combination of global and local strategies and suggests
that teachers instruct students to begin by trying to construct a global understanding of a
given reading material. Teachers are then advised to proceed to help students figure out the
meaning of paragraphs, sentences, and words because the larger units will provide contexts
for understanding the smaller units.
The claim that high performing readers tend to use more global strategies and the
recognition that successful reading comprehension requires using a combination of top-down
and bottom-up strategies corroborate with the schema theorists’ view of reading
comprehension. Schema has also been described in the reading research field as background,
or prior knowledge. Numerous studies and reviews have been published on schema theory,
and in a nutshell, the theory claims that comprehension can be achieved relatively more
easily if the reader has an appropriate schema or frame for the new information being
presented in a given text than if the reader lacks an appropriate schema in which to fit the
new information (Anderson, 2004; Bransford, 2004). Wilson and Anderson (1986) provide a
review of a number of studies, several of which compare expert and novice readers; these
studies indicated that those who have substantial amount of knowledge in a domain can
acquire new information about the topic more easily, since new information is simply
mapped onto existing structure. Other studies suggest that using background knowledge is
also a local reading strategy. Jimenez, Garcia, and Pearson (1996), for example, investigated
the reading strategies used by bilingual Latina/o students who were successful English
readers. The study reported that on the global level, the successful Latina/o ESL readers
invoked prior knowledge about a topic, made predictions, asked questions, confirmed or
disconfirmed one’s beliefs, or used text structure to organize ideas. On the local level, the
readers figured out unfamiliar vocabulary based on the linguistic context, by looking for
cognates, and by using their knowledge of other similar words in English. The readers also
broke down the structure of sentences and tried to identify phrases or chunks that were
familiar and comprehensible.
A brief review of the reading research in L1 and L2 suggests that there are certain
strategies that characterize successful reading comprehension and certain ones that
characterize less successful comprehension. We also know that in order for readers to achieve
comprehension, they must have automatic decoding skills. However, the greater emphasis on
top-down or global strategies in reading, along with the focus on background knowledge,
seems to have led researchers to overlook the importance of word-recognition skills,
particularly the transfer of word-recognition and decoding skills from L1 to L2. Yet research
exists indicating the transfer of L1 decoding skills when reading L2 texts. Koda (1988, 1989),
for example, reports studies on four different L1 orthographic backgrounds and claims that
second language readers of English use the cognitive strategies developed in their L1 when
reading English as an L2. She notes also that orthographic structure has a significant impact
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on the reading processes. More recently, Koda (1998) compared Korean and Chinese ESL
learners to examine the relationship between L2 text comprehension and decoding skills. She
found that for Korean ESL learners, there were strong relationships between their reading
comprehension, decoding, and phonemic awareness. For Chinese ESL learners, however, no
such relationships were observed, suggesting the potential influence of different L1
experiences. Since Korean is an alphabetic language, it demands the same decoding skills as
in English (matching grapheme to phoneme), so Korean ESL readers can use the same kind
of phonological processing skills when learning to read English. Chinese ESL learners,
however, are faced with the task of learning a new processing skill when reading in English,
as their L1 is primarily an ideographic language, requiring the reader to match the form of the
character with the meaning.
Koda (2000) further investigated Korean and Chinese ESL learners in a study
designed to examine their morphological awareness. She observed that Chinese learners were
noticeably slower than their Korean counterparts in performing what she refers to as
intraword structural analysis tasks, but that they were much more efficient in integrating
morphological information with the contextual information in processing sentences. Wang,
Koda, and Perfetti (2003) also examined Korean and Chinese ESL readers by having them
perform semantic category judgment tasks. Their findings converged with previous results
and suggested that Korean readers rely more on phonological information, while Chinese
readers rely more on orthographic information in identifying English words. Furthermore,
Akamatsu (2003) conducted a study comparing Chinese and Japanese (nonalphabetic L1
group) with Persian (alphabetic L1 group). Her findings also confirm the L1 effects on the L2
reading processes, as the second language readers with a nonalphabetic L1 background were
less efficient in processing English words than the readers with an alphabetic L1 background.

Present Study
While the studies discussed above suggest the effects of differential L1s in processing
L2 words, they do not extend their analyses to examine whether the different processing
skills developed in L1 affect the level of comprehension achieved in L2. If word recognition
or decoding tasks are influenced by the nature of the ESL learners’ L1s (alphabetic or non-
alphabetic), it seems likely that the strategies or skills that ESL learners use in achieving
comprehension when reading L2 texts will also be influenced by the nature of their L1s. In
this study, therefore, we decided to compare the strategies Korean and Chinese ESL learners
use in reading academic texts in English. Our research questions were:
1. What strategies do advanced Korean and Chinese ESL learners use to achieve
comprehension when reading academic texts?
2. Are there strategies that are preferred by either the Korean or the Chinese readers?
3. In particular, upon encountering unfamiliar words, do Korean readers tend to use
phonological processing strategies to overcome comprehension gaps while Chinese
readers tend to use visual-orthographic processing strategies?
Our hypothesis was that ESL readers with different L1 backgrounds will be influenced by the
transfer of different L1 processing skills, and therefore a tendency to prefer certain strategies
over others. Consequently, it was hypothesized that they may achieve a different level of
comprehension, or the same level of comprehension at a different rate.

Method
The methods that were employed to elicit reading strategies used by Korean and
Chinese ESL learners in our study include 1) oral recall of the text immediately after having
read the text and 2) semi-structured interview based on the text. In addition, each participant
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completed a questionnaire of reading strategies at the end of the interview so that they may
report strategies that they generally or sometimes use, but were not discussed in the interview.

Participants
The participants were graduate students enrolled in a TESOL program at a selective
U.S. university. We initially requested participation from eight graduate students (4 Koreans
and 4 Chinese) and gathered preliminary information about them using a questionnaire that
was distributed via e-mail. The participants completed the questionnaires and returned them
electronically, and the information reported was used to form a group of students with
relatively similar level of English proficiency as determined by their reported TOEFL scores.
Two of our Chinese respondents were more advanced than the other respondents. Due to the
difficulty, however, of recruiting another Chinese participant whose profile matched those of
the other students in our group, one of them was included as a participant in our study, and
the other helped us in piloting our research procedure and instruments. One of the four
Korean participants withdrew in the middle, and thus, we report here our study based on the
participation of six individuals, 3 Korean and 3 Chinese female graduate students. In addition,
one native English-speaking graduate student participated in the study and helped establish
the baseline. Table 1 summarizes the background characteristics of our participants.

Table 1. Participant background information

Group Korean Participants Chinese Participants
Background
Current Level of Study 3 Master’s level students 2 Master’s level students &
1 Doctoral student
Program Enrolled TESOL TESOL
Length of Stay in the 3 - 27 months 12 - 71 months
U.S.
Number of Formal 6 to 10 years 9 to 10 years
English Instruction
Received
TOEFL CBT Score 250-257 250-290
Self-rating of English 2 participants: need some 2 participants: proficient
grammar proficiency improvement 1 participant: advanced
1 participant: need a lot of
improvement
Self-rating of English 2 participants: although there are a All 3 participants: although
vocabulary knowledge few words they do not know, can there are a few words they do
usually grasp the meaning from not know, can usually grasp
the context; 1 participant: has the meaning form the context
difficulty with a few technical
words specific to particular fields
of study

Instruments
Using the information we gathered through the questionnaire mentioned above, we
determined the texts to use in our study. Since it was believed that background knowledge or
familiarity with a subject area may influence the type of strategies used by our participants,
we included in our study two tasks: one with a familiar text and the other with an unfamiliar
text. As all of our participants were enrolled in a TESOL program, the familiar passage
entitled The Nature of Interlanguage, was selected from a textbook (Teaching language in
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context, 3rd ed.) used in one of the core courses of the program. In selecting the unfamiliar
passage, entitled Hyperarousal, Triggering, and State-Dependent Learning, (Trauma:
Explorations in memory) we took into consideration the participants’ graduate coursework as
well as their undergraduate majors and searched for a text outside of their fields of
concentration, but one that would be comprehensible to students studying humanities. The
unfamiliar passage we decided to use was selected from a textbook used in a graduate-level
psychology course offered at the same university attended by the participants.
Both passages came from the beginning of a section, and the word counts in the
familiar and unfamiliar passage are 471 and 495 words, respectively. In order to ensure that
both passages were approximately of the same level of difficulty, we applied to each text the
Gunning-Fog Index, an algorithm that produces a rough estimate of the number of years of
schooling it would take one to understand the content of the text
(http://juicystudio.com/services/readability.php). The results indicated that both passages
were appropriate for post-graduate level readers.
To provide our participants with the opportunity to report their strategy use that they
may not have had the chance to discuss during the study, we constructed a questionnaire
based on an inventory of reading strategies. The questionnaire, reproduced in Appendix B,
was adapted from studies conducted by Brantmeier (2002), Saricoban (2002), and Singhal
(2001), in which L2 reading strategies were examined.

Procedure
Each participant met with us individually at a scheduled time, and the research took
place in a quiet classroom or conference room on campus. The participants were told that we
are interested in how advanced ESL learners, whose native language is Korean or Chinese,
achieve comprehension when reading academic texts. The exact focus of our study was hence
made deliberately ambiguous so that our participants would not be concentrating on their use
of particular reading strategies. They were requested to read two passages, one familiar and
the other unfamiliar, and after having read each passage, they were asked to return the text to
us and then tell us everything they can remember about the passage in either English or their
L1. The participants knew that they would be asked to perform this task before reading, and
they were given as much time as they needed to read and understand the text in preparation
for the recall. There was no time limit placed on reading the texts because we were interested
in examining the reading strategies they employ when reading academic texts for class. They
had as available resources a bilingual dictionary, a monolingual dictionary, pens, pencils,
highlighters, and blank scratch paper. We were unable to provide them with a computer with
Internet connection, but they were asked to note on the texts or mention to us in the interview
if there were any parts of the passages that they would have looked up using on-line
references. Additionally, they were requested to use any resources (e.g., cell phones,
electronic dictionaries, etc.) which they would normally use when reading for academic
purposes.
When the participants were ready to perform the recall, they were free to recall the
elements of the text in any order they wished. A digital voice recorder was used to record the
recall and the semi-structured interview that took place subsequently. Written notes were also
kept during the recalls and interviews. In the interview, the participants were requested to
look at the text that they had read and talk to us about how they managed to achieve
comprehension, especially of the parts which they found challenging. We started the
conversations by asking them to rate the difficulty level of the text on a scale of 1 to 10, in
comparison to the reading assignments they receive in their classes, 1 being the least difficult,
and 10 being the most difficult. They were then asked to identify the elements of the text
which made the reading difficult, and their responses guided our subsequent questions. When
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unfamiliar vocabulary was mentioned as the difficult component of the text, we began by
discussing ways in which the participants made sense of the words and eventually overcame
the difficulty. When sentence structure or text structure was mentioned, we started with a
discussion on how the participants handled the gaps in comprehension created by such
difficulties. We also asked the participants to tell us about the notes that they made in the
margins vs. on scratch paper and the different forms of marking the text (e.g., underlining vs.
circling, asterisks vs. arrows, highlighting, brackets, etc.). Other questions were of the form,
“What were you thinking when you read (e.g., the title, an unfamiliar acronym, a particular
word)?” In addition, we inquired about how they would have read the same text if it were
written in their L1 and whether they would use any of the strategies they use in reading L2
academic texts when reading academic texts in L1. The recall and the interview for each
participant took on average, 60 minutes, and a total of approximately 6.6 hours of recorded
data was collected. After the interview, each participant was requested to complete a
questionnaire in which they reported the strategies they use or do not use while reading
academic texts.

Results
In order to better analyze and compare the reading strategies used by these two groups
of readers, we first present, in Table 2, our observation of Korean and Chinese participants’
reading behaviors, the average time they spent on each of the texts, their difficulty rating of
the two passages, average number of idea units recalled from each passage, as well as some
salient points they made in the post-reading interview.

Table 2. Findings from observation, recall, and post-reading interview

Group Korean Participants Chinese Participants
Findings
Average time spent on 13 minutes: Interlanguage text 10 minutes: Interlanguage text
the two passages 23 minutes: Hyperarousal text 16 minutes: Hyperarousal text
Average difficulty 4.3: Interlanguage text 6.0: Interlanguage text
rating of texts 4.2: Hyperarousal text 6.8: Hyperarousal text
Average number of 7.3: Interlanguage text 8.7: Interlanguage text
idea units recalled from 7.0: Hyperarousal text 7.3: Hyperarousal text
the texts*
Observation of salient 1) Read passages twice 1) Read passages twice
reading behavior 2) Underline and mark certain 2) Underline and mark certain
parts of the texts words and phrases
3) Read out loud certain parts 3) Try to summarize major
of texts points in margins
4) Consult dictionaries upon 4) Feel reluctant to use
encountering new words dictionaries while reading
5) Translate certain words into 5) Silent reading of texts
Korean; notate in margins
6) Break down new words into
smaller components by
placing slashes through them
7) Constant rereading as a way
to achieve comprehension
Post-reading interview 1) 1st reading of texts: to get the 1) 1st reading of texts: to get
main idea the main ideas
2) 2nd reading: pay attention to 2) 2nd reading: pay attention to
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details details
3) Underline words or phrases 3) Underline key terms and
important for accurate make marginal notes to
interpretation of the texts remember content of texts
4) Mark parts of text that relate 4) Prefer guessing the
to their personal experience meaning of new words from
or background knowledge context rather than
5) Read aloud as a way to consulting a dictionary
achieve comprehension of 5) Know the spelling or
difficult parts of the texts general shape of words but
6) Rereading the most common not necessarily the
strategy used to understand pronunciation of the words
texts 6) Focus on meaning instead
7) Automatically translate of pronunciation of the new
English text into Korean to words when looking them
help remember and up in dictionary
understand the content 7) Relate the shape of new
8) Feel more secure in looking words to that of known,
up every new word in familiar words when trying
dictionary to make sense of their
9) Prefer analyzing parts of new meaning, rather than
words when having to guess breaking them down into
its meaning rather than smaller components
focusing on its spelling
* A tabulation of the main ideas or major details and minor details recalled by our participants as well as by a
native speaker can be found in Appendix A.

All of our participants also reported using many of the strategies included in the
reading strategies questionnaire when they read academic English texts. Table 3 summarizes
some key findings from the questionnaire data.

Table 3. Summary of Reading Strategies Questionnaire Responses

Strategies reported to be used by all of the Strategies reported to be used by none of
participants the participants
• try to see how the information is • Question why the author uses certain
organized and supported in the text language (e.g., figurative, verbs, etc.)
• try to determine what reasons or evidence • Put the reading aside and do nothing
the writer gives for this claim
• have good reasons for believing some
things and not believing others
• assimilate the new material with
previously read materials
• look for connectors that convey ideas and
the writer’s position on the matter
• When I encounter difficult parts of a text,
I slow down my speed of reading
• try to pay closer attention
Strategies used by 2 or 3 Korean Strategies used by 2 or 3 Chinese
participants and 0 or 1 of Chinese participants and 0 or 1 of Korean
participants participants
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• assimilate the new material with personal • take notes

experiences • comment on the reading through journal
• translate key words and phrases into my entries, conversations with colleagues
native language • To remember the content of the text, I
• analyze parts of words create mental images
• When I encounter difficult parts of a text, • try to lower my anxiety level
I evaluate my ability to handle other • ask the teacher for clarification,
text of the same kind correction, and / or feedback

Summary & Analyses of Findings

By examining our findings and comparing the similarities and differences between
Korean and Chinese participants in terms of their reading behaviors and preferences of
reading strategy use, we can state tentative answers to our research questions. Before we
discuss the strategy uses of Korean and Chinese participants, one easily noticeable difference
between the two groups is that our Korean participants, on average, spent more time reading
each of the texts than their Chinese counterparts. The three Korean students spent
approximately 13 minutes on the Interlanguage text and 23 minutes on the Hyperarousal text,
while the three Chinese students only spent an average of 10 minutes on the first text and 16
minutes on the second. The numbers of idea units recalled by these two groups of readers,
however, are approximately equal with the exception of the Chinese Ph.D. student who
performed markedly better on the recall of both texts. Also noteworthy is that all our Korean
participants chose to perform the recall and the post-reading interview in their native
language, while all the Chinese participants preferred using English.
Research question 1: In terms of the reading strategies used by the two groups of
participants, our Korean readers revealed to us during the interview that they tended to
translate English texts into Korean in an effort to help them remember and comprehend the
texts. One Korean participant, for instance, reported that “[she] naturally start[s] to translate
when [she] read[s] in English” so she can better understand L2 texts. Interestingly, however,
all our Chinese participants reported that they intentionally avoided translating in order to
help them better comprehend and recall the content of the texts. They claimed that it would
be harder for them to do the recall or to talk about the English texts in their native language
because of the difficulty of finding the Chinese equivalents for many of the terms and words
in the L2 texts. It seems, therefore, Korean participants were more reliant on their native
language than their Chinese counterparts when reading and comprehending L2 texts.
Additionally, a scrutiny of the reading strategies questionnaire indicates some
similarities and differences between the two groups of readers in terms of their reading
strategy use. The strategies reported to be used by all of the participants seem to be general
academic skills that students learn as they progress through their academic careers. Some of
these skills, such as slowing down or paying closer attention, can be considered as natural
reactions when trying to understand challenging texts. Others, such as examining the
organization of the text or looking for evidence provided in support of a claim are skills that
become almost second nature as students continue their studies at higher levels and read
greater amounts of academic texts. Thus, it is not surprising that all of our participants, being
graduate students at a selective university, reported using these “strategies” (or rather, skills)
when reading academic texts. In addition, one of the strategies that none of our participants
reported using (putting the reading aside and doing nothing) reflects their skills and
knowledge about reading academic texts. They must have learned that they rarely can
enhance their comprehension of a text by simply doing nothing. They have to make efforts
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and perhaps take multiple approaches to grasp the meaning of a text, particularly if the text is
challenging.
Research question 2: With respect to preferences for certain reading strategies, there
was a notable difference between the two groups’ response to difficult parts of texts and how
they overcame such difficulties. We observed that when faced with unknown words, all our
Korean participants consulted a dictionary, while the Chinese participants seemed reluctant to
turn to dictionaries. Instead, they first tried to figure out the meanings of the words from
context, or skip these words without having determined the exact meaning. Further, the
strategies reported to be used predominantly by Korean participants, namely translating into
L1 and evaluating one’s ability to handle other similar texts, seem to reflect their relatively
lower level of confidence in comprehending academic reading material in English. The
strategies that are reported to be used predominantly by the Chinese participants, such as
note-taking, talking with colleagues, lowering one’s anxiety level, and seeking the teacher’s
feedback suggest their relatively higher level of comfort in reading academic texts in English.
These strategies include activities that will lead them beyond mere identification of literal
meaning to a higher-level comprehension of texts.
In addition, Korean participants’ use of personal experiences to understand an academic
text also reflects their lower level of reading comprehension ability in comparison to our
Chinese participants. Assimilating the new material with personal experiences may be a
strategy that can enhance comprehension to a greater extent when reading fiction, but one
that is not very effective when reading academic texts. Personal experiences are different
from topic knowledge or familiarity with a particular field. While personal experiences can
serve as schemata for understanding specific events, attempting to understand the contents of
an academic text through one’s life experiences could lead to imposing one’s idiosyncratic
beliefs or world knowledge onto the text, which may or may not match the message conveyed
in the text.
Research question 3: With respect to our participants’ strategy use in overcoming
comprehension gaps due to insufficient vocabulary knowledge, the observation of reading
behaviors revealed that our Korean participants tried to repeatedly sound out words and
sentences that they found hard to comprehend. The Chinese participants, however, all seemed
to favor silent reading when facing challenging parts of the texts. In an interview, one of our
Korean participants told us that repeating words and phrases that she found difficult helps her
better comprehend texts, saying, “When I don’t get it, I just read it over and over. … I feel
like I can understand it better when I keep reading it over and over again.” Similarly, another
Korean participant reported that her reading aloud was her translating texts into Korean since
“in Korean, [her] memory is better, but in English, [she] cannot retain information in [her]
memory for as long.” Conversely, our Chinese participants all indicated that they normally
would not sound out words and sentences to help them remember or understand the texts.
In particular, when guessing the meaning of new words from the context, our Korean
participants tended to break down the new words into smaller components to make sense of
them. Two of the Korean readers placed slashes through new words (e.g., hyper/amnesias,
neuro/transmitters) in attempts to guess the meanings. All three Korean readers reported in
the interview that analyzing parts of the word was indeed a common strategy they used and
would normally use when trying to make sense of new words. Contrastingly, our Chinese
participants did not and claimed that they normally would not break down new words for
comprehension purposes. Instead, they would look at the overall shape and spelling of words
and try to relate them to some other words that have similar shapes and spellings in an effort
to make sense of the target words. All three of our Chinese participants, for example,
revealed to us that in order to make sense of the word “potentiation” their first reaction was to
relate it to “potential,” a word they knew. They would not, however, think of breaking it
 39

down into smaller components such as “potent” or “-ion” to make sense of it. One Chinese
participant reported during the interview that she automatically predicted the word to be
“potential” when she saw part of the word, “poten-.” What made her realize that it was not
“potential” was that she felt “[the word] is too long” to be “potential.” Apparently, she was
paying attention to the overall shape of the word rather than the internal structure of the word
when reading. Based on the aforementioned information, therefore, we concluded that
Korean readers tended to use phonological processing strategies, while Chinese readers
tended to use visual-orthographic processing strategies to overcome the comprehension gaps
caused by inadequate knowledge of vocabulary.

Discussion
The differences between Korean and Chinese participants’ reading behaviors and
reported strategy use support the literature on reading strategies characteristic of relatively
less proficient vs. more proficient readers. The Korean participants demonstrated a reliance
on dictionaries, habit of translation, and use of personal background knowledge in attempts to
comprehend academic texts, all of which have been identified as characteristics of less skilled
readers. Contrastingly, the Chinese participants preferred using contextual clues, discussion
with colleagues, and help of peers or teachers as ways of achieving comprehension of
academic texts, all of which have been recognized as habits of more skilled readers. Partly
because of our participants’ differing language proficiency and reading levels, and partly due
to the lack of a thorough screening method for determining our participants’ background
knowledge, the distinction between the familiar and unfamiliar text became blurred.
Nonetheless, it was observed that our participants are similar in their use of some general
reading strategies, while differing in their tendency to use strategies in determining the
meaning of unfamiliar words.
Our findings confirm the existing research on the transfer of decoding skills in L1 in
the comprehension of L2 texts. We note the possible influence of the alphabetic L1 in the
Korean participants’ responses that they analyze unfamiliar words into smaller parts that are
recognizable or easier to manipulate. Korean is written in a non-Roman alphabet writing
system called Hangul, in which the basic unit of representation is the phoneme, but one or
more consonants are combined with a vowel to form a syllable, and each syllable is written in
a square-shaped block (Taylor, 1980, as cited in Koda, 1998). The blocks are more easily
distinguished than the smaller phonemic symbols, so it has been assumed that Korean readers
develop “compound phonemic awareness” through everyday practice of forming syllable-
blocks with phonemic symbols when reading and spelling in Hangul (Koda, 1998, p. 200).
Thus, our Korean participants’ reported tendency to analyze words into smaller parts may be
a result of the transfer of sensitivity to word-internal structures and the ability to map
phonemes onto graphemes.
Moreover, the Chinese readers’ reported use of creating mental images suggests the
influence of their logographic L1. Unlike Korean or English, Chinese uses characters to
represent meaning. Each character represents a syllable, and more than 80% of Chinese
characters are compound forms, made up of a radical and a phonetic (Huang & Hanley, 1994).
The radical provides clues to the meaning, while the phonetic component provides clues as to
how the character should be pronounced. Chinese can therefore be more accurately described
as morpho-syllabic (Jackson et al., 1999), and it has been claimed that Chinese speakers
develop holistic visual-processing strategies as they read in the logographic system (Haynes
& Carr, 1990). These visual-processing skills appear to be transferred when native readers of
Chinese learn to read in English, and our Chinese participants’ reported use of creating visual
images to remember the content of academic texts may also be an effect of the transfer of this
visual-processing skill.
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Implications for Teaching

Considering that Korean and English both have an alphabetic writing system, and
assuming that Korean readers transfer the phonological processing skills from L1, it seems
logical to expect that the Korean participants would process English texts with relatively
greater ease and hence achieve a higher level of comprehension than the Chinese participants.
The Chinese readers, who presumably transfer the visual processing skills from their L1, may
be expected to achieve a lower level of comprehension or the same level of comprehension at
a slower rate than the Korean readers. Our study, however, leads us to believe that both kinds
of processing skills lead to more or less the same level of comprehension, and that the level
of comprehension achieved may depend more on the level of English proficiency than on the
transfer of skills from L1. Yet in resolving comprehension gaps created by unknown words,
the fact that our Korean participants tend to use phonological processing strategies while our
Chinese participants tend to use visual-orthographic processing strategies seems noteworthy
for ESL teachers.
Teachers working with Korean ESL learners should know that the seemingly vast
difference between Korean and English is merely an outward appearance, and that learners
who have acquired literacy skills in Korean are already familiar with the same phonological
processing skills that underlie an alphabetic language such as English. Moreover, teachers
can take advantage of Korean students’ tendency to use phonological characteristics of text
(e.g., sounding out phrases and words to resolve comprehension difficulties). They can read
aloud difficult portions of text, paying attention to prosodic features so that students can
better grasp how sentences or arguments are interrelated. Teachers working with Chinese
ESL learners may capitalize on their tendency to rely on visual or orthographic features of
text and first teach them to look for key vocabulary such as transition words (e.g.,
nevertheless, moreover, consequently, etc.) which will then enable them to build a map or an
outline of the text being read. In addition, it may be necessary for teachers of Chinese ESL
learners to explicitly teach the processing skills that native English readers are trained to use.
The teachers should have some familiarity with Chinese as well as some knowledge of
linguistics to explain that the English mapping of meaning onto clusters of letters within
words corresponds to the Chinese mapping of meaning onto characters. Teachers can then
illustrate the word-internal structures of English by separating the morphemes of a word
while explaining that English words are composed of strings of morphemes, each of which
carries a meaning. By providing students with a set of commonly used morphemes and
training them to recognize their meaning within words, teachers can help students to increase
their vocabulary, and hence, their ability to comprehend texts.

Conclusion & Avenues for Further Research

The findings from this study lend support to the existing research that certain literacy
skills transfer across languages. We conclude that ESL learners tend to use the processing
strategies developed in their L1 when reading L2 texts, particularly in trying to determine
meanings of unfamiliar words.
Due to the time constraints and limited access to resources, however, our study has a
number of limitations. First, only six participants were involved in the study, and all of them
were our classmates and acquaintances at the Steinhardt School of Education. With such a
small number of participants and the use of sampling by convenience, we cannot make
generalizations about the patterns of reading strategy use among a general population of
Korean and Chinese ESL learners. Moreover, all six of our participants are female; research
suggests that the use of language learning and reading strategies differ between males and
females (Goh & Foong, 1997). Thus, our single-sex sample places another constraint on the
 41

degree of generalizability of our analyses and conclusions about reading strategies employed
by the two groups of readers.
Furthermore, although we tried to recruit participants who have achieved the same level
of English proficiency by the time of our study, one Chinese participant is notably more
advanced than the other five students. She was pursuing a Ph.D. degree, while the others
were pursuing their Master’s degrees. This fact poses a challenge on our comparisons of the
strategy use between the two groups. The different levels of comprehension achieved by each
participant can be attributed to either the different use of reading strategies or the different
level of language proficiency, or possibly both. Therefore, we refrain from claiming, for
example, that Chinese ESL learners tend to use more effective reading strategies, even
though our data indicates that they generally achieved better comprehension of the texts.
As for measuring the level of comprehension achieved by each participant, we
recognize that the method of oral recall used in our study has its own set of limitations. The
recall is a legitimate way of assessing reading comprehension, and the number of idea units
recalled can serve, to an extent, as an indicator of the level of reading comprehension
achieved by our participants (Moss, 2004). Nonetheless, by asking our participants to
perform the recall without access to the texts, we are not assessing comprehension only, but
also their ability to memorize the content of the texts. We attempted to account for this
limitation of the recall method by supplementing it with the semi-structured interview in
which we asked questions designed to assess the readers’ comprehension of texts. However,
since these comprehension questions were not tested for validity or reliability, we still cannot
claim that our assessments of the participants’ reading comprehension are accurate. In our
future studies, we plan to formulate comprehension questions of varying difficulty and test
them for validation prior to conducting the research.
Since our study suggests that both Korean and Chinese readers achieved similar levels
of comprehension using different processing skills, future studies need to determine the
effectiveness of visual-orthographic processing strategies for reading English. The need for
these studies is particularly strong considering that converging research indicates that both
phonological awareness and orthographic processing are principal factors determining one’s
success in reading English (Wang, Koda, & Perfetti, 2004). In addition, further research
should examine the length of time learning English or the degree of English proficiency
beyond which the skills developed in L1 no longer influence reading in English. It should
also determine whether there is a level of metacognitive knowledge that needs to be
developed before ESL learners can control the influence of L1 in their choice of reading
strategies. Is there a level of L2 proficiency which should be attained in order for ELLs to 1)
benefit from a positive transfer of strategies or skills from their L1 and 2) be able to block the
negative transfer of strategies from L1 when performing L2 tasks? Future investigations
addressing such questions promise to further discussions about the threshold in the language
interdependence hypothesis (Cummins, 1979) and the role of metacognition in L2 reading,
both of which are fundamental issues in second language acquisition. The development of
metacognitive knowledge particularly important for ESL students pursuing higher education
in the U.S. because not only are strategic awareness and monitoring of reading processes
essential elements of skilled reading (Mokhtari & Reichard, 2002), but also students in higher
education are expected to read large amounts of academic materials and learn independently.
Therefore, the more they are aware of their cognitive processes in relation to the reading and
the self-control mechanisms they can use to monitor and improve their understanding of the
text, the more successful their academic experiences will be.
 42

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Lorena Llosa for critical feedback on an earlier version of
this article, Gordon Pradl for guidance during the research, and the participants for their
cooperation in the study.
 43

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Moss, B. (2004). Teaching expository text structures through information trade book
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Hee Jin Bang received her B.A. Honors in Linguistics & French at Oxford University and
M.Ed. in Human Development & Psychology from Harvard Graduate School of
Education. As a Ph.D. candidate in Teaching & Learning at New York University, her
research interests include assessment and school engagement of immigrant adolescents.
Cecilia Guanfang Zhao received her B.A. in English at Tianjin University of Commerce,
China, and M.A. in English from the Ohio State University. She is currently a Ph.D.
student in TESOL at New York University. Her research interests include language
assessment and the relationship between second language reading and writing.
Address: 635 East Building, 239 Greene St., New York, NY 10003
E-Mail: [email protected], [email protected]
 45

Appendix A
Recall of idea units from Nature of Interlanguage
(Italics indicate misinterpretations of the text)

Participant Main Ideas & Major Details Minor Details

Korean 1 1) “The text is about the nature of 1) “Corder said something about
interlanguage.” 2 & 3) “When adults changing systems.” 2) Corder and
are learning a second language they Selinker both agree, but Corder
transfer from L1, but not everyone asserts something slightly different,
transfers to the same extent, so there is something about variety.”
the term continuum.” 4) “Professor
Selinker said that the system between
the target language and native
language is called interlanguage.” 5)
“When someone uses imperfect
language over a long period of time
and can’t change, that is called
fossilization.”

Korean 2 1) “It talked about interlanguage and 1) “There were two other scholars,
change of language.” 2) “Selinker said Nem..something and Cord… who
that there is a process of learning and agreed more or less with Selinker.” 2)
that there are rules in the Professor Selinker said something
interlanguage.” 3) “When going from about rules in the interlanguage.” 3)
target language to native language It’s like when children learn their
there are interferences and if they native languages.”
become fixed, that’s called
fossilization.” 4) Because adults
already know their L1’s, they have a
greater understanding and knowledge
as they learn a L2.”

Korean 3 1) “The text is about the process of 1) “The process is called different
someone who knows one language things, like recreation or
learning a second language.” 2) There restructuring.” 2) “There was
were four scholars who all agreed with something about approximative
the process, and with each scholar, progression.” 3) “I remember the
there were more complex arguments words fossilization and
introduced.” 3) “Interlanguage is the incongruence.”
language in between the target
language and the native language.” 4
& 5) “Children, when acquiring their
native languages, do not have prior
knowledge of language, but adults
already do have knowledge of a
language, so when adults learn a L2, a
restructuring takes place.”
Chinese 1 1) “This reading is basically about the 1) “Authors believe the interlangauge
interlanguage system a second system is…coherent, and that it’s
language learner develops.” 2) “At the developing along the way.” 2) “They
 46

beginning, there seemed to be mentioned a lot of researchers’

evidence that there’re a lot of transfer names.” 3) “They also mentioned
from their native language.” 3) “But about Nemser—cannot recall what he
not all learners do that. So there’s talked about now.”
individual variability.” 4) “Selinker
mentioned the various ways
interlanguage system can develop
through.” 5) “A second researcher
they mentioned is Corder. He
mentioned that the interlanguage
system is a continuum—they call it
something like ‘progressive
continuum’ or ‘restructuring
continuum’.” 6) “Their point is a
second language leaner develops an
interlanguage system that is neither
their native language nor their target
language.” 7&8) “[Selinker] believes
that there is ‘fossilization’ in between;
in other words, a second language
learner can never reach the real target
language level. So it’s always
somewhere in between.”
Chinese 2 1) “It talks about language developing 1) “The oral and written [language
process.” 2) “It mentioned about developing process] is supposed to be
fossilization.” 3) “They also the same.” 2) “The process of
mentioned the difference between the learning language keeps changing.” 3)
adult and the young learners—kids “It also mentioned about progressive
have no knowledge about language; recreation.” 4) “They also mentioned
adult learners do have some about L1 and L2”
knowledge about language.”
Chinese 3 1) “I think this text is talking about 1) “One of them is Corder…he thinks
some point of view about [the interlanguage system] is
interlangauge.” 2) “It gives some continuous, and he called it
research, or some researchers and progressively restructured.” 2)
what they have done.” 3) “But I think “There’s a difference among all
the main idea is there’s something that learners; they have their own style.”
is called the interlanguage between the 3) “The progressive stage is the early
target language and the native stage.” 4) “The second stage,
language maybe in our brain ‘Recreation’, means they will use
somewhere.” their native language to create the
new things by target language.” 5)
“Someone called Na…Na
something—said it’s approx---I
cannot pronounce that name, but I
think it means it’s an incomplete
system in the brain.”
Native 1) “I think this article is talking about 1) “The rules they learn by…they are
Speaker being able…how second language is just implicit.” 2) “They use words like
learned.” 2) “There is various degrees discontinuous, continuum, or
 47

of competence that person may have.” something like that.” 3) “About

3) “One of them believe that you grammar, the two people, Corder and
acquire it and you continue to build on Selinker, have slightly different views
that knowledge, and that’s one of the on it.” 4) “Is it something like
continuums.” 4) “One of the words I interdependence?” 5) “Because an
do remember from my studies, is adult is somebody who already has an
fossilization, and basically, it means L1, they can transfer easier, but kids
that you are doing something out of just pick it up naturally.”
habit…not because it’s correct. It’s
probably incorrect, but you are doing
it out of sheer habit of always doing
something, it becomes natural.” 5)
“The last part of the article has to do
with whether you learn as if you were
a child. It’s different if you have pre-
knowledge. So the last part talks about
the transfer of knowledge by adults.”

Recall of idea units from Hyperarousal, Triggering, and State-Dependent Learning

(Italics indicate misinterpretations of the text)

Participant Main Ideas & Major Details Minor Details

Korean 1 1) “It’s something about how memory 1) “It said something about chronic
is affected by automatic arousal.” 2) disease or something.” 2) “There was
“The way it happens in adults and something about a box in relation to
children are different.” 3) the animal experiment.” 3) “What are
“Noradrenaline is distributed in the Pavlov’s dogs?”
body, and when it is accumulated, it
affects... or causes something else to
happen.” 4) “When dogs are upset or
punished, they expose themselves to
the shock and seek the familiar.” 5)
“The experiment with animals
supports the scholars’ argument about
how humans react to arousal.”
Korean 2 1) “Shock can cause differences in 1) “People can see things in dreams.”
people’s memory, like it can cause 2) “I think it also said something
someone to remember something.” 2) about how when people are exposed
“There are chemicals that are to something for a long time, they
distributed in the body that cause develop the ability to self-cure.”
people to remember things.” 3 & 4)
“The animal experiment showed that if
dogs are exposed to minor shock, then
they are just interested. But when they
are exposed to repeated shock, then it
leads to automatic reaction, and they
seek a familiar path.”
Korean 3 1) “It’s about stress, trauma, and 1) “There was something about how
shock.” 2) “When people experience a short-term memory becomes more
traumatic event, there is a greater vivid.” 2) “There is a difference
 48

distribution of noradrenaline in the between the trauma experienced as a

body.” 3) “To avoid the shock, they child, and trauma experienced as an
seek the familiar.” 4) “What confuses adult.” 3) “The familiar is secure. So
me here at the end is, why do these they look for that.”
animals seek the place where they
were punished?”
Chinese 1 1) “It talks about trauma and its effect 1) “Their nerves will have certain
on people’s memory.” 2 & 3) physiological changes when they are
“There’re two types of amnesia— experiencing the trauma.” 2) “That
hypermnesia: usually after one-time gives results the action they might
trauma experience; amnesia: long time take in the future.” 3) “People would
effect of the repeated trauma relive those experiments in their
experiences.” 4) “If they experience dreams, relive the situation again and
the same trauma again, if the scenario again, no matter in the dream or
is the same as they experience before, awake.”
this will trigger the traumatic
memory.” 5) “Animals tend to be
curious and seek novelty when the
stimulus is low; but they tend to avoid
seeking novelty when the stimulus is
high, too high, trauma I guess.”
6) “It concludes that people will react
in the same way as animals when
confronted with trauma 7) “The
middle part is [talking about]
physiological change in a person’s
nerves when the person is
experiencing the trauma.”

Chinese 2 1) “Animals shocked or punished tend 1) “The first paragraph focused on

to stay in the same box.” people.” 2) “The second paragraph
focused on animals.” 3) “Animals are
the same as human beings.”

Chinese 3 1) “It talks about amnesia I think, or 1) “In other words…something

hypermnesia.” 2) “The first paragraph subconsciously stimulates the
is probably about how the nerve connection between the event and the
system works.” 3&4) “Amnesia is accident happened in that person’s
probably caused by a one-time childhood.” 2) “The adults’ unhappy
accident, but hypermnesia can be memory in the brain that stimulates
traced back to [a person’s] childhood.” the nightmare and constantly stimuli
5) “Then it talked about the animal would lead to amnesia.”
experiment, which is the same with
human beings.” 6) “[When animals are
under] low-level stress, they tend to be
curious and are more relaxed. But the
high-level stress or….”
Native 1) “Basically what it tells you is that 1) “Well, the title is something like
Speaker there’s a fixed memory in your brain hyperarousal, triggering, and
when a traumatic event takes place.” 2 dependent-state.” 2) “It talks about
 49

& 3) “Post traumatic stress disorder is the amnesia, how it only happens in
one of the disorders that take place like kids, and it’s like a repetitive
after an accident or something, and childhood thing.” 3) “This
then you have the stimuli in the brain.” hyper…hypermnesia only happens
4) “The last part talks about how the when you are an adult and usually
lower the arousal, then you are willing after a one-time deal.” 4)
to …I say take risks, expand, go some “Locus…something, is some part of
place.” 5) “So I think the whole article the brain, which triggers a bunch of
talks about the way brain works, when different parts of the brain to
there’s a traumatic, when a person stimulate.” 5) “Your brain sometimes
faces a traumatic experience. What will know… that corpus whatever it
happens in the brain will cause them to is.” 6) “The dependent state means
refer back to these memories later on like the action you do depends on the
in their life.” 6 & 7) “That whole test state you are in – high arousal or low
with low arousal and high arousal arousal, and that can affect your
done on the animals – they are memory.”
guessing that it is similar to what
happens to humans. So that’s why they
comment that when somebody has a
traumatic event, then if they are faced
with a similar situation, they will all of
a sudden,…I don’t know it is rethink
or reenact, but they will act very
similar to they way they did during the
traumatic event.” 8) “One of the things
I remember is like … if the animal
went into a box when there is a
punishment, he will go back to the box
where there is a punishment if he was
hyper…if he was in a high arousal.”
 50

Appendix B
Reading Strategies Questionnaire: Below is an inventory to see what sort of strategies you often
prefer to employ in reading. Please write “Y” for “YES”, “N” for “NO”, and “O” for Occasionally
in the blanks provided on the left-hand side of each column. Thank you very much for your
contributions.

When reading academic texts / When doing ____ translate key words and phrases into my native
reading for a class, I try to: language
____ find answers to given questions based on the ____ try to build the meaning of the sentences from
text the meanings of individual words
____ give my personal opinion about the topic ____ analyze sentence structures
____ use my background knowledge ____ analyze parts of words
____ recognize the text structure
____ predict the content of the text To remember the content of the text, I
____ guess the reason the author is writing about the ____ create mental images
topic ____ draw maps or diagrams
____ think about different ways of writing the text ____ focus on keywords
____ generate my own list of questions about the text ____ think of other words I associate with the
keywords / main ideas
While reading, I ____ place new words into a context I am familiar
____ take notes with
____ read through the passage and underline difficult ____ try to find equivalences or similarities with my
words and phrases native language
____ skim for a general idea of the whole passage
____ try to figure out the meaning of unfamiliar When I encounter difficult parts of a text, I
words and phrases from context ____ reread or repeat (sound out) the words or
____ look up the unfamiliar words in a dictionary or phrases that I do not understand
another relevant book, such as an encyclopedia ____ try to solve doubts by questioning
____ try to practice the sounds and the sentence ____ ignore or avoid them
structures ____ slow down my speed of reading
____ focus on the most important ideas of a text, ____ speed up my speed of reading
separating what is central from what is ____ try to guess while reading
peripheral ____ use reference materials
____ try to see how information is organized and ____ try to pay closer attention
supported in a text ____ evaluate my ability to handle other texts of the
____ try to see what point the writer is attempting to same kind
establish ____ use the organization of the text to gain a better
____ try to determine what is being asserted as true understanding
____ decide why I should accept this claim as true ____ reset / modify my goals and objectives
____ try to determine what reasons or evidence the ____ seek practice opportunities
writer gives for this claim ____ monitor my understanding and correct errors
____ focus on what I think the teacher expects me to ____ encourage myself to persist
know ____ try to lower my anxiety level
____ do not believe everything I read ____ ask / cooperate with my peers
____ question everything that does not make sense to ____ ask the teacher for clarification, correction, and
me / or feedback
____ analyze arguments
____ dismiss arguments based on faulty reasoning After reading, I
____ have good reasons for believing some things ____ summarize what I have read
and not believing others ____ evaluate the reading
____ look for patterns or repetitions ____ try to synthesize the reading with other
____ assimilate the new material with personal materials I have read
experiences ____ comment on the reading through journal entries,
____ assimilate the new material with previously conversations with colleagues
read materials ____ put the reading aside and do nothing
____ try to see if the author writes emotionally
____ question why the author uses certain language
(e.g., figurative language, verbs, etc.)
____ look for connectors that convey ideas and the
writer’s position on the matter