Teacher’s Role in the Reading Apprenticeship Framework: Aid by the Side or Sage by the Stage

Abstract

Despite decades of efforts, alarming statistics about the literacy crisis from secondary school teachers indicate that the reading abilities of the learners are inadequate for the materials to be taught and teachers wonder if adolescents are literate enough, language-wise, to leave school and enter colleges or universities.The common mode of teaching allows students a passive role in class which leads to their being disengaged from literacy. How we teach literacy is of great importance if students are to become empowered as lifelong readers. As individuals differ in their reading abilities, teachers must move beyond testing for comprehension if students are to embrace a new way of being literate.Although research has taught us much about what is needed to read, it has provided much less knowledge about effective means of helping students learn to read. This study hoped to design a literacy program to respond to this need through a Reading Apprenticeship Framework as a partnership of expertise, drawing on what the teacher knows and does as a reader and on pre-university students' often underestimated strengths as learners using exploratory mixed method design. BackgroundRandom views and alarming statistics about the literacy crisis from secondary school teachers indicate that there seems to be a mismatch between the language proficiency level of the students and the syllabus that is to be covered. Often teachers declare that the reading abilities of the learners are inadequate for the materials to be taught and they wonder if adolescents are literate enough, language-wise, to leave school and enter colleges or universities.In a world driven by information technology, the complexity of reading literacy is increasing as the format of texts becomes more diverse and increasing numbers of citizens are expected to use information from these materials in new and more complex ways. Varied texts such as CD-ROMs, Web pages, newspapers, and magazines place different demands on the reader. As information technology grows, we will encounter even more varied texts and will be called on to use information in new ways.Alluded to within this brief statement are a number of potential sources of trouble for the adolescent reader: decoding, fluency, vocabulary, background knowledge, and critical thinking. Yet, this list does not exhaust the factors contributing to adolescents' experience of success (or failure) at literacy tasks. According to Edelson and Joseph (2004), in addition to these requisites, readers must also develop and maintain a motivation to read and learn, the strategies to monitor and correct their own comprehension during the act of reading, and the flexibility to read for a wide variety of purposes in a wide variety of media, all while developing their identities not only as readers but as members of particular social and cultural groups.Helping students to attain the abilities fundamental to literacy is definitely challenging and a variety of instructional approaches have been developed to this end. Each ...

Gender, Scaffolding Mechanism and Output Complexity in Task-based Language Learning

“…Moreover, the findings confirmed the predictions that scaffolding has a positive effect on learners' achievement. These findings are in line with the previous studies (Mehdian, 2009;Pishghadam & Ghadiri, 2011;Walqui, 2006) confirming that scaffolding can lead to the full engagement of the learners.…”

The Impact of Teacher Scaffolding on Iranian Intermediate EFL Learner's Listening Comprehension Achievement

“…The results of the present research also are in line with a study that was run by Mehdian (2009) in which he exposed them to eight-week intervention (35 hours) after which they all sat for a posttest. The comparison between the The learners performed better on the posttest.…”

The impact of implicit vs explicit grammar teaching through scaffolding on Iranian learners’ speaking achievement; focusing on fluency, accuracy, and complexity

“…Likewise, Mehdian (2009) conducted a study and showed that teachers’ scaffolding and modeling has significant positive effect on learners’ speaking fluency and accuracy. His study also confirmed findings of the present study and showed that indirect teaching of grammar can boost speaking fluency.…”

“…In the same line, Mehdian (2009) conducted a study on secondary students in Tehran, Iran. The main aim of the study was to investigate the impact of scaffolding on Iranian EFL learners’ oral production.…”