Exploring the development and effectiveness of cooperative strategy-based instruction in a Taiwanese technical university EFL reading program

This study investigates the effectiveness of implementing strategy-based instruction under a cooperative learning environment on EFL technical university students' reading proficiency and their perceptions and attitudes towards reading. An EFL reading program was undertaken at a university in Taiwan, which was carried out in 2 successive phases for 20 weeks each. The participants of the first phase were two freshman classes in the day-school division. The group used as the control group followed a traditional approach, and the other acting as the experimental group was provided with cooperative strategy-based instruction (CSBI). An inferential statistical t-test with the help of SPSS and a MATLAB statistical Toolbox were used to analyze the effectiveness of the proposed CSBI. Results showed the experimental group outperformed the control group. After obtaining the results from the first phase, the researcher administered a second phase to a weekend class using only CSBI. In addition to the statistical pair-wise comparative t-test, a questionnaire, interviews, students' class feedback, video recording, and students' evaluations of the teacher were incorporated to get a more in-depth perspective on the experiment. The outcome of combing quantitative and qualitative methods provided strong support for the application of CSBI. The methods for the triangulation of diverse types of data collected through various methods were established. The findings showed students made a distinct improvement in reading comprehension and significantly changed their attitudes towards reading. This study suggested that the teacher avoid technical explanations, but rather give them illustrative sentences in text or in context to employ reading strategies together with cooperative learning. The findings of the study can be of a valuable contribution to the teaching and learning in an EFL reading program. Implications of this study are also discussed with particular relevance towards teaching and learning reading in an EFL context.