An Examination of Offline And Online Reading Strategies in EFL Contexts

With the increasing use of the internet for reading texts, the habit of reading has been greatly influenced. More and more readers are choosing to read online rather than reading paper texts. In a pedagogical context, some research suggest that an increased number of second language (L2) classrooms are engaging learners through online reading tasks. This paper aims to examine the differences between offline (paper) reading and online (computerassisted language learning) reading strategies as used by English as foreign language (EFL) readers in higher education in Taiwan. A total of 43 third-year English major university students participated in this study. Tentative findings revealed that students’ reading scores were influenced by their reading strategies and that students’ gender differences also played a minor role in the strategies approaches that were taken. The result shows that there’s a need not only for explicit reading instruction in offline reading practices but also during the online reading that takes place in the EFL reading class.