Novitas-ROYAL, 2009, Vol.: 3(1), 75-82[i].
CULTURAL ORIENTATION AND READING
COMPREHENSION MODELS: THE CASE OF IRANIAN RURAL AND URBAN STUDENTS
Abstract: The
present study attempted to investigate the effect of rural and urban
orientations on top-down and bottom-up reading models of the Iranian EFL
students. To do this, the researcher selected two groups of EFL learners, one
rural and the other, urban. To determine the socio-cultural status of the
subjects, a demographic questionnaire was given to both groups. Then, the
subjects were made homogeneous by administering a language proficiency test,
Nelson. It is noteworthy that Nelson test had already been standardized. After
that previously validated ten reading passages including top-down and bottom-up
items were administered to both groups. The experiment lasted for ten sessions
and the statistical analyses used in this study comprised a t-test to determine
the homogeneity of the groups, a two-way ANOVA and Scheffe test. The results
showed that in addition to bottom-up model, the urban students made use of
top-down strategy including inferences, skimming for the main ideas, guessing
the meaning of words from context, activating background knowledge, and
focusing on the author's message, whereas rural subjects showed great reliance
on texts and the application of bottom-up processing i.e. they heavily relied
on the main content of the text, they never incorporated the knowledge of the
world as well as their prior knowledge to answer reading comprehension
questions.
Key words: Reading comprehension,
top-down, bottom-up, culture
Özet: Bu çalışma, İngilizceyi yabancı dil olarak
öğrenen İran asıllı öğrencilerin yukarıdan
aşağı ve aşağıdan yukarı okuma modelleri
kullanımında şehir ya da kırsal kesim kökenli olmanın
etkisini araştırmayı amaçlamaktadır. Bu amaçla,
araştırmacı biri şehirde biri de kırsalda olmak üzere
İngilizceyi yabancı dil olarak öğrenen iki grup seçmiştir.
Katılımcıların sosyokültürel konumunu belirlemek için her
iki gruba da bir demografik bilgiyi toplayan anket
uygulanmıştır. Daha sonra, katılımcı gruba Nelson
dil yeterlilik testi uygulanarak grup içi homojenlik sağlanmaya
çalışılmıştır. Nelson testi, standardize
edilmiş bir testtir. Daha sonra, metni yukarıdan
aşağıya ve aşağıdan yukarıya çözümlemeye
dair maddelere sahip önceden belirlenmiş on adet okuma parçası her
iki gruba da uygulanmıştır. Deney on aşamada. Sonuçlar
göstermektedir ki, şehirdeki öğrenciler, metin anlamada
aşağıdan yukarıya akışına ek olarak, yukarıdan aşağıya
stratejileri de kullanmışlardır. Bu stratejilerden
bazıları, metinden anlam çıkarma, ana fikri bulma, metinden
kelime tahmininde bulunma, geçmiş deneyimlerle bağlantı kurma ve
yazarın anafikrine odaklanmadır. Oysa ki, kırsaldaki
katılımcılar metne ve aşağıdan yukarıya
çözümlemeye yüksek ölçüde bağlı kalmışlardır. Örneğin, metnin ana içeriğine çok
fazla bağlı kaldıkları ve okuma parçasına ait
soruları cevaplarken mevcut bilgi ve genel kültürleriyle hiç
bağdaşım kurmadıkları görülmüştür.
Anahtar kelimeler: Okuma anlama, yukardan
aşağı, aşağıdan yukarı, kültür
1. Introduction
Learners of a second or foreign language may rarely find chances to communicate with native speakers orally, but they can read different texts in different subjects with varying degrees of detail and difficulty. In the contemporary world, technology provides the scientific findings appear in the form of written texts. So, the need for reading and extracting information from these texts seems to be vital. As stated by Bernhardt (1991), the ability to read is the most stable and durable of the second language modalities. Rivers (1981) propounds that a reading is a most important activity in any language class, not only as a source of information and a pleasurable activity, but also as a means of consolidating and extending one's knowledge of the language (p.259). Strevens (1977) also emphasizes the great importance of reading to the learners for two reasons: first of all this skill provides the learners with access to a great quantity of further experience of the language. The second reason is presenting a window onto the normal means of continuing the learners' personal education by reading skill." Through reading, the learners would be able to develop a sufficient language base that enables them to produce the spoken or written messages which they are eager to communicate to others. Chastain (1988) believes that "without this knowledge, students are not likely to be successful in the typical language class in which all four language skills are stressed" (p.218).
To recreate the
writers message, the application of a number of reading comprehension models
seems to be essential for any reader. The concepts of top-down and
bottom-up processing as strategic models of reading comprehension have always
been on the focus of researchers for many years. The top-down model includes
skimming, scanning, activating background knowledge, predicting, thinking of
the authors main idea, finding clues, contextual guessing, and associating
image which have specified this model/processing as conceptually driven.
Bottom-up processing, on the other hand, mainly stresses on literal
comprehension, surface meaning, translation into L1 and use of dictionary which
have specified this model as data driven (Madden & Nebes 1980, Dubin
& Bycina 1991, Carrell 1991, Stanovich 1980, Chastain 1988).To Hayashi (1999), most of the students in an EFL setting
are apt to focus on bottom-up processing (data driven) particularly at an early stage of learning while the need for engaging
in Top-down processing is not deemed seriously in the views of these learners.
Language pedagogy has got at the point that language and culture are interrelated, that is, it is not possible to teach language without culture. In order to recreate the writers intended meaning, a set of reading comprehension strategies appears to be necessary. On the other hand, Therefore, Culture learning is necessary for the students to become familiar with the aspects that help them in better understanding the people and their way of life (Chastain, 1988).
Parry (1996) in a study on two separate groups of language learners, the Nigerian and Chinese, claims that the reading model which each group used depended on their language background and culture. She also adds that Nigerian students showed a preference for top-down method of solving comprehension [questions] whereas the Chinese group reported a strong tendency to use bottom-up processing (p. 665). Parry (1996) concludes that cultural background is an important factor in the formation of individual reading strategies (p. 665).
Apart from conducting research on quite two separate groups of subjects e.g. Chinese and Nigerian- by Parry (1996), the present study has merely focused on Iranian EFL learners. Our main goal is to investigate the impact of rural and urban orientation on Iranian EFL learners tendencies to use top-down or bottom-up models of solving reading comprehension questions.
2. Statement
of the problem
Many researchers emphasize the efficiency of teaching reading strategy for improving students performance on comprehension. According to Brown (1994), more proficient readers find their own way, taking charge of their learning and use various types of strategies effectively whereas others do not use strategies effectively even though they are taught how to do so.
With regard
to the importance of top-down and bottom-up reading comprehension models, this
study attempts to investigate the
Iranian rural and urban EFL students preferences on applying these two models
to comprehend reading texts.
3. Significance of the study
Reading and comprehension is not bounded to the
text. In other words, any no text carries
meaning by itself. So, in order to recreate the writer's message, the
reader should apply comprehension strategies. As the primary objective of reading is comprehension, Mohamad
(1999) suggests three comprehension
strategies. He, then, divides the strands of the comprehension into "literal" "interpretive" and
"critical comprehension. He states that the
first level involves surface meanings. So, the teachers can ask students to find information
and ideas that are
explicitly stated in the text (bottom-up processing).
With regard to
the second level, students go beyond what is said and read for deeper meanings. Students need to be able to
see relationships among ideas, for example,
how ideas go together and also see the implied meanings of these ideas.
Interpretive or referential comprehension includes thinking processes such as drawing
conclusion, making generalizations and
predicting outcomes.
The third level focuses on
evaluating ideas and information which are mainly used in advanced levels. Thus, to encourage the learners not to
focus on applying a specific reading comprehension
model, the teachers should make significant efforts to provide the students with different reading
assessments to test their reading
abilities. Like any foreign language instructional setting, the
importance of reading comprehension is seriously taken into account in Iran.
Therefore, it seems to be crucial for Iranian EFL learners to be familiar with
different reading comprehension models to optimally solve reading comprehension
questions as well as to recreate the writers message.
4.
Method
The main participants in the study were 160 male Iranian rural and urban students studying at pre-university centers in Malayer and the suburb villages. The age limit of the subjects was 17 to 18. To determine the subjects' cultural behavior and residential status, first a demographic questionnaire was given to a total of 600 rural and urban students (each group contained 300 students). 117 subjects out of 300 in each group were randomly selected from a total of 234 based on Morgans Randomization Table.
In
order to determine the homogeneity of the groups (rural & urban) regarding their level of
language proficiency, a standardized Nelson Test Form 200
A was used. 160
subjects (80 in each group) whose scores were one standard deviation above and
below the mean were selected and assigned as the main participants of the
present study.
4.1. Procedure
First of all,
a pilot group of 20 took both Nelson 200A Test and another language proficiency
test, CELT. The purpose of this administration was to standardize Nelson 200A Test against
CELT. The
correlation coefficient results (70.71) showed
an acceptable degree of
correspondence between Nelson and CELT.
A demographic
questionnaire was given to a total of 600 rural and urban students to determine
their socio-cultural status. Then 234 male subjects were randomly selected
based on their responses. Then the
standardized Nelson 200A Test was given to a total of 234 Rural and Urban students (117 Ss in each group) in
order to determine the homogeneity of
the subjects.
The subjects whose scores
were one standard deviation (SD) above and below the mean were selected and
others whose scores were out of this
range were excluded from the study. The
results indicated that 80 subjects in each group scored one SD above / below the mean. So, they were selected as
the main subjects of the study.
The results of the T-test
obtained from the mean differences of each group performance on Nelson Test
indicated that the two groups showed no significant difference in terms of
language proficiency. Table 1 has illustrated the T-test results.
After determining the
homogeneity of the rural and urban groups regarding language proficiency, ten
reading passages which were validated and piloted before, were administered to the
rural and urban subjects.
It is noteworthy that the reading passages comprised five
texts including Top-down items and five
other texts consisting of Bottom-up items.
By top-down or bottom-up items we mean that these items were constructed
according to the features of these two processing models. For example, a
top-down item to be answered requires the students activating his/her
background knowledge, making inferences, deduction and so on. The study lasted
for ten sessions and each group received one passage per session.
The study involves two independent
variables and one dependent variable. The
independent variables consisted of origination and item type, each of which
comprised two levels. In other words, origination comprises two levels: Urban and Rural and item
type, also, consists of Top-down and Bottom-up items. The subjects reading
scores were regarded as
the dependent variable in this study.
5. Results and Discussion
To
test the null
hypothesis, the researcher attempted to investigate whether there is any
difference among the following groups :
Group 1 Urban Top-down (UT)
Group 2 Urban Bottom-up (UB)
Group 3 Rural
Top-down (RT)
Group 4 Rural Bottom-up (RB)
So, the researchers applied a two
way ANOVA
for statistical calculations.
F factor A= S² factor A/ S² within effect of item type
F factor B = S² factor B/ S² within effect of origination
F factor ( A x B ) = S² interaction / S² within origination x item type
