This study investigated the relationship between self-regulatory reading strategies and self-efficacy for reading among beginner learners of French, experiencing either: (a) phonics instruction (b) strategy-based instruction, or (c) no explicit reading instruction. Findings will be discussed in relation to theories of self-regulation and classroom practice for reading.
Learning a foreign language in the classroom is often an arduous endeavour, and no less so for reading, requiring the combination of lower-level processes (such as phonological decoding) and higher-level processes (such as inferencing, monitoring comprehension and other text-engagement self-regulatory reading strategies (TERRS)). In classroom contexts, 'buoyancy' – or the extent to which learners can 'proactively bounce back' from difficulties (Yun et al., 2018:806) – is an important predictor of overall language outcomes. In turn, buoyancy is strongly predicted by both self-efficacy and self-regulatory strategies (Yun et al., 2018). However, the relationship between self-efficacy and self-regulatory strategies has rarely been explored for L2 reading, despite both featuring in models of self-regulation and some intervention studies finding that strategy-based instruction can have a positive impact on self-efficacy (Macaro, 2019). The current study investigated the relationship between TERRS and self-efficacy for reading among 529 learners of French, aged 11-12, in a follow-up analysis of a larger randomised control trial evaluating three approaches to L2 reading instruction. It also explored whether different learner types exist with respect to that relationship, and the impact of three different reading interventions on reading self-efficacy for learners with different profiles: (a) phonics instruction plus the use of a series of challenging texts; (b) strategy-based instruction, plus the use of the same texts; and (c) a comparison group, which used the texts only (no explicit reading instruction). The use of TERRS was an important predictor of self-efficacy for reading at both pre- and post-test, while three distinct learner types emerged at pre-test from a hierarchical cluster analysis. Overall, increases in self-efficacy for reading were significantly greater for learners receiving strategy-based instruction than for the other groups, and especially for certain learner types, with implications for theories of self-regulated language learning and classroom practice for reading.
