A Comparative Study On Strategies Of The Children For L1 And L2 Reading Comprehension In K12

Abstract

In today’s world it has long become a necessity to learn and communicate in another language other than one’s mother tongue (L1). When the world is walking on the path of globalization people try to learn a second/foreign language (L2). In this study it’s critically aimed to explore strategy use in L1 and L2 reading at K12 level. Subjects involved in the study are the fourth and fifth grade students in two private primary schools in Eskisehir province, Turkey. In this study triangulation method was used. The study was carried out in two steps. In the first step quantitative data were collected from the 86 students by a questionnaire developed by researchers depending on literature review. In the second step, qualitative data were collected from the 3 foreign language teachers and 3 mother tongue teachers by semi-structured interviews. Qualitative data were gathered to describe the situations in depth as supplementary data. The results obtained from the study indicates that although students’ strategy use in L1 and L2 reading and strategy groups they engaged such as cognitive, compensation, meta-cognitive and social strategies have similarities, percentage of the reading strategy they use differ Besides, opinions of foreign language teachers and mother tongue obtained from qualitative data support the findings.