Teachers’ Cognition about Teaching Reading Strategies and Their
Classroom Practices
Nopianti Sa’adah, Dian Sa’adillah Maylawati, Didi Sumardi, and Muhibbin Syah
UIN Sunan Gunung Djati Bandung, Jalan AH Nasution No. 105, Bandung, Indonesia
Keywords: Experienced EFL Teachers, Reading Strategies, Teachers’ Cognition.
Abstract: This study was conducted on the basis that teaching students reading strategies is an important duty of the
language teachers since language strategies can help students monitor and take charge of their own learning.
Besides, helping students understand good language learning strategies can be considered to be appreciated
characteristics of a good language teacher. This study employed mix methods study with thirty experienced
EFL teachers in Bandung. The data were collected by distributing questionnaires to thirty experienced EFL
teachers in Bandung. Semi structured and unstructured interviews conducted with four experienced EFL
teachers and non-participant observation with video and audio recording with three of them in a model junior
high school SMPN I Margahayu Bandung as the main participants. The data analysis was done based on the
questionnaires, transcription of observation and interview. The types of language learning strategies
(O’Malley and Chamot, 1990) were used to analyze the data. The findings show that the majority of the
respondents viewed reading strategies as techniques to comprehend printed materials effectively. Moreover,
these were seen as essential skills that readers use to enhance their own reading to achieve desired goals and
objectives. Teaching reading strategies is thus considered important to overcome kinds of challenges in
reading, to make them apply different strategies and the most important is it can help students to build their
own reading strategies. Meanwhile, in the use of reading strategies in teaching and learning process, most of
teachers believe that teaching all reading strategies (metacognitive, cognitive and social strategies) is a must
but in fact, the practice illustrates that only some were taught. Metacognitive strategies mostly used in the
classroom were directed attention, functional planning, advanced organizers, selective attention. They
considered that these techniques particularly directed attention is most effective since it can make the students
to manage the time wisely in National Examination. However, cognitive reading strategies mostly they used
were imagery, elaboration, transfer, inferencing and translation as. Meanwhile, social reading strategies
mostly applied were questions for clarification and cooperation for students to have opportunities to work
with one another to solve the problems.
1 INTRODUCTION
Research into reading has found that effective readers
are aware of the strategies they use flexibly and
efficiently (Garner, 1987; Presley, Beard El, Dinary
and Brown, 1992). Furthermore, researchers believed
that reading strategies could be taught to make the
students more successful in language learning. As it
is said by Lessard-Clouston (1997:3) that teaching
students learning strategies is an important duty of the
language teachers since language strategies can help
students monitor and take charge of their own
learning. In addition, he emphasizes that helping
students understand good language learning
strategies and training them to develop and use such
good language learning strategies can be considered
to be appreciated characteristics of a good language
teacher.
Furthermore, Harste and Burke (1997) notes that
teachers make decisions about classroom instruction
in light of theoretical beliefs they hold about teaching
and learning. Also teachers’ beliefs influence their
goals, procedures, materials, classroom interaction
patterns, their roles, their students, and the school
they work in. Similarly, Richards and Rodgers (2001)
affirmed that teachers possess the assumptions about
language and language learning, and that these
provide the basis for a particular approach to
Sa’adah, N., Maylawati, D., Sumardi, D. and Syah, M.
Teachers’ Cognition about Teaching Reading Strategies and Their Classroom Practices.
In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Sociology Education (ICSE 2017) - Volume 2, pages 29-35
ISBN: 978-989-758-316-2
Copyright © 2018 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved
29

language instruction. Moreover, Borg (2006:275)
notes that language teaching can be seen as a process
which is defined by dynamic interactions among
cognition, context and experience.
The study of language teachers’ cognition has
made a significant contribution to our understandings
of how teachers learn, what teachers do, and the
cognitive bases for their actions (Borg, 2003: 271).
Researchers have paid more attention to the study of
teachers’ cognition about teaching, learning, learners,
and the impact it has on teaching practices, activities,
and learning outcomes (Tillman, 2000; Shavelson,
and Stern, 1981; Burns, 2009; Eisenhart et al., 1998;
Fang, 1996; Richardson, 1996; Kagan, 1992;
Reynold, 1992). Moreover, the impact of teachers’
cognition on their teaching is being studied across
disciplines and educational setting as diverse as
general education, mathematics (Ernest, 1989; Shuck,
1997; Karaagac and Threlfall, 2004; Raymond,
1997), second or foreign language learning (Farrell
and Patricia, 2005), reading (Beach, 1994), and
chemistry (Brisco, 1991). It has been studied in pre-
service and in-service contexts, different educational
levels: primary, secondary and tertiary level.
2 RESERACH QUESTION,
PURPOSE AND SIGNIFICANT
OF THE STUDY
Based on the description in session 1, the researcher
processes the questions to be investigated which are
formulated as follows:
 What are teachers’ cognition about reading
strategies and teaching reading strategies in
a model junior high school?
 To what extent do their classroom practices
reflect their cognition?
Then, the purpose of the study is as follows:
 To investigate teachers’ cognition about
reading strategies and teaching reading
strategies in junior high School?
 To examine the extent to which their cognition
are reflected in their classroom practices.
The findings of this study may provide
information about what teachers’ cognition about
reading strategies and teaching reading strategies in a
Model Junior High School in Bandung and to what
extent do their classroom practices reflect their
cognition. From professional aspect, this study is
expected to give contribution to the field of teaching
and learning about reading. Then, from practical
aspect, the findings are expected to have some
practical implications in future instruction to offer the
theoretical basis for the application of teaching
reading strategies in the classroom.
3 METHODS
There were thirty experienced EFL teachers who
participated in the study. The majority of these
teachers came from junior high schools in Bandung
West Java. They have been teaching English more
than ten years. The main participants of this research
were four English teachers at one model junior high
school in Bandung. The average teaching experience
of the main participants was 18.1 years. The
participating teachers in this study did not, as stated
by Cohen, Manion, and Marrison (2007, p. 104),
“represent the wider population” of secondary EFL
teachers in Indonesia, so that the findings from this
study were not applicable for any generalization to be
made as they presented the particular perspectives of
these participating teachers.
The quantitative and qualitative data were
collected. Questionnaires were for the collection of
quantitative data, while interview and observation
were for collection of qualitative data. The qualitative
data was imperative since it could enrich the study as
a whole and additionally, functioned as a way to
crosschek and validate the data collected.
The answers to the questionnaire items which
included checklist and five-point Likert-type scale
items were assigned in numerical values. Descriptive
statistics (percentages and mean scores,) were
formulated to summarize and present that data.
Frequency and descriptive statistics, tables, and
figures were constructed to display results with
respect to the research questions of this study.
The researcher constructed the questionnaire
regarding teaching reading strategies using the
framework of O’Malley and Chamot (1990) that there
are three major types of strategies, named as
metacognitive, cognitive, and social/ affective, as a
guideline in organizing questionnaire.
There were two types of interviews used in this
study: the semi-structured interview and unstructured
interview or informal conversational interview
(Patton, 2002, p. 342). All the interviews in this study
were conducted in Bahasa Indonesia.
The unstructured interviews were conducted with
four EFL teachers who had indicated willingness to
give more information about their personal practices.
Another method for data collection used in this
study was class observation. This instrument was
used to find out teachers classroom practices in
ICSE 2017 - 2nd International Conference on Sociology Education
30

teaching reading strategies to their students. The
researcher observed teaching learning activities in the
classroom and did not take part in any classroom
activities. Frankel and Wallen (1996: 452) states that
the researcher makes no effort whatsoever to
manipulate variables or to control the activities of
individuals, but simply observes and records what
happens as things naturally occur.
4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
4.1 Teachers’ Knowledge about the
Meaning of Reading Strategies
The data from questionnaires showed that from thirty
experienced EFL teachers the majority of respondents
see reading strategies as a technique to comprehend
the text. In addition, reading strategies were seen as
strategies to enhance reading ability particularly the
ability to tackle the reading task. These assumptions
in line with some theories that reading strategies are
specific actions, behaviours, steps or techniques such
as seeking out conversation partners, or giving
oneself encouragement to tackle a difficult language
task used by students to enhance their own learning
(Scarcella and Oxford, 1992:63). The successful
people are good strategy users; they know how to use
a variety of goal-specific tactics, to execute them in a
planned sequence, and to monitor their use
(Weinstein and Mayer, 1985; Weinstein and
Underwood, 1985; Gettinger and Seibert 2002;
Adams and Hamm, 1994; Henley, Ramsey and
algozzine, 1996 cited in Cubukcu, 2007).
4.2 Teachers’ Knowledge about the
Importance of Reading Strategies
The data from questionnaire with regard to the
importance of teaching reading strategies distributed
to the participants indicate that all respondents in this
study acknowledged the importance of teaching
reading strategies to students is to enhance their
reading skills. This is because if students were just
reading every word from the text, it seemed that they
would not be able to improve their own reading.
However these beliefs also support some theories that
the appropriate use of reading strategies leads to
effective reading. Experts note that the goal of
academic reading instruction should be to develop
strategic reading abilities in order to make each
student a strategic reader (Carrell and Carson, 1997;
Grabe and Stoller, 2002). Additionally, Janzen and
Stoller (1998) also note that the students who learn to
apply the strategies become autonomous and self-
regulated readers.
4.3 Teachers’ Knowledge about the
Appropriate Reading Strategies
should be Taught
4.3.1 Metacognitive Reading Strategies
Data from questionnaires distributed to thirty
participants showed that they strongly agreed that all
kinds of metacognitive reading strategies should be
taught to the students. The data from interview with
four teachers as main respondents in this study
supports the gained data from questionnaires. The
data described that two teachers in this study reported
that by asking students to preview the headings,
illustrations and the text before reading is relevant to
do. They further explained that the students,
therefore, were prepared for the coming text. Then
they asked students to skim the text, read the
comprehension questions to know what to focus on
before reading in details, scan for key words or skip
unnecessary words.
According to these two teachers, these activities
are very important to form the essential reading skills
for the students. O’Malley and Chamot (1990)
classified these activities as metacognitive strategies
and they were named advanced organizers, directed
attention and selective attention respectively.
The other two teachers reported also by asking the
students to preview the text and brainstorm some
words relating to the reading text is helpful. They
believed that by doing so, they could elicit students’
background knowledge about the text. These
activities could be categorized as advanced
organizers and functional planning (O’Malley and
Chamot: 1990).
Thus, to conclude the results of this part, the
majority of the respondents believe that mostly
metacognitive reading strategies that should be
applied are advance organizers, directed attention,
and selective attention since all of teachers were
always aware about UN (National Examination).
4.3.2 Cognitive Reading Strategies
All four teachers as main respondents in this study
reported using the strategies such as elaboration,
transfer, inference, translation, repetition,
summarizing, grouping, translation and imagery that
O’Malley and Chamot (1990) classified as cognitive
strategies. Mostly, all respondents agreed that
elaboration is the best cognitive reading strategy to be
Teachers’ Cognition about Teaching Reading Strategies and Their Classroom Practices
31

taught because to guess the meaning from the context,
students need background knowledge to elicit new
information from the text.
By transfer, some teachers implied that by using
grammatical rules to identify word forms can make
students easy to understand gist of the text they read.
Meanwhile, by inference, they assumed that students
not only to understand the words but also to be able
to convey the words in a different way and relate new
information to old information.
All teachers also argued that by using repetition
strategy that the students imitate a language model is
helpful to comprehend the reading material (Teacher
A). Another strategy reported to be used in the post-
reading was summarizing. Four teachers shared the
idea that it was very important for students to know
how to synthesize new information gained through
reading.
4.3.3 Social/Affective Reading Strategies
Data from the interview indicated that four teachers
usually used pair work or group work in reading
activities. According to teachers, some students may
be shy to speak and afraid of making mistakes in front
of the class so “peer”, whole class, groups, and pair
discussion should be encouraged to minimize their
anxiety. What is more, this strategy was thought to be
effective since “it creates opportunities for students to
work together to solve a task or get feedback
“(Teacher A)
Only one teacher indicated that need of teaching
self-talk to students to reduce anxiety, especially for
low level students. Thus, to summarize this section,
all respondents believed that all social strategies are
important to be taught. Question for clarification,
cooperation and self-talk should be taught since pair
work and group work are good examples of social
strategy.
4.3.4 Teachers’ Actual Classroom Practices
in Teaching Reading Strategies
4.3.4.1 Metacognitive Reading Strategies
Instruction used by Teachers
According to O’Malley and Chamot (1990:119),
metacognitive strategies can be divided into 3 stages:
planning, monitoring and evaluation. Table 4.6 shows
the use of metacognitive strategies by three teachers
(Teacher 2, 3 and 4) in ninety minutes.
Two teachers introduced metacognitive strategies
with such activities as skimming, scanning,
brainstorming and picture word association. This can
be seen in classes of teacher 2 and 4 where most
strategies were introduced.
Table 1: The use of metacognitive reading strategies in the
classroom.
Teachers
Advance organizer
Directed attention
Functional planning
Selective attention
Self
-management
Self
-monitoring
Self
-evaluation
2
V
V
V
3
V
V
V
4
V
V
V
As table 1 shows metacognitive strategies were
taught quite frequently. Three teachers focused on
advance organizers, directed attention and selective
attention. In class of teacher 2 and 3, directed
attention strategy was used from five to ten minutes.
These teachers asked students to ignore some
irrelevant distracters in the reading texts as new
words or structures to pay attention to the learning
tasks.
Furthermore, teacher 4 directed her focus not only
on advance organizers, directed attention and
selective attention strategies but also functional
planning. When being asked why they chose to do
these strategies, teachers explained they used these
strategies to prepare students for the reading material.
Advance organizers; for example, was thought to be
effective for learners to get the main ideas before
reading.
In the classes of teachers 2 and 3, teachers taught
students to read comprehension questions before
reading and highlighted the key words in the
questions.
Although in the interview, all four teachers
believed all metacognitive strategies are effective in
helping students improve their reading skill; however,
in their real classroom practices, only some strategies
were taught: directed attention, functional planning,
advanced organizers, selective attention. In
unstructured interview conducted after the
observation, one teacher explained that she did not
need extra effort to let the students understand about
how to use the strategies since mostly students have
high English proficiency level, so the explanation
given by teachers were easy to be understood by the
students. She further explained that the most
important of metacognitive reading strategies that
students should master is directed attention, for the
ICSE 2017 - 2nd International Conference on Sociology Education
32

reason that again she focused on the effectiveness of
time in answering tasks at national examination.
4.3.4.2 Cognitive Strategies Instruction used by
Teachers
Table 2 reflects cognitive strategies used by three
teachers in their classroom. In fact, the researcher
observed that most teachers used imagery strategy to
teach reading. This strategy was seen in such
activities as using pictures in the reading texts or real
objects to help students understand or remember new
words or new information. The students seemed to be
excited when their teachers used this strategy.
However, teachers only asked students to carry out
activities without explaining clearly to the students
the purposes of doing these.
All three teachers said they liked to teach students
how to elaborate, transfer inference or translation but
as we can see from the table, only one teacher
(Teacher 2) used resourcing and summarizing
strategies. To explain this, teacher 2 said that she
focused much on the content of the text and that their
students lacked prior knowledge. Besides, she also
focused on how the students can summarize then
memorize the information in the text. In addition, by
using these strategies she expected that the students
can answer the questions regarding the text using
their own sentences without looking at the text.
Again, resourcing and summarizing were liked by
only one teacher.
Two other teachers did not teach students how to
resource and summarize. They just teach the students
how to use available information to guess the
meaning of new items students found in the text,
encouraged students to use prior knowledge then
related into the content of the text and asked them to
use previous linguistic knowledge or students’ prior
skill to assist comprehension of the text.
Table 2: The use of cognitive reading strategies in the real
classroom.
Teachers
Resourcing
Repetition
Grouping
Deduction
Imagery
Auditory representation
Keyword method
Elaboration
Transfer
Inferencing
Note taking
Summarizing
Recombination
Translation
2
V
V
V
V
V
V
V
3
V
V
V
V
V
4
V
V
V
V
V
Three teachers used translation strategy in the reading
lesson. One teacher (Teacher 2) asked students to
translate the whole text into their mother tongue to
make sure that students could understand the text.
Other two teachers (Teacher 3 and 4) encouraged
students to translate just the unfamiliar words or items
the students found in the text not a whole of the text.
To elaborate this, the researcher observed that in the
classroom, the teachers always concerned on speed
reading and the strategy which can support the
students easy to answer the comprehension task.
4.3.4.3 Social/Affective Strategies Instruction
used by Teachers
It was very easy to realize that in three classes
observed, there were two classes in which teachers
used the pair-work, group-work very often (Teacher
3 and 4). However, in classes of teachers 2, pair work
and group work was rare. Data from unstructured
interview conducted after classroom observation was
done, she explained that she wanted their students to
speak out their answers in chorus (whole class) to get
their attention to the lesson.
Pair-work and group-work are mainly students’
interactions with one or several students. This is a
common feature in classes of teacher 3 and 4. It could
be seen in the interview that three teachers liked to
use the mixture of working between students: pair-
work, group-work, whole-class work and individual
work.
According to table 3, all three teachers taught
students question for clarification. It was a strategy to
elicit explanation from teachers or other students to
get the correct answer for the reading tasks. Self-talk
was preferred by one teacher. The teacher taught
students to use self-talk “as the method to reduce their
inner anxiety” (Teacher 2).
Table 3: The use of social/affective reading strategies in
classroom.
Teachers
Question for clarificati
on
Cooperation
Self talk
2
V
V
V
3
V
V
4
V
V
Teachers’ Cognition about Teaching Reading Strategies and Their Classroom Practices
33

5 CONCLUSIONS
This study investigated teachers’ cognition about
teaching reading strategies and their classroom
practices that focused on thirty experienced EFL
teachers in Bandung and four experienced EFL
teachers in a model school as formerly it was a
Fledgling International Standard School (RSBI) in
Bandung as main respondents in this study. The
purposes are to identify teachers’ knowledge with
regard to definition and importance of reading
strategies, importance of teaching reading strategies
and their actual classroom practices.
The findings showed that the majority of the
respondents viewed reading strategies as techniques
to comprehend printed materials effectively.
Moreover, these were seen as essential skills that
readers use to enhance their own reading to achieve
desired goals and objectives.
Meanwhile, in the use of reading strategies in
teaching and learning process, most of teachers
believe of teaching all reading strategies
(metacognitive, cognitive and social strategies) is a
must but in fact, the practice illustrates that only some
were taught. Metacognitive strategies mostly used in
the classroom were directed attention, functional
planning, advanced organizers, selective attention.
They considered that these techniques particularly
directed attention is most effective since it can make
the students to manage the time wisely in National
Examination. However, cognitive reading strategies
mostly they used were imagery, elaboration, transfer,
inferencing and translation. Meanwhile, social
reading strategies mostly applied were questions for
clarification and cooperation for students to have
opportunities to work with one another to solve the
problems or to check their answers and felt free to ask
for clarification to the teacher or their peers also they
felt confident in expressing the idea.
Then, the way teachers think about, understand,
and value instruction influences their classroom
practices. However, in this study, teachers ‘classroom
practices did not always correspond to their
cognition. To some extent, their classroom practices
were based on their cognition and theories. To other
extent, their cognition were not reflected. The
cognition of the teachers in this study were affected
by a variety of external (teaching context, materials
and curriculum, students ‘motivation) and internal
factors (teachers ‘ability, teachers‘ training, teachers‘
view).
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This paper is supported by Reserach Center and
Publication, UIN Sunan Gunung Djati Bandung.
REFERENCES
Adams, D., Hamm, M. 1994. New designs for teaching and
learning: Promoting active learning in tomorrow's
schools. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Beach, S.A., 1994. Teacher's theories and classroom
practice: beliefs, knowledge, or context? Reading
Psychology, 15, 189-196.
Borg, S. 2003. Teacher cognition in language teaching: A
review of research on what language teachers think,
know, believe, and do. Language Teaching, 36, 81-109.
Borg, S. 2006. Teacher cognition and language education:
Research and practice. London: Continuum.
Brisco, C. 1991. The dynamic interactions among beliefs,
role metaphors, and teaching practices: a case study of
teacher change. Science Education, 75, 185-199.
Burns, A., Richards, J. C. (Eds.). 2009. The Cambridge
guide to second language teacher education.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Carrell, P. L., Carson, J. G. 1997. Extensive and intensive
reading in an EAP setting. English for Specific
Purposes, 16, 47-60.
Cohen, L., Manion, L., Morrison, K. 2007. Research
Methods in Education. London: Routledge Falmer.
Cubukcu, F. 2007. An Investigation of Reading Strategies
Employed by Trainee Teachers. GEMA online Journal
of Language Studies Volume 7 (2). Turkey.
Eisenhart, M. A et al. 1998. Educational policy and teacher
beliefs: What do they mean to each other? Theory into
Practice, 27 (2), pp. 137-144.
Ernest, P. 1989. The knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes of the
mathematics teacher: A model. Journal of Education for
teaching. (15) 1, 113-133.
Fang, Z. 1996. A review of research on teacher beliefs and
practices. Educational Research, 38, 47–65.
Farrell, T.S.C., L. P. C. Patricia. 2005. Conceptions of
Grammar Teaching: A case study of Teachers' Beliefs
and Classroom Practices. Teaching English as a second
language- e-Journal, 9(2).
Foertsch, M. 1998. A study of reading practices,
instruction, and achievement in District 31 schools.
Hawaii: North Central Regional Education Laboratory.
Retrieved March 10th, 2007
Frankel, J.R., Wallen, N.E. 1996. How to design and
evaluate research in education. USA: McGraw-Hill,
Inc.
Garner, R. 1987. Metacognition and reading
comprehension. Norwood, NJ: Ablex
Gettinger, M., Seibert, J. K. 2002. Contribution of study
skills to academic competence. School Psychology
Review, 31(3), 350-365. Gillham, B. (2000). The
Research Interview. New York: Continuum.
ICSE 2017 - 2nd International Conference on Sociology Education
34

Grabe, W., Stoller, F.L. 2002. Teaching and researching
reading. Harlow: Longman.
Harste, J. C., Burke, C. L. 1997. A new hypothesis for
reading teacher research: Both the teaching and
learning of reading is theoretically based. In P. D.
Pearson (Ed.), Reading: Theory, research and practice
(pp. 32–40). Clemson, S.C.: National Reading
Conference.
Janzen, J., Stoller, F. L. 1998. Integrating strategic reading
in L2 instruction. Reading in a Foreign Language, 12
(1), 251-269.
Kagan, D. 1992a. Implications of research on teacher
belief. Educational Psychologist, 27, 65 90.
Kagan, D. 1992b. Professional growth among preservice
and beginning teachers. Review of Educational
Research, 62, 129–170.
Karaagac, M. K., J. Threfall. 2004. The tension between
teachers belief and teacher practice: the impact of work
setting. Proceedings of the 28th Conference of the
International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics
Education, 3, 137-144.
Lessard C, M. 1997. Language Learning Strategies: An
Overview for L2 Teachers. The Internet TESL Journal
3 (3), pp. 34 – 37.
Liang et al. 1998. An Initial Study on Reading Problems and
Strategies: A Teacher’s Perspective.
O‘Malley, J.M., Chamot, A.U. 1990. Learning Strategies in
Second Language Acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Pressley, M., Beard El-Dinary, P., Brown, R. 1992. Skilled
and not-so-skilled reading: Good information
processing and not-so-good information processing. In
M. Pressley, K. Harris, J. Guthrie (Eds.) in Promoting
academic competence and literacy in schools (pp. 91-
127). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Raymond, A. M. 1997. Inconsistency between beginning
elementary school teachers’ mathematics beliefs and
teaching practice. Journal for Research in Mathematics
Education, 28, 550-576.
Reynold.B. 1992 Learning and Teaching in the Practice of
Social Work (2nd edn.). New York: Russell and Russel.
Richards, J. C., Rodgers, T. 2001. Approaches and methods
in language teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Richardson, V. 1996. The role of attitudes and beliefs in
learning to teach, in: J.
Scarcella, R. C., R. L. Oxford. 1992. The tapestry of
language learning: the individual in the communicative
classroom. Boston, MA: Heinle and Heinle Publishers.
Teachers’ Cognition about Teaching Reading Strategies and Their Classroom Practices
35