Reading Strategies and Reading Comprehension Retention with and without a Pop-up Dictionary by Beginning Learners of Chinese

Abstract

This study is aimed at identifying reading strategies of beginning learners of Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) with and without a pop-up dictionary and at determining if learners retain the reading comprehension gained from using the dictionary. Beginning CFL learners at a Midwestern university answered questions about their reading strategies after reading passages in Chinese with and without a pop-up dictionary, did think-aloud protocols, and wrote recalls. Qualitative analyses of answers and thinkaloud protocols identified generally-used strategies both with and without the pop-up dictionary: engaging in bottom-up strategies, monitoring comprehension, using the first language, and focusing on lexical cues. Qualitative analyses also revealed different reading strategies in obtaining character and word meanings and in constructing sentence meanings. Statistical results indicated that much of the improvement gained from using the pop-up dictionary during the first reading was not retained over a short period of time. It may be concluded that the use of the pop-up dictionary may not alter CFL learners’ general reading strategies, yet the dictionary does provide additional resources to facilitate meaning construction. Hence, it is relevant to guide students to effectively use the pop-up dictionary.