Lectura intensiva para mejorar las habilidades de comprensión lectora en alumnos del Bachillerato Internacional (IB)

Intensive reading to improve reading comprehension skills in International Baccalaureate (IB) students

José Mendoza Macías 1

Carlos Chancay Cedeño 2

(1) Universidad Técnica de Manabí, Instituto de Posgrado, Portoviejo – Ecuador, jmendoza0435@utm.edu.ec

(2) Universidad Técnica de Manabí, Facultad de Filosofía, Letras y Ciencias de la Educación, Portoviejo – Ecuador, carlos.chancay@utm.edu.ec

Contact: jmendoza0435@utm.edu.ec

Resumen

El artículo presentado es un estudio sobre el trabajo intensivo para mejorar las habilidades de comprensión lectora en estudiantes del Bachillerato Internacional (IB). Esta investigación se basa en la información que los estudiantes adquieren de forma esencial que les permite la comprensión del idioma inglés a través de la lectura en los niveles inferiores, por lo que cuando se encuentran en los niveles superiores no tienen todas las habilidades para percibir lo que están leyendo y hacerlo de manera óptima, les cuesta entender un texto para deducir significados, palabras, frases o una conversación en el idioma inglés. El trabajo tiene como objetivo analizar la Competencia Lectora como una necesidad fundamental para el aprendizaje del inglés como segunda lengua. El estudio está enfocado al grupo de estudiantes de secundaria de la Unidad Educativa Particular “Redemptio” de la ciudad de Jipijapa, provincia de Manabí. El trabajo tuvo un enfoque mixto, de tipo bibliográfico y alcance descriptivo, que se utilizan para la obtención de información, junto con técnicas como encuestas a estudiantes de Bachillerato Internacional de la Unidad Educativa y entrevistas a docentes de la misma institución. Obteniendo como resultados que la mayoría de los estudiantes tienen una fascinación por la lectura en inglés a diferencia del estudio, además, muestra una buena comprensión respecto a la lectura escogida en cuanto a la organización de los docentes.

Palabras clave: Habilidades de comprensión, bachillerato internacional, lectura, aprendizaje, inglés.

Abstract

The article presented a study on intensive work to improve reading comprehension skills in International Baccalaureate (IB) students. This research is based on the information the students acquire essentially that allows the understanding of the English language through reading at lower levels, so when they meet at superior levels do not have all the skills to perceive what they are reading and doing so optimally it is difficult for them to understand a text to deduce meanings, words, phrases or a conversation in the English language. The work aims to analyze Reading Competence as a fundamental need for learning English as a second language. The studio is focused on the group of high school students from the Unidad Educativa Particular “Redemptio” in the city of Jipijapa, province of Manabi. The work had a mixed approach, of bibliographic type and descriptive scope, which are used to obtain information, together with techniques such as surveys of International Baccalaureate students of the Educational Unit and interviews with teachers of the same institution. Obtaining as results that most of the students have a fascination for reading in English unlike the study, in addition, you teach a good understanding regarding the chosen reading in terms of the organization of teachers.

Keywords: Comprehension skills, international baccalaureate, reading, learning, English

Introduction

Currently, speaking a second language other than the mother tongue is a necessity that must be regarded for success, understanding and global communication in various contexts. Communication is always essential in everyday life; for this, people need to use language to interact with others to express or share feelings and thoughts. (Ordóñez, 2018). Therefore, for a person to be able to communicate globally, it is essential to learn English because it has become one of the most important languages worldwide, especially in Latin American countries like Ecuador. The learning process of this language has been introduced in almost all schools’ curricula, providing essential knowledge for the practice of a second language.

The process of teaching and learning the English language has become an essential issue in the educational process. It is the main subject to be taught in all institutions in the country. This action represents a challenge for the teachers who are introducing and teaching this language to each group (Martínez, 2021).

According to Rodas & Rodas (2021), Ecuador set the EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teaching standards in 2014. These standards must be implemented mainly by school authorities and teachers of the subject. The message involves developing the communication skills of English teachers in reading, writing, listening, and speaking.

EFL teachers in every institution, school, or program that focus on preparing people to acquire this second language emphasize the correct application of the four skills processes to develop student proficiency.

For this reason, it is important to know in-depth about competence and its implications in a natural context, to establish, improve and sustain reading performance as a vital aspect and to support students from an early stage who must make the most of their potential, and achieve a variety of fruitful outcomes throughout life (Horery, Seaton, Tracey, Craven, & Yeung, 2014).

Mayer and Perozo (2021) state that the International Baccalaureate (IB) level is an accepted pre-university degree that, since 1960, has grown in popularity and is offered in more than 70 countries worldwide. This study program has been recognized not only in English but also in many different languages. In this context, in 2006, the Ecuadorian Ministry of Education signed an agreement to introduce the High School Diploma Program (DP) gradually. International Baccalaureate (IB) in as many of the country's 1,400 public high schools as possible (Bittencourt, 2020).

Students in this program are trained to take international exams at the end of the courses in the different subjects in which they have been introduced, such as English B, as well as perform task-based tests, acquisition of Intensive Reading Skills, Intensive Reading research, intervention study (Alva, Meléndez, & Reyes, 2019).

One of the essential skills and ability to produce oral interaction is reception language. Couple (2021) ensures that receptive skills are extracted from the meaning of a speech, where it is heard or seen. This strategy is applied in reading or listening to a conversation or lecture. Considering this premise, it can be deduced that the importance of reading competence in education is vital. In addition, it can be attributed to a prior need to generate text comprehension; and develop a profound conception of interpreting in English.

To develop this article, it is convenient to establish the main element to analyze, such as intensive reading, which according to Padilla et al. (2019), "intensive reading is associated with the teaching of reading in terms of its components, given that the texts where the subject is addressed aim to exercise reading comprehension through processes, where the achievement of objectives and procedures such as anticipation, location of specific information prevails, the general idea, inferences and the induction of the meaning of unknown words, connectors, secondary ideas, etc.” (p. 21).

However, for Estrada & Parrado (2020), "intensive reading refers to the didactic use to develop communication skills where access to comprehension and production processes is considered. Likewise, this type of reading contains the adequacy by skill levels of the students, where it is recommended that the length of the text be brief to be able to work on it depth” (p. 13).

By way of conclusion, it is indicated that intensive reading within the academic field, especially in the English language, is that activity that is carried out within the classrooms and aims to study those grammatical forms, as well as discursive markers of superficial structure, which have the purpose of analyzing aspects of the language English (Chancay & Rivadeneira, 2021).

Therefore, the study addresses another of the variables related to International Baccalaureate students, being reading competence, which is considered highly relevant for the teaching and learning of students in schools, colleges, universities, or institutes. Thus, according to Nagua et al. (2022), strengthening the reading comprehension skill within the English language contributes to reducing the difficulties that students present in the emergence of new essential content. Likewise, this term can be defined as the individual capacity of a person to understand, analyze and use written texts and achieve their personal goals of adopting new knowledge.

“Reading comprehension skills contribute to the fact that reading skills can facilitate the learning process in acquiring the mother tongue or second language. Therefore, reading is important for the human being to be strengthened and constitute significant and permanent learning for their integral communication throughout life” (Fraser & Moreno, 2019).

According to Prado & Escalante (2020), the indicators of reading comprehension and the dimensions of the reading process and their results have shown students a critical outlook on education, especially to adopt the foreign language as a second language. For this reason, the author affirms that reading comprehension is one of the basic skills that every person must acquire to understand and analyze the problem that arises in academic life, especially in the English language.

In general, it can be expressed that students acquire essential information for understanding the English language through reading at lower levels so that when they enter higher levels, they do not acquire the necessary skills to perceive what they are reading, and this makes it difficult to understand a text to deduce meanings, as well as words, phrases or simply a conversation in the English language.

The development of reading comprehension skills can be achieved primarily when a student acquires a set of decisions for fluent pronunciation, intonation, and speaking. As well as decoding and interpreting messages to build and form meanings, managing to transmit the information received orally and in writing.

“Similarly, this type of understanding begins when a student uses grammatical structures that do not represent orthographic insufficiencies that have good coherence, unity and creativity when expressing themselves orally and in writing”. Students who apply their knowledge and skills in the mother tongue can generate linguistic competencies in the foreign language (English) (Fundora & Llerena, 2018, p. 228).

Among the skills an International Baccalaureate (IB) student has in developing an understanding reader, Ayán Legrand & Nieva (2018) list the following:

Consequently, Luis (2021)presents the following information on the stages and principles of reading comprehension in the English language:

According to Guarín & Rojas (2017), a study carried out on fifth-grade students concludes that the comprehensive reading process within a foreign language is not an easy task since it requires time planning and knowledge on the part of teachers, since from the practice of English language teaching in the early grades is often limited to rote, memorization of vocabulary. Although this is essential, it does not generate learning because students fail to give it the proper meaning.

Vargas et al. (2021) point out that cognitive learning strategies for reading comprehension are introduced in teaching the English language to students, allowing them to solve problems and face a task or communication.

Among the strategies he mentions, the following are described:

This practicum is required for students taking international exams in Language B (English) for the International Baccalaureate program. This research aims to analyze Reading Competence as a fundamental need for learning English as a second language. For this action, the topic is presented: “Intensive reading to improve reading comprehension skills in International Baccalaureate (IB) students.

To achieve the objective, the group of International Baccalaureate students from the “Unidad Educativa Particular “Redemptio” in the city of Jipijapa, located in the province of Manabí, who are studied the problems presented in this study, which addresses the central question: To what extent the lack of intensive reading skills can affect the comprehensive development of International Baccalaureate (IB) students?

For the development of the article, a methodological process has been taken into account that includes a series of methods for solving the problem. Therefore, it is decided to use a mixed approach of bibliographic type and descriptive scope, which are used to obtain information, together with techniques such as surveys of the students of the International Baccalaureate of the Unidad Educativa Particular “Redemptio” of the city of Jipijapa and interviews with teachers from the same institution.

As already mentioned, the article has a mixed approach, which according to Hernández et al. (2014), "represent a set of systematic, empirical and critical research processes and involve the collection and analysis of quantitative and qualitative data, as well as their integration and joint discussion, to make inferences as a result of all the information collected and achieve a greater understanding of the phenomenon under study". This approach collects numerical and bibliographic data according to the reader's intensive reading and comprehension skills (p. 98).

In addition, the type of bibliographic research used "is the consultation of information sources published in printed or virtual form, that is, it analyzes and evaluates what other authors have investigated and mentioned about the area of knowledge where the subject of study is set" (Del Valle & Fernández, 2017, pág. 74). This research allowed defining the study variables for their understanding and analysis in the development of the work.

The descriptive field, for its part, "seeks to specify the properties, characteristics, and profiles of people, groups, communities, processes, objects or any other phenomenon that is the object of an analysis". This scope directly describes the impact of intensive reading on the development of a competent reader (Sampieri, 2014, p. 126). International Baccalaureate students of the Unidad Educativa Particular “Redemptio” establish the main particularities generated for adopting the foreign language (English).

On the other hand, the population has been taken into account for the collection of information. According to Pineda et al. (2018), "It is the complete set of people or objects on which conclusions must be drawn after an investigative process." The population or universe used in the article will focus on all the students who attend the International Baccalaureate of the Unidad Educativa Particular “Redemptio” of Jipijapa.

Fuentelsaz & Icart (2018) defined the statistical sample as "the set of individuals studied, it is a subset of the population". In this way, the sample corresponds to the same number of the universe for this research work since a finite population is obtained. Likewise, to receive all the information on Intensive Reading to improve reading comprehension skills in International Baccalaureate (IB) students, it has been decided to use the survey technique, where the structured questionnaire that contemplates closed questions is used—focused on the studio.

In the investigation, the Reading Level Test was used, which requires first reading a text and then trying to solve the questions. It has 20 questions, which are in random order, which they can be direct or complicated, for which it should not be fear of response in case of not recognizing what the solution to them is? In realizing the answers, it is not recommended to use the dictionary as it is searched to discover the herb level. The results of the investigation are described below. Instruments allowed knowing the English level of students, where the “Level of IB Survey” questionnaire is specifically for the students, while the “Survey for English” questionnaire is for teachers.

The main result shows that the class average is 14.56 (/20). Of this, four students are within the quartile with the lowest grade in consideration of the group.

In the next stage, to describe the knowledge of the language of the students, the result of the test 'Level of Survey IB' is the following summary:

Visualization is first used to teach reading skills. After the questions and answers, summaries allow a better understanding of this.

This reflects 36% of the total group.

From the present study, it was identified that in the majority, there is a fascination for reading in English, unlike the study as such, which is manifested in a slight 2 hours per study within the categories for reading, novels are considered as their highest percentage, others Finding an idea is also considered one of the fundamental reasons for reading instead. They have a good understanding of the chosen reading in terms of the organization of teachers. They consider essential rhetorical questions and make an exemplify or separate what is true or false.

Regarding the analysis within the teaching practice, it has been identified that, for example, the illustrations are the principal means by which the achievement of learning by the student is reached. Another important reason is the subject of visualization and analysis. These are essential skills for learning, which is considered correct to motivate the student with readings that the student finds interesting in taste.

Conclusions

The scientific article constitutes a means of communication on intensive reading to improve reading comprehension skills in International Baccalaureate (IB) students. In this virtue, it has been concluded that students acquire essential information for understanding the English language by reading at lower levels. This has repercussions when entering higher levels, where they do not receive the necessary skills to distinguish what they are reading, making it difficult to understand a text to identify the meanings of words, phrases, or conversations in the English language.

The lack of intensive reading skills affects the comprehensive development of International Baccalaureate (IB) students. Therefore, among those skills analyzed in the article, pronunciation, intonation, and fluency have been integrated, where decoding and interpretation are taken into account of messages, building and forming meanings, where it has been possible to transmit oral and written information to the students of the Unidad Educativa Particular “Redemptio” of the city of Jipijapa. It is also concluded that most International Baccalaureate (IB) students are fascinated by reading in English but not by the study as such. This has been given by the reading categories and the place where it is developed, which has generated a good understanding in terms of the chosen reading and terms of the organization of teachers, important rhetorical questions are raised, and they are carried out in an exemplified or separated way within what is true or false.

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