Questioning the Text: Advancing Literary Reading in the Second Language Through Web-Based Strategy Training

Abstract: This study assessed language learners' perceptions of an instructional approach to literary reading in the second language. The approach under investigation is based on a Web tutorial that teaches questioning strategies. Seventy?eight German students enrolled at a state university in the United States participated in the study. Questionnaire data suggest that most of the learners perceived the approach positively in regard to its impact in facilitating the development of literary reading competencies in the second language. Students with positive perceptions about the Web tutorial were more likely to report a positive affective response to the literary texts and a higher motivation to continue the study of German beyond the university's foreign language requirement.Key words: literature instruction, reading strategies, second language reading, Web-based instructionIntroductionCommunicative language classrooms of the 1980s and 1990s tended to emphasize interpersonal spoken exchanges rather than interpretive or presentational modes of communication. Since that time, educational objectives that address critical interpretive reading have gained an increasingly central role in major curricular guidelines, including the Framework for 21st Century Skills (Bellanca & Brandt, 2010), the Common Core State Standards (Kendall, 2011), the Standards for Foreign Language Learning in the 21st Century (National Standards, 1996), and the MLA Report (MLA, 2007). As the emphasis on interpretive reading has increased, a greater focus on literature has reemerged as a significant component in foreign language curricula. However, despite a broad consensus regarding the importance of critical reading in language instruction at all levels, few concrete approaches guide instructors in helping students to develop literary reading competencies. This article reports on the implementation of a Web? based, strategy?oriented approach to literary reading in a second?year university language program and presents data from a question- naire study that assessed learners' percep- tions of this teaching approach.Literature ReviewLiterary Reading and the Second Language LearnerPrior to the 1990s, the authentic texts that were included in commercially published teaching materials were accompanied by either extensive glosses or vocabulary lists, both of which encouraged word?for?word translation rather than reading for meaning (Swaffar, Arens, & Byrnes, 1991). This implies that many practitioners at that time found it either impossible, or unneces- sary, to have language learners at the beginning and intermediate levels read authentic texts without significant support from the native language. Critical reading skills, if present in the first language, were largely assumed to transfer into the target language only after the learner had passed a particular linguistic threshold (Clarke, 1980; Cummins, 1985). When this transfer failed, literature instructors blamed insuffi- cient linguistic preparedness in lower?level language courses for their students' inability to read and understand literary texts in upper?level courses. This flawed under- standing partly contributed to the two?tiered curriculum in North American university language programs during most of the second half of the 20th century-a curricu- lum that consisted of two years of basic language training focusing primarily on oral skills and often fulfilling the institution's language requirement, followed by two years of courses focusing on literature and culture for majors, minors, or students with deeper intrinsic motivation.Partially in response to an increasingly dramatic enrollment crisis in university foreign language departments, this curricu- lar structure was increasingly questioned during the second half of the 1990s. As a result, a number of language departments began to reform their undergraduate pro- grams, resulting in new curricula that integrated the study of language, literature, and culture at all levels of instruction (Bernhardt & Berman, 1999; Byrnes & Kord, 2002; Kern, 2000; MLA, 2007; Swaffar & Arens, 2005). …