Goal setting, task analysis and genre analysis: Three strategies to guide students to be Self-Directed readers

Abstract

​​This action-research study emerged to target self-directed readers' comprehension skills of setting reading objectives, identifying author's purpose and text structure under specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-based goals (SMART), task analysis and genre analysis respectively. 24 tenth-graders of English as a foreign language (EFL) participated in the inquiry carried out during 2014 in a Colombian school. After identifying the problem, a needs analysis survey was applied to configure the research implementation. A pre-test, post-test, as well as students' and teacher's journals were administered for data collection. Statistics were used to analyze quantifiable information while the non-quantifiable one was interpreted through the coding process of the grounded theory methodology. A triangulation design was used during the interpretation phase to integrate the results. Findings reveal that task analysis, as a metacognitive strategy to plan reading tasks, was a valuable process because it not only enabled students to identify main ideas, recognize structure and genre of a text and set learning goals, but also revealed students' improvement as self-directed readers. Participants could plan their learning objectives in association with their own personal goals or ambitions, making reading more significant for them. ​