THE RELATIONSHIP OF READING METHODS AND LEARNING STYLES

The purpose of this research was to examine the relationship of two kinds of reading methods (oral reading and silent reading) and two types of learning styles (visual and auditory) of Taiwanese EFL 12th grade male students' reading comprehension in English. The results indicated when students' learning styles were unknown, there was no difference showing which reading method was better than the other. When reading an easy passage, the high auditory learners performed significantly better in the Oral Reading Group than in the Silent Reading Group. For the low visual learners, the oral reading was their better choice than the silent reading on the difficult reading passage. For other learning style preferences, the performance of reading comprehension in oral reading and silent reading would not be too much different. This study created a high reliability survey instrument which can tell students' Visual and Auditory learning styles by asking only six questions for each learning style.

Autorentext

Yachi Teng has several years' EFL teaching experiences both in Taiwan and the US, and also specializes in Chinese as a second language teaching. She received her master degree from the University of Pennsylvania and her Ed.D in Second Language Acquisition from the University of San Francisco. Currently, she is teaching in Bay Area.