An Analysis of Previewing Reading Strategy in Business Texts: A Think Aloud Protocol Study

Abstract

Students who study business and economics might read business texts related to their major. Some students get problem in finding main ideas or detail information. Finding main idea is not an easy job for EFL students since they need to understand the context and learn a lot of business vocabularies. To make it easier, there is one technique in reading which is called previewing. The business texts are previewed by students by reading the tittle, discussing the topic, and answering questions. This paper seeks to identify the effects of having previewing strategies used by EFL students and strategies most used by students in finding main idea and supported detail information. The qualitative research aimed at analyzing of how previewing can help students to find main ideas and detail information. This research also tried to decide whether students answered the questions correctly after using previewing strategy. Think Aloud Protocol (TAP) and interview collecting data techniques are carried to identify students’ strategies. TAP is data collecting technique that involves verbal thought. This methodology is used to determine what goes on students’ head while they are reading, finding main ideas and answering detail questions from business text. The research participants consist of thirteen students of the seventh semester in the Accounting major at ABFI Perbanas Institute Jakarta, Indonesia. The result shows that the participants used four parts of strategies in reading business text: (1) strategies of finding main idea, (2) strategies of finding detail information (strategies to find the word refers to, strategies of synonym, strategies to find definition), (3) previewing strategies, and (4) accuracy and inaccuracy to answer questions from reading business texts. The strategy that is often used by students in finding main idea is taking from the first sentence in paragraph. The strategies that are frequently used by students in finding detail information are referring to subject in previous sentence, choosing the right word from the option provided, finding the answer from dictionary and mentioning the place and time directly.