European Journal of Education Studies

ISSN: 2501 - 1111

ISSN-L: 2501 - 1111
Available on-line at: www.oapub.org/edu

doi: 10.5281/zenodo.1245772 Volume 4 │ Issue 6 │ 2018

THE IMPACT OF QUESTIONING AND SEMANTIC MAP

IN PRE-READING STAGE ON STUDENTS' READING
COMPREHENSION: A COMPARATIVE STUDY

Tran Thi Thanh Thuy1i,

Phuong Hoang Yen2
1EFL teacher at Phan Ngoc Hien high school for the gifted,
Ca Mau city, Vietnam
2Vice Dean, School of foreign languages,

Can Tho University, Vietnam

Abstract:
Pre-reading activities play an important role in language reading classrooms since they
help to activate students’ background knowledge of the topics being taught, which
results in improving students’ reading comprehension. Most studies in the literature
focus on exploring the effects of individual pre-reading activities such as brainstorming,
pre-teaching vocabulary, questioning on students’ performance in doing
comprehension tasks. Few studies have been conducted to explore whether one
technique is better than the others in activating students’ schemata in reading lessons.
The current study investigates the impact of Questioning and Semantic map in Pre-
reading stage on EFL gifted high school students’ reading comprehension. The
participants were 52 gifted students from two science classes for twelfth graders (they
were non gifted English students). They shared the same culture, native language,
educational background and age. The data were collected through two reading
proficiency tests (pre-test and post-test) and individual interviews. The findings
revealed that both Questioning and Semantic map had positive impacts on gifted
students’ reading comprehension. Especially, the students who received Semantic
treatment had significantly better improvement in their reading skill. The findings shed
lights on what can be done to improve EFL students’ reading performance.

Keywords: gifted students, reading comprehension, Questioning, Semantic map

1. Introduction

Reading is the foundation of learning (Berninger & Richards, 2002; Cunningham &
Stanovich, 2001). It is an active, purposeful process of constructing meaning from texts

Copyright © The Author(s). All Rights Reserved.

© 2015 – 2017 Open Access Publishing Group 279
 Trần Thị Thanh Thủy, Phương Hoàng Yến
THE IMPACT OF QUESTIONING AND SEMANTIC MAP IN PRE-READING STAGE
ON STUDENTS' READING COMPREHENSION: A COMPARATIVE STUDY

to create new knowledge (Armbruster et al., 2001). Reading failure may give rise to
long-term learning difficulties which further lead to low self-confidence and motivation
to learn (Armbruster et al., 2001; Nation, Clarke, & Snowling, 2002). In recent years,
reading has been considered a multileveled and interactive process, in which readers
construct a meaningful representation of text using their background knowledge (Al-
Issa, 2006). In their studies, researchers such as Zhao & Zhu (2012), (Al-Issa, 2006), and
Ajideh (2006) find that the more unfamiliar the learners are with the topic of the text
they are reading, the more difficulties they encounter in their understanding of the text.
As a result, they conclude that background knowledge plays a very crucial role in the
process of comprehending the text and constructing meaning in L2. They also suggest
the need for providing pre-reading activities before students read the text in order to
help learners activate relevant background knowledge or to better comprehend the text
because all texts are laden with knowledge.
Being a teacher who teaches English as a foreign language in a high school,
especially a gifted high school, I realize that students at a gifted school often deviate
their study for some specific subjects that they are gifted. For students who are in non-
gifted English classes, they often lack some necessary skills to acquire English as a
result of their study deviation for their gifted subjects for a long time. Among essential
skills and knowledge of English, reading may be the most challenging because reading
ability requires not only reading strategies but also their knowledge of lexical pattern,
culture, and structure. The traditional reading methods fail to improve students’
reading skills and increase their reading speed. Based on the theory of Schema, learners’
schema can be used to help guide students to comprehend a text from the global point
of view. Therefore, the role of Schema theory in reading comprehension cannot be
ignored. However, when built up or activated through two pre-reading activities:
Questioning and Semantic Map, whether schema theory still works well on non-gifted
English students or not and if there are any differences between these two techniques is
still a question for researchers of EFL.
The purpose of this paper is threefold. The first is to investigate the impact of
Questioning and Semantic map in Pre-reading stage on EFL gifted high school students’
reading comprehension. The second goal is to compare the effect on students’ reading
comprehension between these two pre-reading activities. The last one is to discuss the
implications of these techniques in L2 reading classroom.

2. Literature Review

2.1. Reading skills in EFL context

2.1.1. Definition
Theorists vary on the nature of reading comprehension. Traditional opinions regard
reading as a passive decoding process when “meaning is embodied in the text and the
reader can extract the meaning from the print if he understands it letter by letter and word by
word” (Goodman, 1988).

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ON STUDENTS' READING COMPREHENSION: A COMPARATIVE STUDY

Different from the above ideas, schema theorists believed that we comprehend
something only when we can relate it to something we already know, that is, when we
can relate the new experience to an existing knowledge structure, as in Rumelhart’s
saying “one’s background knowledge plays a more important role than new words and new
structures in reading comprehension” (Rumelhart, 1985). Having the same idea, Goodman
has described reading as a “psycholinguistic guessing game” (1967) in which “the reader
reconstructs, as best as he can, a message which has been encoded by a writer as a graphic
display” (1971, p.135). Carell (1983, p.82) considered the process of comprehending a text
as “an interactive one between the listener or reader’s background knowledge of
content and structure, and the text itself” because he believed that “the text alone does not
carry meaning; rather, a text only provides guidance for listeners or readers as to how they
should construct the intended meaning from their own previously acquired knowledge”.
Kingston also viewed reading as “a process of communication by which a message is
transmitted graphically between individuals” (1967, p.72). Based on these opinions,
Rumelhart (1985) also suggested that teacher of reading skill should teach the
background knowledge first to prepare in advance the knowledge that the passage will
be about to help students predict the meanings from the printed words.

2.1.2. Models of reading

Standing on the ground of nature of reading, some models of reading have been
suggested. Based on specific models of reading, Pearson (1984) listed five models of
reading, namely Interactive Compensatory Model, Word Recognition Model, Simple View of
Reading Model, Dual-Coding Model, and Psycholinguistic Guessing Game Model. However,
when viewed as metaphorical interpretation of many processes, reading is classified
with three main models: Bottom-up models; Top-down models; and Interactive models
(Pearson, 1984; Carrell, 1983; Bobrow & Norman, 1975; Goodman, 1988; Nuttall, 1996).
Metaphorically, “bottom-up” or “data-driven” process suggests that all reading
follows a mechanical pattern in which the reader creates a piece-by-piece mental
translation of the information in the text, with little interference from reader’s own
background knowledge. In contrast, “top-down” or “conceptually driven” process
assumes that reading is primarily directed by reader goals and expectations. The reader
samples the text to confirm or reject hypotheses about its content. The reader’s
expectations represent a form of processing which should expedite and speed up
subsequent analysis. The combination of the two above models is “interactive” modals
which suggest that the reader can take useful ideas from a bottom-up perspective and
combine them with key ideas from a top-down view. Interactive model may be the best
and the most suitable way for the reader to convey and comprehend a text because it
covers both the meaning as well as the author’s intended message.

2.1.3. Challenges of EFL learners when learning reading skills

A lot of research on reading comprehension has focused on identifying skills or factors
that may challenge the process of reading comprehension or may account for poor
readers’ deficits. These factors can be classified into three main groups.
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ON STUDENTS' READING COMPREHENSION: A COMPARATIVE STUDY

The first and most popular factor mentioned is vocabulary difficulty (Johnson,
1982; Freebody & Anderson, 1983) that may be a barrier preventing learners from
approaching the text if they meet unfamiliar vocabulary.

The second factor is text cohesion (Randi et al., 2013; Freebody & Anderson, 1983).
Oakhill, Cain, and Bryant (2003) summarized the reading comprehension deficits of
poor comprehenders at the discourse level as:

“…difficulty making inferences, regardless of prior knowledge; lack of ability in

identifying referent pronouns; lack of skill in using context clues, especially when
abstract thinking is involved; weak comprehension monitoring skills and lack of ability to
repair comprehension or vary strategy to purpose; and incomplete understanding of text
structure.” (page 451)

The third factor is based on schema theory called schema availability (Freebody &
Anderson, 1983; Johnson, 1982; Rumelhart, 1980; Armbruster, 1986). Schema theorist
Rumelhart (1980) suggested three reasons for comprehension failure:
1. The reader may not access the appropriate schemata because the clues provided
by the author are insufficient to suggest them.
2. The reader may not have the appropriate schema to understand the concepts
communicated in the text.
3. The reader may formulate a coherent interpretation of the text, but it may not be
the interpretation intended by the author.
Different from three above difficulty in reading groups, Hauptman (2000) simply
suggested two factors explained for the nature of difficulty and ease in second language
reading: Language (grammar and vocabulary); and Text Length.
Another suggestion, based on componential approach to reading, pointed out
that the lack in analytical abilities, practical abilities, and creative abilities may challenge the
reader during the process of reading (Randi et al., 2013).

2.2. Pre-reading activities

Pre-reading activities are activities that provide learners with “activities that help students
with cultural background, stimulate students’ interest in the text, and pre-teach vocabulary”
(Lazar, 1993, p.83). Meanwhile, Ajideh (2006) thinks that “pre-reading activities provide the
reader with necessary background to organize activity and to comprehend the materials”.
Carrell (1984, p.333-339) suggested some ways to build, assess, and activate
learners’ schema in Pre-reading stage:
 viewing movies, slides, pictures;
 field trips;
 demonstrations;
 real-life experiences;
 class discussions or debates;
 plays, skits, and other role-play activities;
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 teacher-, text-, or student-generated prediction about the text;

 text previewing;
 introduction and discussion of special vocabulary to be encountered in the text;
 key-word/ key-concept association activities;
 prior reading of related texts.
Carell also (1984) suggested that these pre-reading activities should work best
when used in varying combinations.
Zhao & Zhu (2012, p.115) suggested some activities for Pre-reading stage:
 questions;
 brainstorming;
 pre-teaching;
 pre-texting;
 pre-discussing.
However, in his study, Ajideh (2006) only suggested two types of pre-reading
activities:
 questioning;
 semantic map.
However, activities are used in the Pre-reading stage; all of them are considered
as a Warm-up activity that help involve learners into the reading process, arouse their
interest and curiosity, widen their background knowledge and activate their own
schema. Among these activities, Semantic map and Questioning were chosen as
treatments for experimental groups in the research because they may be suitable with
the teaching context, especially for EFL Gifted adolescent learners.

2.2.1. Questioning
Questioning is one type of top-down processing activity (Ajideh, 2006). Questioning is
one of the most conventional classroom activities used to scaffold students’ learning
processes to “facilitate explanation construction, planning, monitoring, and evaluating, and
making justifications” (Ge & Land, 2003, p.24). Teachers use questions to promote
students’ knowledge construction and reflection (King, 1994), reasoning (McDaniel &
Donnelly, 1996), problem solving (King, 1991) and metacognition (Chen, Wei, Wu &
Uden, 2009; Ge & Land, 2004).
King (1994) suggested that comprehension questions should be applied in the
pre-reading stage to prompt students’ important concepts in the reading piece. Or
based on Ajideh’s research (2006) teachers can adopt the comprehension questions that
appear in the textbook after the reading selection or in the teachers’ manual to form
effective pre-reading questions.

2.2.2. Semantic map

According to Johnson (1982), vocabulary study may result in a word-by-word, bottom-
up approach that is detrimental to comprehension. So pre-teaching vocabulary
probably requires that the words be taught in semantically and topically related sets so
that word meaning and background knowledge improve concurrently (Ajideh, 2006). It
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ON STUDENTS' READING COMPREHENSION: A COMPARATIVE STUDY

was proved in Zimmerman’s study (1997) that direct vocabulary instruction focusing
semantic mapping as an acquisition strategy is more effective than vocabulary
acquisition activities that teach only words rather than strategies for acquiring words.

Freedman & Reynolds (1980), Heimlich & Pittleman (1986) believed that the first
major activity that activates students’ appropriate background knowledge of a given
topic is the semantic map.

“The semantic map is an organized arrangement of vocabulary concepts which reveals

what students already know about the topic and provides them with a base upon which
they can construct the new information learned from the text.” (Ajideh, 2006).

2.3. Schema
Bartlett defined schema as “an active organization of past reactions or experiences” (1932,
p.201). “Schema is prototypical or generic characterizations of objects, events, and situations”
(p.253) is what Armbruster (1986) thought of schema. Many researchers have
considered Schema as structure, such as a definition from Rumelhart “schema is a data
structure for representing the genetic concepts stored in memory” (1980,p.34); Anderson and
Pearson defined it as “an abstract knowledge structure” (1984,p.42); Medin and Russ
(1992,p.246) simply put schema as “a general knowledge structure used for understanding”;
Graesser & Nakamura ((1982) defined schema as “general knowledge structures that guide
the comprehender’s interpretation, inferences, expectations, and attention” (p. 60); Schema is
also thought of as “interacting knowledge structures” (Rumelhart & Ortony, 1977, p.100)
or “building blocks of cognition” (Rulmelhart, 1980). In general, schema is considered as a
structure where prior knowledge is stored and memory is gained. When readers’
schema is activated logically, comprehension will be gained effectively.
As a cognitive framework which consists of a number of organized ideas,
Schema plays a crucial role in Reading. The view of schema theory asserts that
activating or building readers’ existing knowledge prior to reading would improve and
alter reading comprehension and recall. Thus, the provision of real experiences would
fill in or expand the readers’ existing culturally determined background knowledge of a
topic and would prepare them to comprehend a retain material on that topic in the
reading passage that followed. Zhao & Zhu (2012) believed that “by the application of
Schema (the stored knowledge structures), one can deal with a problem in reading quite easily”.

2.4. Previous studies on the effect of Pre-reading activities on EFL students’ reading
comprehension
Many studies have been conducted, with different subjects and different methodology,
to figure out the relationship between readers’ schema construction or activation
through pre-reading activities and reading comprehension. Different results have been
found.
Several recent studies have called into question which pre-reading activities are
more effective to reading comprehension (Rasheed, 2014; Lee, 2012; Mihara, 2011). In
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ON STUDENTS' READING COMPREHENSION: A COMPARATIVE STUDY

this area, the researchers have gathered data using quasi-experimental design. Both
Mihara (2011) and Lee (2012) present evidence that there are differences in using
different types of pre-reading activities. While Mihara (2011) compares vocabulary pre-
teaching with comprehension question presentation, Lee (2012) compares pre-teaching
vocabulary, pre-questioning and visual materials. Both authors acknowledge that pre-
teaching vocabulary is less effective to learners’ reading comprehension than other pre-
reading activities. Meanwhile, Rasheed (2014) find there were no statistically significant
differences between vocabulary pre-teaching and pre-questioning.
Ajideh (2006), Karakas (2006), and Alemi & Ebadi (2010) have conducted
research about the impact of pre-reading activities in general on different subjects of
students majoring in engineering courses and ELT trainee teachers. However, they have
got nearly the same findings. These authors acknowledge that giving prior information
through pre-reading activities might become a useful tool for teachers to facilitate the
learners’ reading comprehension ability, to activate learners’ schema and to provide
any language preparation that might be needed for coping with the passage. In line
with these findings, after a research conducted at Jinan University among 100 student
subjects and 5 Chinese teachers of English with all three stages: pre-reading, while-
reading, and post-reading, Zhao & Zhu (2012) indicate that the application of schema
theory in reading teaching is beneficial to cultivate students’ reading interest, quicken
their reading speed and make proper judgments.
The results from these studies suggest that to help learners with reading
comprehension skill, teachers should prepare detailed, careful, and suitable lesson plan
for pre-reading activities to provide learners with orientation to content and context
and activate their schema and bridge their prior knowledge with the new knowledge,
which help enhance their reading comprehension ability.
It is somewhat surprising that so few studies have evaluated the impact of
schema construction/ activation through pre-reading activities in Vietnam, and
especially on gifted students as the sample. That is also my aims to carry out this
research in the setting at my gifted school.

3. Methodology

3.1. Research questions

This study aims to measure and evaluate the effectiveness of Questioning and Semantic
map techniques in Pre-reading activities on reading comprehension of EFL gifted high
school students. In addition, the study also shed light on whether there were differences
between two techniques in term of reading comprehension level. Based on the research
aims, this study attempts to address the following research questions:
1. To what extent does Questioning in Pre-reading stage affect EFL gifted high
school students’ reading comprehension?
2. To what extent does Semantic map in Pre-reading stage affect EFL gifted high
school students’ reading comprehension?
3. To what extent do the two groups differ in term of reading comprehension level?
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ON STUDENTS' READING COMPREHENSION: A COMPARATIVE STUDY

3.2. Research design

A quasi-experimental design – the nonequivalent control groups design - was employed in
the research to indicate the impact of using Questioning and Semantic map techniques
in pre-reading activities to build up or activate EFL gifted students’ content schema on
their reading comprehension. The quantitative data were obtained by means of a pre-
test and a post-test of reading. Some retrospective interviews were conducted right after
the treatment to collect qualitative data.

3.3. Participants
52 twelfth graders from two non-gifted English classes at a gifted high school were
invited to participate in the current study. All these students belong to science classes –
classes 12C1 and 12C2 (they major in Maths, Physics, Chemistry, and Biology). The
class 12C1 (with 26 students) received Questioning Treatment (Group 1) while the class
12C2 (with 26 students) received Semantic Map Treatment (Group 2). Thirty-two
(61.5%) of participants are female and twenty (38.5%) are male. The subjects shared the
same culture, native language, educational background and age. They all were born
and grew up in Ca Mau. Moreover, they had to pass an entrance examination with
Maths, Literature and English to win a place in the science classes at Phan Ngoc Hien
high school for the gifted. The selection of subjects was performed carefully so as to
minimize differences among variables during testing and hence promote a higher
validity of research findings.

3.4. Research instruments

3.4.1. Tests on English Academic Reading
Two reading proficiency tests (pre-test and post-test) were constructed by the
researcher to measure and evaluate students’ reading proficiency and their
improvement.
The tests consist of three passages ranging from 200 to 250 words: two passages
are reading comprehension tests (accompanied by 7 and 8 multiple choice questions)
and one is guided cloze test (with five questions). These tests have the same format as
the reading tasks in the national examination.
The reading passages were selected regarding the course objective of helping
students get the high score in reading task in the national examination and learners’
level of English. The time limit of the text was 30 minutes. A score of 0.5 was awarded
after each correct answer. Accordingly, the maximum points on the test were 10.
The pre-test and post-test were piloted to ensure the validity. Thirty-five
participants (from class 12L – science class) got involved in the pilot test. These
participants were of the similar background and level of English as those in the official
study. After improving the test drafts based on the results from the pilot, the researcher
delivered the revised drafts to the participants to validate the instrument.

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THE IMPACT OF QUESTIONING AND SEMANTIC MAP IN PRE-READING STAGE
ON STUDENTS' READING COMPREHENSION: A COMPARATIVE STUDY

3.4.2. Materials
Reading passage from the pre-test and post-test were selected from the book “English
exercises 12” (Mai Lan Huong & Nguyen Thanh Loan, 2010) and “Testing and
assessment in Reading comprehension for twelfth graders (Luu Hoang Tri, 2010). These
two books were published by Education Publishing House in Vietnam. According to
Rajatanun’s theory (2009), the criteria for the selection of the reading passages are as
follows:
 Authenticity: To help students familiarize themselves with texts written for
native speakers of English, no attempt was made to simplify the original texts.
Some, however, were slightly adapted to make them shorter so that they were of
suitable length as reading passages for a textbook or to make them more suitable
for practicing particular reading strategies.
 Interest: The texts are informative and the issues discussed in the texts are
presumed to be of interest to students.
 Validity: To familiarize students with a wide range of issues, vocabulary items
and expressions, the text covers a variety of subjects.
 Practicality: The texts – in their original forms or after they have been adapted –
are suitable for the practice of particular skills.
These books were highly appreciated by virtue of consistency with the
respondents’ proficiency level in term of the criteria above. The topic of the reading
texts were selected regarding the knowledge domain of the current course book
“Textbook 12” (MOET, 2008).

3.5. Procedure of the treatment

Before the treatment, both groups did a Pre-test of reading comprehension. After the
Pre-test, Group 1 was taught with Questioning technique in Pre-reading stage while
Group 2 with Semantic map technique. These pre-reading activities were carried out
immediately before the reading tasks.
The treatment lasted for 10 weeks with 3 topics: Jobs, Endangered Species, and
Women in society. These topics were chosen because they fix with what students of
twelfth grade are studying at school and are likely to appear in the national
examination. At the end of the treatment, a Post-test was administered to both of the
groups.

4. Findings and Discussions

4.1 Quantitative Data

An independent sample t-test using the data obtained from the pre-test indicates that
students in the Questioning Group (M=5.57, SD = 1.56) and the Semantic Group (M =
4.75, SD = 1.55) were not statistically different in term of reading comprehension (t(50) =
1.91, p = .06). However, at the post-test stage, the Questioning Group (M=6.56, SD = 1.60)
and the Semantic Group (M = 7.42, SD = 1.46) were statistically different in term of
reading comprehension (t(50) = 2.03, p = .04).
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ON STUDENTS' READING COMPREHENSION: A COMPARATIVE STUDY

An interesting finding in the data reported is that the students in the Semantic
map group had a significantly better improvement in their reading comprehension than
those in Questioning group. It is somewhat different from other previous studies when
Mihara (2011) and Lee (2012) found that pre-teaching vocabulary is less effective to
learners’ reading comprehension than other pre-reading activities. Meanwhile, Rasheed
(2014) revealed that there were no statistically significant differences between
vocabulary pre-teaching and pre-questioning.
When compared in paired samples test, the data indicate that the students in
both two groups differed significantly between the pre-test and post-test. They had a
positive improvement in their reading skill after receiving the treatment. More
specifically, in the Questioning Group, students gained statistically higher scores in the
post test (M=6.55, SD =1.60) as compared with the pretest (M =5.57, SD =1.56), t(25) =
5.88, p = .00. Meanwhile, in the Semantic Group, students also improved their reading
scores significantly from the pretest (M=4.75, SD =1.55) to the post test (M=7.42, SD
=1.46), with t(25) = 12.66, p = .00.
The findings of current study are consistent with those of previous studies in the
way that giving prior information through pre-reading activities might become a useful
tool for teachers to facilitate the learners’ reading comprehension ability, to activate
learners’ schema and to provide any language preparation that might be needed for
coping with the passage (Ajideh, 2006; Karakas, 2006; Alemi & Ebad, 2010; Zhao & Zhu,
2012).

4.2 Qualitative Data

To find out how students think of Questioning and Semantic map and what they have
learnt from these techniques as well as their desire for the reading teaching in the
future, a retrospective interview was conducted with three students in each group.
For the Questioning Group, when being asked what they think of and what they
have learnt from Questioning technique in Pre-reading activities stage, student A said
that Questioning helped them list the main ideas of the text by collecting answers from
other students because each would have their own answers for a question, from which
she could infer the main content of the text and ask for more information. Student B
added that the questions in pre-reading stage helped lead to the main topic of the
reading text and from which he could understand some main points of the text. While
student C said that questioning was interesting, and that it helped him answer all the
questions after the reading text more easily.
Regarding students’ like and dislike for Questioning technique, all three students
agreed that they completely felt contented with Questioning technique in pre-reading
stage because they could express their thought and opinions freely as well as asking
questions to widen their knowledge (said A); it helped increase the interaction among
students in class (said B); and it provided them with useful information to prepare in
advance for the process of reading (said C). Only C felt a little bit annoyed because he
thought that sometimes the classroom was noisy due to asking and answering
questions to find information.
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ON STUDENTS' READING COMPREHENSION: A COMPARATIVE STUDY

When being asked whether Questioning is useful for their reading skill and if
they want it to be applied in reading period in the future, both A and B said that
Questioning helped them a lot in improving their reading skill as they could express
their thought, their opinions and receive other ideas from other students in class; that
helped them get the main ideas of the reading text and improve their reading speed. C
said that sometimes it was helpful, sometimes it was not because of the unrelated
information. Whatever they thought, they all agreed that Questioning should be
applied in the reading class in the future because it helped students absorb the lesson
more quickly, made the reading time more interesting, and motivated students’
learning.
For the Semantic Map Group, when being asked about their thinking and what
they have gained from the Questioning technique, all three students said that Semantic
map for learning vocabulary was new to them; it changed the way they learned new
words, helped them remember words more easily because there was a connection
among these words. They could think critically and logically (said D). From the
semantic map, they could guess the main points of the reading text (said E). Semantic
map helped them have an overview of the text (said F).
With regard to the question about like and dislike for Semantic map technique,
all the three students D, E and F agreed that they really liked the Semantic map
technique as they didn’t spend much time for learning by heart new words, these
words connected together, they remembered one word and could infer other words
from the context. Moreover, this was the new technique and they found it really
worked with their reading skill, so they thought that it was interesting and
encouraging.
However, with Semantic map technique, they also found some problems.
Student D said that she found it difficult to link all related words together in a map; and
that it requires complicated performance in their handwriting, with which it was
difficult for them to write their lesson at first (student E). In addition, they could not
know some other parts of speech of new words (student F).
When being asked if Semantic map is useful for their reading skill and whether
they want it to be applied in reading period in the future, all three students appreciated
this technique and recommended that Semantic map should be applied in the reading
lesson because of its benefits such as: improve their critical thinking and logical
predictions (student D); save time for their reading process and easily to answer all the
questions in the text (student E); improve their reading speed, helped them feel more
confident when reading and doing tasks about reading skill (student F).
In short, an analysis of the students’ responses suggested that they were all
interested in the two new techniques in the Pre-reading stage: Questioning and
Semantic map. They found it really useful for their reading skill and help them improve
their reading speed. They hoped these techniques would be applied to reading lesson in
the future.
The data from the pre-test and post-test as well as the interviews with some
students indicated that activating learners’ schema through Questioning and Semantic
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THE IMPACT OF QUESTIONING AND SEMANTIC MAP IN PRE-READING STAGE
ON STUDENTS' READING COMPREHENSION: A COMPARATIVE STUDY

map in the pre-reading stage had significant impact on learners’ reading

comprehension. Moreover, students in group 2 (Semantic map) performed better than
those in group 1 (Questioning) in reading comprehension. These findings were in light
with the hypotheses previously mentioned.

5. Conclusions and Implications

The current study was conducted to investigate the impact of Questioning and
Semantic map in pre-reading stage on EFL gifted high school learners’ reading
comprehension. By examining students’ reading improvement through pre-test and
post-test, the study revealed that activating learners’ schema through Questioning and
Semantic map was significantly effective to learners’ reading comprehension. The
findings of this study suggest a number of pedagogical implications, especially in EFL
settings for the gifted. With students who are gifted in science classes, they are likely to
do better with logical predictions and critical thinking, as Pajares. F (1996) mentioned in
his study, gifted students had higher math self-efficacy and self-efficacy for self-
regulated learning than their peers. From the key findings in the present study, it can be
seen that Questioning and Semantic map significantly work well with EFL gifted high
school learners’ reading comprehension, especially Semantic with science gifted
students. These findings can be taken into account when employing techniques for
reading teaching process.
However, as with any research design, this study is not without its own share of
design limitations. Firstly, the small sample size (N=52) of this study does not permit
the researcher to make strong generalizations about the impact of Questioning and
Semantic map on EFL gifted high school learners’ reading comprehension. Moreover,
the results of this study cannot be generalized to all EFL gifted high school learners
since this research was limited to Vietnamese EFL gifted learners. In addition, the recent
study only investigated the impact of two pre-reading techniques only, which could
lead to some bias findings about gifted learners’ reading comprehension.
In an attempt to extend the scope of the current study, it would be interesting to
explore different techniques in pre-reading stage on EFL gifted learners’ reading
comprehension to see which one works the best in the EFL gifted setting. Moreover, it
would be better if these techniques were employed on a wide number of participants,
especially outside Vietnam.

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ON STUDENTS' READING COMPREHENSION: A COMPARATIVE STUDY

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