| While studies in second language reading have been beneficial in increasing our understanding about L2 literacy acquisition, they have not fully addressed issues of L2 reading of academic texts. Accordingly, the present study investigated the reading strategies employed by five Malaysian ESL (English as a Second Language) readers pursuing undergraduate degrees in Business at an American university. Materials included academic texts in their major field of study and in a non-major course they were taking at the time as well as magazine articles related to their major field. Data were collected through interviews, questionnaires, think-aloud tasks, and retrospective interviews, which were audio recorded and transcribed for qualitative analysis. Six categories of strategy use derived from the results were used to develop a case study of each of the five readers and a meta-analysis across the five cases.;Results indicated that these ESL readers were able to compensate for difficulties at one level by employing strategies at another level; that their perceptions of their reading processes corresponded to their actual processing strategies; that they made use of their schemata (background knowledge) while reading familiar materials, but background knowledge was not fully utilized for making sense of the texts; and that they most frequently made connections among ideas in the texts they were reading. Also, these ESL readers did not demonstrate that they adapted their reading according to purpose (academic versus general). In addition, it was found that the level of confidence in and exposure to a language, but not proficiency per se, influenced their choice of the language in which they processed meaning during reading. Also, translation was found to be an effective strategy in generating meaning and retaining ideas from texts. Finally, this study revealed various problems in reading for academic purposes experienced by these ESL readers. |
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