Republic of the Philippines

Philippine Normal University

The National Center for Teacher Education

A Research Proposal in

READ 506

Linguistics in Reading

Chunking As a Strategy to Improve Reading Comprehension of Grade 11

Students

Bonjovi Hassan Hajan

M.A.Ed in English Language Teaching

The Researcher

Heidi Barcelo-Macahilig, Ph.D.

Course Instructor
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Chunking As a Strategy to Improve Reading Comprehension of Grade 11 ESL Students

Bonjovi Hassan Hajan

M.A.Ed in English Language Teaching
Philippine Normal University- Manila

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 Introduction

I. Background of the Study

In the Philippine contexts where English is used a Second Language

(ESL), reading competence has been reasonably an issue. In fact, the number of

learners with low reading competence continues to decline each year. Luz (2007)

reported that in elementary schools, particularly in the Division of Manila, Phil-

IRI (Philippine-Informal Reading Inventory) test scores disclosed that only one-

sixth to one-third of pupils have the ability to read independently at the desired

grade level. By the end of the elementary cycle (Grade 6), report showed that over

one-third of elementary graduates were determined as frustrated readers

whereas another one-third were instructional readers. Both levels actually fell

below the desired reading level at the end of the elementary cycle. It was probed

then that if this was the actual phenomenon in Metro Manila, then much lower

levels of reading competence of learners in other regions of the country could be

anticipated since less provisions and educational facilities are made available

within those areas as compared to the National Capital Region.

Reading is pivotal in learners academic performance and endeavor in life.

It is the bedrock of instruction for all learners regardless of their ability level

because it sets the premise for future progress and achievement in almost all other

phases of life (Scott 2010; Luckner & Handley 2008). It is an influential learning

mechanism, an instrument of meaning-making and knowledge acquisition

(Pretorius, 2002). Thus, the ability to read and make sense of what is read is

immensely significant.

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 Research has shown that there could be several reasons behind learners

difficulties and failure in reading. Suzuki (2005), for example, highlighted that

such factors which tend to have incremental effects include a limited vocabulary

and insufficiency of grammatical knowledge. Poor mastery over vocabulary or

the lack of lexicons, habit of cramming instead of learning and understanding,

weak sentence structure and tenses, not using the tricks to infer the meaning

from context, no habit of reading the newspapers, articles, novels and other

books, and a lack of interest from both sides (from teachers and students in

developing the skill) are also some major factors causing poor reading

comprehension (Iqbal, et. Al, 2015).

More often than not, in an ESL context as in the Philippines, students

would find it difficult to comprehend English texts which are syntactically

complex in nature. In this case, not only is vocabulary knowledge important, the

ability to parse complex sentences and break them down into pieces that will be

made comprehensible enough becomes quite necessary. It follows eventually that

when this happens, students may require an ample time to process the information.

Sometimes, students lack clarity in understanding a text or require a substantial

amount of time to comprehend it because of a lack of exposure to English

language texts. The teaching of the English language skills, specifically reading

should focus on low-level processing, including vocabulary, phrase/syntactic

structures, and filling knowledge gaps. This study thus considers one essential

aspect which is phrase and sentence processing. Since failure in reading is largely

rooted in the way learners deal with the syntactic structure, an investigation of a

strategy that aids in processing such a complex syntactic structure which, in turn,

has a potent impact on comprehending the text becomes relatively indispensable.

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II. Statement of the Problem

This study is an effort to look into the effectiveness of chunking as a

reading strategy on reading comprehension of Grade 11 ESL students. In

particular, it seeks to provide answers to the following research questions:

1. What does the reading comprehension of Grade 11 ESL students portray?

2. Does chunking as a reading strategy have an impact on reading comprehension of

these students?

3. Does chunking as a reading strategy have an impact on the development of

chunking skills among these students?

III. Hypothesis of the Study

Ho1: There is no effect of chunking as a reading strategy on reading

comprehension of students.

Ho2: There is no effect of chunking as a reading strategy on the

development of chunking skills among students.

IV. Scope and Limitation

This study will be limited to Grade 11 students of MFI Polytechnic

Institute Inc., Pasig City, Philippines to determine the effectiveness of chunking as

a reading strategy in improving reading comprehension.

V. Significance of the Study

The findings of the study may be useful to the following:

Learners. The learners will benefit from this study since they are at the

receiving end of the strategy used by the teachers which is chunking.

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 Teachers. The result of the study will yield pedagogical implications

useful for teachers to practice empirically proven strategies to improve reading

comprehension of learners with reading difficulties.

Administrators. The administrators/principal can use the result of the

study as a basis for motivating teachers to reflect on the reading and

comprehension issues of students.

Future Researchers. Future research may take off from the findings of

this study to continuously innovate solutions to teachers and improve reading

problems experienced by learners in schools.

VI. Review of Related Literature

In recent years, research has tended to pay attention to chunking as part of

English language instruction. Chunking is the process where one chunk is joined

to another in a sequence (Tanaka, 2006). A chunk is a semantically and

structurally distinctive unit established in series within the sentence. Nishida

(2009) formally defined a chunk as a unit of memory organization, formed by

bringing together a set of already formed elements in memory and welding them

together into a larger unit (p. 7). When reading a text, the reader goes through a

number of processes. First, there is vocabulary processing where morphological

awareness is much needed, then understanding phrase units based on chunks,

followed by sentence processing/comprehension, which occurs in relation to

syntactic structure. In sentence processing where chunking is supposed to be done,

the knowledge on syntax is highly necessary as it facilitates the process of

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understanding the texts and aids the reader in restructuring and organizing the

content of each sentence.

Reading comprehension does not only entail the ability to chunk, but also

the ability to understand the syntactic structure and how each chunk functions

accordingly in the sentence to give the meaning of a whole. Thus, it is imperative

that the teaching of chunking in reading bank on explanations about the

relationship between different chunks and the structure of the sentence (Hijikata,

2010). Grabe (2002) defines reading comprehension as a set of indispensable

processes including rapid, efficient, interactive, strategic, linguistic, flexible,

comprehending and evaluating processes. Reading comprehension is a combined

product of the various processes mentioned. It does not simply occur by one

process alone and all of the processes shared are perceived to be relevant for

fluency in reading English.

Poor reading comprehension has almost always been attributed to the fact

that many learners are struggling to process phrases because their familiarity on

phrase structure is sufficiently low. Tenma (2002) pointed out that without much

knowledge on how to parse certain words, the learner is likely to have difficulty

understanding where one semantic unit begins and another ends. Interestingly,

even if the learners carry out phrase processing, when adding information from

newly read chunks to the previously read English text, they fail to understand the

relationship between the new and old chunks without knowledge of the syntactic

structurethus, leading to the misinterpretation of text. In order to foster reading

comprehension, chunk reading is needed as it helps the learner understand how

meanings in English are created (Tanaka, 2006). Furthermore, the teaching of

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phrases and syntactic structures is also pivotal in enhancing grammatical

knowledge.

As proposed by Kuhn and Stahl (2004), chunking is one important

ingredient in reading fluency. It has the benefits for: strengthened processing

speed (Yubune, 2012; Nishida, 2009; Ellis, 2003; Newell, 1990); enhanced

reading comprehension (Ellis, 1996, 2001; Tuchiya, 2002; Ushiro, 2002); and the

stimulation of direct reading with direct understanding (Shiokawa, 2008;

Terashima, 2002).

However, research shows that the connection between comprehension and

the ability to chunk is rather questionable. Studies conducted by Ohtagaki and

Ohmori (1991), Tan and Nicholson (1997), and Komaba (1992) whereby

advanced learners were taught chunking unearthed that chunking veils a positive

effect on reading comprehension. On the other hand, a study by Komaba (1992)

wherein both beginners and intermediate learners were taught chunking yielded

that no effect of chunking was observed on reading comprehension. Interestingly,

the reading proficiency level necessary for the maximum impact of chunking is

widely disputed. While Nishida (2009), Rasinski (1990), Yubune (2012), and

Yubune, Kanda, & Tabuchi (2009) outlined an effect of chunking among

beginning learners, Oikawa (1996) revealed that the effect was displayed only by

intermediate learners.Notably, it is difficult to compare both reading proficiency

of the participants and the level of text difficulty used in these studies. Moreover,

Nishida (2013) unearthed that consistent practice of chunking successfully

decreased the number of chunking errors, which is because repetition of the

chunking process increased participants knowledge of chunks and chunking,

resulting in a shift from use of declarative to procedural memory (p. 179).

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Pereyra (2015) supports this claim exposing that extensive reading practices do

enhance intermediate learners knowledge on lexical chunks. However, further

study is needed in order to determine whether chunks are effective and whether

reading proficiency impacts the ability to chunk. It should be noted that none of

the studies mentioned looked into whether chunking has a significant impact on

reading comprehension of Grade 11 students specifically in the ESL context of the

Philippines and whether, as a reading strategy, it has an effect on the development

of chunking skills among these students.

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 Methods

I. Research Design

The study will make use of experimental research design. The employment

of pre and post tests in this research is a preferred method to compare and

evaluate the degree of change appearing as a result of treatment or interventions

among participant groups (Mackey & Gass, 2005).

II. Participants

The study will employ 215 Grade 11 ESL students of MFI Polytechnic

Institute Inc. who are enrolled in Reading and Writing classes during the school

year 2017-2018. Participants will be divided into two groups: one experimental

and the other control. Experimental group 1 comprising 108 will be taught on how

to effectively use chunk reading and knowledge of phrase/syntactic structure,

while control group 2 consisting of 107 students will be given no instruction at all.

III. Procedure

Test

The teaching period will take place for 12 weeks which is equivalent to 3

months. The pre-tests will be administered at the beginning of the semester and

the post-tests in the middle (during the 12th week). The first will be a chunking

test consisting of a 352-word English passage where participants are required to

divide the text into chunks. The second test will be a reading test. Both the pre-

and post-reading tests included three reading passages. The participants will read

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all three passages (which ranged from 310 to 367 words) and then answer four

multiple-choice questions, assessing their level of understanding. Two passages

will be taken from the Eiken Pre-Second Grade test (Test in Practical English

Proficiency) designed for second-year high school students and another from a

Second Grade test for high school graduates. There will be 15 questions in total

(resulting in a maximum score of 15). The time limit for the test will be 25

minutes.

Material

The English passages in the experimental classes will range between 256

and 647 words, with Flesch Reading Ease levels between 67.0 and 59.5 and

Flesch-Kincaid Grade Levels between 6.2 and 8.2. The level of difficulty of the

texts will then gradually be increased, while care will be taken not to set it too

high for the participants.

Instruction

The instructions for experimental group 1 will be as follows.

(1) Printouts of English passages will be distributed at the end of each

class. On the printouts, slashes are inserted into the text to identify each chunk

unit. As class prep work, the participants may write the Filipino translation under

each respective chunk in order to demonstrate their understanding of the content.

(2) During the class, participants are taught the correct meaning of the

English text. While doing this, a teacher carefully explains, as appropriate, how

the different phrases are connected together. During this process, the English text

will be comprehended not by reading and translating, but by reading each chunk

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from left to right without converting it to Filipino. In addition, instructions on the

phrase and syntactic structure are given.

(3) The participants will practice by inserting slashes into different English

text (about 100 words) to mark the chunks off themselves, after which they then

will submit their work.

The control group will not receive any instructions. They will be given the

English passage to read and are required to summarize each paragraph and then

answer questions to assess their level of understanding.

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