The effectiveness of pre-, while-, and post- Reading Strategies in Second Language Acquisition

Abstract

This study is encompassed within the field of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) and focuses on language teaching and learning. The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, it is aimed at examining whether twenty adult Spanish students of a B1-level English course know about pre-, while-, and post-reading strategies and whether they implement them in a reading comprehension task. Secondly, I demonstrate that the application of some pre-, while, and post- reading strategies and the incorporation of them in a lesson work plan is effective in order to improve the students’ reading skill and to achieve better results in the reading task. Twenty Spanish students of an English course for adults were divided into two different groups and then, they performed the same activity but it differed in some ways. Firstly, a reading comprehension task was distributed to one half of the class, and they completed the task without adopting any reading strategy. Secondly, the same reading comprehension task was executed by the other half of the class employing some pre-, while-, and post-reading strategies. The results suggest that the use of pre-, while-, and post- reading strategies is necessary since they help learners improve their reading skill and achieve better results in the reading comprehension tasks.