Dr. Ellen Simon Chair of the Exam Board

Supervisor: Prof. dr. Mieke Van Herreweghe Co-supervisor: Dr. Ellen Simon Chair of the Exam Board: Prof. dr. Liliane Haegeman Members of the PhD Exam Committee: Prof. dr. Katrien Deroey Prof. dr. Caroline Kerfoot Prof. dr. Miriam Taverniers Prof. dr. Carola Strobl Faculteit Letteren & Wijsbegeerte Marcos Abílio Nhapulo Strategic and Extensive Reading in English as a Foreign Language among Mozambican University Students Proefschrift voorgelegd tot het behalen van de graad van Doctor in deTaalkunde Dissertation submitted in fulfilment of the requirements to obtain the PhD-degree in Linguistics 2016 Declaration “I declare that Strategic and Extensive Reading in English as a Foreign Language among Mozambican University Students is my own work, that has never been presented for obtaining any degree or in another context and that it constitutes the result of my personal research. This Dissertation is submitted in fulfilment of the requirements to obtain the PhD- degree in Linguistics, at Ghent University, Faculty of Arts and Philosophy” Ghent - Belgium, November, 2016. Signed: Marcos Nhapulo v Keywords English as a Foreign Language English Language Teaching Extensive Reading Learner Beliefs and Expectations Mozambican University Students Reading Attitudes Reading Comprehension Reading Speed Reading Strategies Reading Strategy Instruction Tertiary Education vii Acknowledgements Reading comprehension is crucial in language learning and throughout the four years of research I have learnt how to become a good, strategic and a fluent reader. This was thanks to all the people and researchers I have met during my research. I believe that without their contributions this dissertation would not have been possible. I owe a great debt of gratitude to my supervisor Mieke Van Herreweghe for her patience and knowledge she shared with me. She taught me how to think and read critically, even when I felt somewhat tired of writing more than two versions of the same article, and mainly when I thought it was done and she told me no, “you still have some more work to do”. That’s when one wishes to exchange brains but it is, unfortunately, impossible. I also thank my co-supervisor, Ellen Simon. I would like to thank the staff at VLIR-UOS in Belgium, especially Martin Valcke and Annick Verheylezoon, and Programa DESAFIO in Mozambique for enabling me to get involved and committed to this research program, even when I was sick or hopeless. They helped me with all the tools I needed for putting in practice my research instruments. It was also through this Programa DESAFIO that I have published my first book entitled “Gender Equality Promotion Strategies & Community Development”, in 2011, with the guidance of Esmeralda Mariano. The Eduardo Mondlane University and the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences for giving me time to study, even when this meant work overload for my colleagues whenever I was absent. I thank the endless list of colleagues, and I would like to mention Gregório Firmino, Carlos Manuel, Julieta Langa, Armando Magaia and Xavier Mucave, for their empowerment and help throughout my research. The endless list of professionals I have met at Ghent University, Eduardo Mondlane University, and at the AILA Conference in Peking, 2011. They have helped me to have a ix broader look at the current trends in reading and they have helped me to reshape my vision of reading through constructive and academic criticism. My parents Abílio Nhapulo and Lúcia Muhate, my elder sister Gracinda and my younger sister Lúcia, my only elder brother Artur Nhapulo, who gave me strength and power to keep moving on through all the help they could provide me with. I thank my patient Grandmother, Carolina Banze, who taught me how to be the MAN (Marcos Abílio Nhapulo) that I am, since when I was a little child. My lovely nephews Cassamo, Artur Júnior, Belicreme, Túria, Vânia, Orlando, Cármen, Miqueias, Nasvância and Belizário, who sometimes deleted pages of this Dissertation, thinking “Tio Coxy or Coty” (as they call me) is just wasting time while they wanted to play Chess. They taught me how to write and save every five minutes before losing everything. Lenine Abílio Marcos Nhapulo and Aquiles Jeremias Marcos Nhapulo, my leaders and sons at the same time, who never missed me when I was away because they knew their single father was going to be right back. I will always appreciate and thank their inner strength and endless hope. I thank everyone for giving me power and comfort whenever it was necessary. I finally thank myself for being who I am, MAN. November, 2016. x List of Abbreviations EAP: English for Academic Purposes EFL: English as a Foreign Language EGP: English for General Purposes ELT: English Language Teaching ER: Extensive Reading ESL: English as a Second Language ESP: English for Specific Purposes IELTS: International English Language Testing System INE: The National Institute of Statistics of Mozambique IR: Intensive Reading L1: First Language L2: Second Language MINED: Ministry of Education and Culture RSI: Reading Strategy Instruction SL: Second Language TOEFL: Teaching of English as Foreign Language TSL: Teaching English as a Second Language UEM: Eduardo Mondlane University xi Summary Positive learning outcome or success in tertiary education has become a matter of being a good reader, since students have to deal with many readings in their academic routine. The skills they need for reading an academic text are not the same as those needed while reading a novel or a newspaper. Academic reading has its own challenges and students need to be prepared to face them, reading many texts and understanding them as quickly as possible. Being selective and knowing which reading strategy to use in order to improve their reading comprehension is crucial. The current study is aimed at improving reading skills among Mozambican university students, especially those at the Eduardo Mondlane University, in Mozambique. Almost all Mozambican students have learned English as their 3rd or 4th language, although within this study it is considered both as a second and/or foreign language. That is, students involved in this study may be trapped in a double-edged problem: the language problem (linguistic and communicative competence) and the reading problem (lack of reading strategies). In the first study we have designed and implemented a Reading Strategy Instruction program aimed at enabling students to become good, fluent, active and strategic readers, in order to improve their reading comprehension skills. After conducting the study, experimental group students reported a better mastery of reading strategies, which was confirmed by the considerable improvement between pre-test and post-test reading comprehension scores among this group, compared to the results of the control group. Better mastery of reading strategies after the RSI program also suggests that the intervention had a positive effect among the involved students, which implies the need of introducing a strategy-based reading program especially in the ELT course at UEM. xiii The second study involved an implementation of an ER program in which we looked at the effect of extensive reading on reading comprehension and reading speed. This stage has brought an innovative approach in the field since it did not look at the effect of extensive reading on general reading comprehension as many previous studies did, but it looked at the effect of extensive reading on the reading comprehension of academic texts. That is, though students were involved in an ER program, the pre- and post-tests used for evaluating their reading progress was an academic text. This was adventurously done because our purpose in this study is improving academic reading skills and not simple general reading skills. Both the poor and the good readers could read a larger number of pages after being involved in the program. Likewise, the number of words per minute (wpm) students read before the ER program was smaller than the number of wpm read afterwards. Most importantly, we concluded that not only poor readers and good readers showed an improvement in the number of wpm after an ER program, but the reading speed tests have also showed that good readers read faster than poor readers. This proves that the more we read the faster we become (Kirin et al., 2012), and vice-versa. In fact, students who read faster are more impelled to read more and more books in a motivating vicious cycle (Nuttal, 1996), and in an enjoyable manner, meantime, improving their reading comprehension. The last stage of this study was an implementation of an ER program with the purpose of evaluating its effect on students reading attitudes, since it was observed that there is lack of reading habits among Mozambican university students, which affects their reading performance and academic learning outcome in general. A twenty-question reading attitudes questionnaire was divided into two categories of reading attitudes: the affective category with two variables’ items expressing Comfort and Anxiety; and the cognitive category divided into three variables expressing Intellectual Value, Practical Value and Linguistic Value. After the ER program was conducted, students have shown positive attitudes towards extensive reading, which implies a change in how they thought and felt about reading, added to the increased motivation. The three studies have shown that there is a need to introduce several innovative elements in the current ELT curriculum in the Mozambican tertiary education. For instance, there is a need for a curriculum that takes into consideration learner needs and beliefs about language learning and teaching. In addition, an RSI program is necessary among Mozambican university students since it improves learners reading competence and it xiv enables them to develop cognitive and metacognitive strategies (Grenfell & Macaro, 2007; Khezrlou, 2012), which lead to an enhancement in reading comprehension and reading speed. Finally, extensive Reading programs are to be conducted due to their role in the learning and reading process.

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