Enhancing Japanese Reading Comprehension Skills among Students: An Instructional Model Perspective

Abstract

One of the most important aspects of learning a new language is comprehension, so teachers must promote language comprehensibility by implementing the finest instructional strategies to help students in understanding the target language. Therefore, this research aimes to develop an instructional model to enhance Japanese reading comprehension skills among university students. To identify the extent that the teachers employ language comprehensibility practices in Japanese reading comprehension, experimental study was employed. The research methodology was divided into three phases which involved investigating the current problems through contextual study, construct tentative model and implementation. From the input, this study constructed the tentative instruction based on reading comprehension skills model named as CLAS model. Finally, the model was implemented to 36 students. The findings show the students were unable to read long sentences in Japanese due to their lack of knowledge on vocabulary and grammar, as well as the awareness of understanding sentences. Then, the implementation of the CLAS model includes focus, rationale, syntax, social system, support system, and application and effects has been conducted in order to enhance Japanese reading skills among students. The data shows that the score in the experimental groups is more than the control group score. This result indicates that the CLAS model has enhanced the Japanese reading comprehension skills among university students who needs more attention.