Chin-Cheng Huang’s research while affiliated with National Pingtung University of Science and Technology and other places

University students are expected to be able to read English texts related to their discrete fields of study. Since vocabulary knowledge is essential to meeting this goal, this paper measures the vocabulary size of university students and their reading comprehension ability, with particular reference to the effects of vocabulary knowledge and content knowledge on reading comprehension. The subjects were 246 university juniors who were non-English major. They took Nation's (1990) Vocabulary Levels Test, an English passage, a recall protocol, and the Inventory of Content Knowledge and Interest Questionnaire. The reading comprehension score was calculated in an idea-unit analysis of students' recall protocols. The results show that university students depend upon vocabulary knowledge and content knowledge to comprehend any English text they read, but they depend more upon vocabulary knowledge than upon content knowledge. On the average, university students' vocabulary knowledge does not reach the necessary threshold of vocabulary knowledge. Although university students have rich content knowledge, their lack of vocabulary knowledge markedly prevents them from applying their content knowledge to gaining information from a reading text. Most university students in Taiwan only know a few general academic words so that it is difficult for them to read academic texts printed in English. The researcher suggests that university students should rapidly increase their vocabulary knowledge to more effectively promote their reading comprehension.

Phonological awareness (PA) training has long been regarded as one of the most important instructional elements for early education due to its critical role in learning to read an alphabetic language. For decades, remedial programs in PA training have been implemented to help reading disabled children, yet little research has been reported for adult learners, especially students at technological university level. The present study investigated the influence of PA training on phonics and vocabulary knowledge for technological university students. A total of 272 university freshmen participated in this study, with 133 of them in the experimental group and 139 in the control group. Each subject was requested to fill out a questionnaire, orally read the El Paso Phonics Survey, and took the Vocabulary Level Test. Students in the experimental group were offered a one-semester supplementary PA training focused on letter-sound correspondence, phonemic awareness, syllable awareness, phonogram identification, and phonetic symbols. The results showed that PA training could effectively improve subjects' letter-sound correspondence and significantly increase their vocabulary knowledge. Since the majority of freshmen at technological university level had acquired very limited pronunciation knowledge before they were enrolled, it is suggested that English instructors should offer PA training to help students develop vocabulary knowledge.

The purpose of this case study is to investigate whether a diagnostic reading test and diagnostic teaching can help students who encounter reading difficulty to solve reading problems and promote reading competence and potential. The tests in this study consisted of informal reading inventory, the Stanford Diagnostic Reading Test, the El Paso Phonics Survey, the Slosson Oral Reading Test, and the Repeated Reading. The objectives of diagnostic teaching included increasing sight vocabulary, improving the ability to decode vowel diphthongs, increasing his reading rate and fluency and connecting the process of reading and writing. Through three-month tutoring, the student improved five grade levels in both word recognition and oral comprehension. The research suggests that diagnostic reading test and diagnostic teaching can be applied to help ESL/EFL students overcome reading problems and improve their reading competence and potential.