The explicit teaching of reading comprehension strategies in foreign language secondary-school classes

Abstract

This MA thesis is a research work in language didactics. This dissertation focuses more specifically on the explicit teaching of reading comprehension strategies and the role such teaching can play in improving secondary-school students’ foreign language reading skills. It combines the analysis of scientific literature, the analysis of legal prescriptions from the WBF, declarative data collected after interviewing two Ph.D. students, as well as the analysis of WBF teachers’ declarative data (by means of an online survey). Finally, alongside the recognition of the need for and effectiveness of reading comprehension strategies in foreign language teaching and learning, this dissertation seeks to illustrate the explicit teaching of reading comprehension strategies. This is in fact one of its missions, i.e. with these various analyses, I try to answer the following problem: How to effectively implement the explicit teaching of reading comprehension strategies in high school classes learning a foreign language in the WBF?