Examining the effectiveness of online resources in developing English as a Foreign Language (EFL) reading skills autonomously

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 103-122
Author(s):  
Yahya Bouhafa ◽  
Shelby R. Hochberg
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Reading Skills ◽  
Online Resources ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Metacognitive Skills ◽  
Higher Education System ◽  
Efl Teacher ◽  
Experimental Group

The purpose of this mixed methods study is to investigate the effectiveness of online resources in developing English as a Foreign Language (EFL) reading skills autonomously among undergraduate students at the Faculty of Letters and Humanities Fes-Agdal as a representative of the socio-cultural and higher education system of Morocco. The sample consisted of an experimental group and a control group. The experimental group consisted of 120 students that were exposed to three main online tools (Newsela.com, mrnussbaum.com, and rewordify.com) and virtual meetings and instruction provision using Facebook. The control group consisted of 120 students that benefited only from the university’s regular reading courses. The experimental intervention period was followed by interviews with a sample of 25 students from both groups providing a qualitative perspective. The overall results show that online resources had a positive effect on the development of metacognitive skills. Students tended to appreciate the inclusion of online resources in the classroom without devaluing the role of their EFL teacher – the students did not expect online resources to fully replace the role of their teachers. 

scholarly journals Portfolio Keeping Ends to a Good Product: The Cases of Reading and Motivation

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Azadeh Nemati
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Reading Ability ◽  
Reading Program ◽  
Control Group ◽  
The Past ◽  
Good Product ◽  
Integrative Motivation ◽  
Positive Effect ◽  
Experimental Group

Portfolio has been in use from the past in other disciplines. But there are growing bodies of research which document its importance in foreign language teaching. The current study was implemented on selecting 91 undergraduate students passing their general English course in Iran. Traditional reading program was administered for control group whereas; portfolio keeping was integrated into experimental group. The result of ANCOVA showed that portfolio keeping has a positive effect on reading ability of the students in experimental group. The better reading result is explained by this argument that a good product is justified by a good process. Furthermore, portfolio keeping increased their attitude/motivation towards learning English; especially it increased integrative motivation of the students more than instrumental and attitude.

scholarly journals GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS FOR THE ENHANCEMENT OF EFL READING COMPREHENSION

2020 ◽  
pp. 106-117
Keyword(s):  
Reading Comprehension ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Reading Skills ◽  
Graphic Organizers ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Control Group ◽  
English As Foreign Language ◽  
Post Test ◽  
The Right ◽  
Experimental Group

It is widely known that effective readers are those who have appropriately developed reading skills. If those skills are not developed, the readers will not achieve the levels of perception needed to solve problems or pass academic tests, neither in their mother tongue nor in a foreign language. For this reason, it is imperative to find the right strategies to enhance reading comprehension in English as Foreign Language (EFL) learners. One of those strategies is the use of graphic organizers, and this study aimed to measure the extent to which it influences the development of reading comprehension of Unidad Educativa Joaquin Lalama students, in Ambato-Ecuador. 40 students in the control group and 35 students in the experimental group constituted the sample. The data was collected through the observation technique and the comparison of results from a reading comprehension pre-test and post-test. Finally, this study found the use of graphic organizers to be effective for developing reading comprehension in the subjects observed.

scholarly journals Learning through Play: Improving the Reading Skills through the Joyful Phonetics of Pre-School Children

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 188-196
Author(s):  
Taufik Taufik ◽  
Suwarsi Suminto ◽  
Rahimah Ibrahim ◽  
Haslinda Abdullah
Keyword(s):  
School Children ◽  
Reading Skills ◽  
Intervention Group ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Control Groups ◽  
Group 2 ◽  
Learning Through Play ◽  
Experimental Group ◽  
Group 1

Objective: This study examined the role of a joyful phonetic method to improve reading skills of pre-school children in Indonesia. Materials and Methods: Forty-seven pre-school children of age 4-5 years are involved in the study. Two criteria were used to select the participants of the study. Criteria included “they could not read” and “had never read”. The Solomon three groups design was used to test the effectiveness of the treatment. There were one intervention group and two control groups. One of the control groups received the treatment and another one did not. Treatment included joyful learning so that participants did not realise that they were actually learning. Results: According to data analysis, (1) joyful phonetic improved the reading skills of the experimental group more than the control group 1 and (2) the joyful phonetic improved the reading skills of the control group 2 more than the control group 1. Moreover, it was found that the phonetic, which had been given in the joyful condition, affects the improvement of the reading skills of pre-school children. Conclusion: The implication of the study is that the pre-school children would be more focused on the learning if the method has been conducted in a playing nature. Furthermore, pre-school children should be taught to read as they tend to begin their schooling.

Pragmatic instruction in L2-Russian

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-95
Author(s):  
Daniele Artoni ◽  
Valentina Benigni ◽  
Elena Nuzzo
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Written Discourse ◽  
Instructional Treatment ◽  
Completion Task ◽  
Positive Effect ◽  
Experimental Group ◽  
National Corpus ◽  
Pragmatic Instruction

Over the last three decades, a growing number of studies have investigated the effects of instruction on the acquisition of pragmatic features in L2. The bulk of this research has focused mainly on the teaching of English as a second/foreign language. However, instructional pragmatic studies in L2-Russian are lacking. The main purpose of our study is to contribute towards filling this gap by analysing the effects of pragmatic instruction on the acquisition of two speech acts by Italian learners of Russian. Furthermore, we aim to explore whether the Multimodal Russian Corpus (MURCO), a multimedia subcorpus of the Russian National Corpus, can be an effective tool for teaching speech acts in L2-Russian. Our research was composed of one experimental group (n = 18) and one control group (n = 11); each was composed of two intact classes of Italian university students at an intermediate level of L2-Russian, who were pre- and post-tested using a written discourse completion task. The experimental group was subjected to a programme of pragmatic instruction – eight thirty-minute MURCO-based lessons devoted to requests and advice, while the control group was taught according to the standard syllabus, that is, with no pragmatic instruction. The results revealed that the use of the target pragmatic features varied significantly in the experimental group, but not in the control group, thus showing a general positive effect of the instructional treatment based on the MURCO corpus. However, some limitations were identified with regard to the usability of this tool by teachers and learners.

Role of Nutrition Counseling and Lifestyle Modification in Managing Prediabetes

2021 ◽  
pp. 037957212110254
Author(s):  
Harleen Kaur ◽  
Neerja Singla ◽  
Rohini Jain
Keyword(s):  
Hemoglobin A1c ◽  
Lifestyle Modification ◽  
Fasting Blood Glucose ◽  
Nutrition Intervention ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Population Prevalence ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
And Control ◽  
Experimental Group

Objective: India is the second country after China having the highest population prevalence of diabetes. Several research studies investigating diabetes have been done, but not much work has been done on prediabetes. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of nutrition and lifestyle modification on prediabetic females. Methods: A total of 120 prediabetic females from Ludhiana city were divided into 2 matched groups: control group (n = 60) and experimental group (n = 60). Impact of nutrition intervention for dietary and lifestyle modification (for 3 months) was assessed on the anthropometric, dietary, biochemical parameters, and diabetes risk score of the experimental group and control group (no intervention). Results: All the selected 120 subjects completed the study (experimental group = 60; control group = 60). There was significant difference in the changes between the 2 groups throughout the study. The fasting blood glucose and glycated hemoglobin A1c levels of the experimental group subjects reduced significantly ( P ≤ .01). However, no change was observed among the control group subjects. The lipid profile of the experimental group showed a significant improvement ( P ≤ .01). Conclusion: Nutrition counselling of the prediabetics regarding dietary and lifestyle modification is recommended so as to improve their metabolic control, thus preventing them from being diabetics.

scholarly journals Induced Empathy Moderates Emotional Responses to Expressive Qualities in Music

2020 ◽  
pp. 102986492097472
Author(s):  
Katherine O’Neill ◽  
Hauke Egermann
Keyword(s):  
Ecological Validity ◽  
Emotional Responses ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Causal Mechanism ◽  
Music Listening ◽  
Psychological Mechanisms ◽  
Priming Paradigm ◽  
Valence And Arousal ◽  
Experimental Group

Recent research has explored the role of empathy in the context of music listening. Here, through an empathy priming paradigm, situational empathy was shown to act as a causal mechanism in inducing emotion, although the way empathy was primed had low levels of ecological validity. We therefore conducted an online experiment to explore the extent to which information about a composer’s expressive intentions when writing a piece of music would significantly affect the degree to which participants reportedly empathise with the composer and in turn influence emotional responses to expressive music. A total of 229 participants were randomly assigned to three groups. The experimental group read short texts describing the emotions felt by the composer during the process of composition. To control for the effect of text regardless of its content, one control group read texts describing the characteristics of the music they were to hear, and a second control group was not given any textual information. Participants listened to 30-second excerpts of four pieces of music, selected to express emotions from the four quadrants of the circumplex theory of emotion. Having heard each music excerpt, participants rated the valence and arousal they experienced and completed a measure of situational empathy. Results show that situational empathy in response to music is significantly associated with trait empathy. As opposed to those in the control conditions, participants in the experimental group responded with significantly higher levels of situational empathy. Receiving this text significantly moderated the effect of the expressiveness of stimuli on induced emotion, indicating that it induced empathy. We conclude that empathy can be induced during music listening through the provision of information about the specific emotions of a person relating to the music. These findings contribute to an understanding of the psychological mechanisms that underlie emotional responses to music.

Electronic texts or learning through textbooks: An experimental study

ReCALL ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 539-557 ◽  
Author(s):  
NINETTE CARTES-ENRIQUEZ ◽  
M. I. SOLAR RODRIGUEZ ◽  
R. QUINTANA LETELIER
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Study ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Cognitive Strategies ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Computer Lab ◽  
Electronic Texts ◽  
Post Test ◽  
Search For Information ◽  
Experimental Group ◽  
Traditional Class

This is an experimental study in the area of Didactics applied to the learning of English as a foreign language and complemented by CALL. The main objective of this work is to know the degree of incidence existing between two groups of students: one, based on conference-style classes where students, guided by the teacher, have to search for information about a topic in the computer lab and present it in front of the class and, in the other, where students are taught by the teacher according to a printed text. The experimental design consisted of a pre-test/post-test plus the application of different techniques to develop the different linguistic and cognitive strategies, between these tests. The methodology used by the Experimental Group forced learners to generate their own knowledge, so they had to apply the information and work by themselves in Workshops; and the Control Group participated in the classroom according to the communicative approach, guided by the teacher in the traditional class. Statistics were applied to the scores obtained between both tests, and the scores obtained weekly in the different competences contributed to knowing whether there were significant differences between both groups.

Effective Role of Emotions in Teaching

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sujit Dhanraj Kumavat
Keyword(s):  
Teaching Methods ◽  
Teaching Method ◽  
Negative Emotion ◽  
Junior College ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Neutral Group ◽  
Group I ◽  
Group Control Group ◽  
Experimental Group

The objective of the present study was to find out the role of emotion in effective teaching of junior college students. The sample for the present research selected from the grantable junior college in Ahmednagar. For the research 11th class 90 students of Commerce faculty was selected. Among them 30 student selected for the positive emotion teaching group (Experimental group I). 30 students selected for the negative emotion (Experimental group II). And 30 students were selected for the neutral group (Control group III). The age range of the students were 17 to 18 years (M=35.00 SD=7.38). In the research Simple random method was used. The first hypothesis of the research was positive emotional teaching method high in English retention than negative and neutral teaching methods. Tolls 11th class English syllabus selected for the study. Result first result was showed that positive emotional teaching had significantly high English retention than the negative and neutral emotional teaching methods.

Using comprehension strategies for students' self-efficacy, anxiety, and proficiency in reading English as a foreign language

2018 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 447-458 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hung-Chang Liao ◽  
Ya-Huei Wang
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Self Efficacy ◽  
Comprehension Strategies ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Verbal Persuasion ◽  
Reading Comprehension Strategies ◽  
English Reading ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Experimental Group

We examined whether or not instructing Taiwanese students in the use of comprehension strategies when they are reading English as a foreign language, reduces their English reading anxiety and increases their English reading self-efficacy and proficiency. We used a quasiexperimental design and conducted a 15-week course. The experimental group (n = 31) received instruction in reading comprehension strategies and the control group (n = 31) received instruction by traditional teaching methods. The results show that the experimental group had less anxiety when reading English and higher proficiency than the control group. In regard to self-efficacy when reading English, the experimental group also performed better than the control group in terms of self-affirmation, perseverance, verbal persuasion, and performance overall. However, there was no statistically significant difference for learning attitude between the groups.

scholarly journals The Effect of Using Prezi on Al Zaytoonah University Students’ Performance in French Language Reading Skills

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 128
Author(s):  
Samer Al-Hammouri
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Reading Skills ◽  
Reading Skill ◽  
Achievement Test ◽  
French Language ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Control Groups ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Post Test ◽  
Experimental Group

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of using Prezi on Al Zaytoonah students’ performance in French Language reading skill. To achieve the purpose of the study, a pre/post-test was constructed to measure students’ performance in French language reading skill. The sample of the study comprised 128 students from Al Zaytoonah University and was distributed into two sections, which were selected purposefully. The sample of the study was distributed into two groups (one experimental and one control groups). The experimental group’s students were taught the reading skill using Prezi while the control groups’ students were taught using the traditional way. The sample of the study was 64 students in the experimental group and 64 students in the control group. Those groups were distributed into two purposefully selected sections in public schools in Amman. The results of the study showed a variance in the means of the achievement test according to group, it also showed that there were statistically significant differences on the achievement test due to the Strategy variable. There were statistically significant differences between using Prezi Strategy and the Current Strategy in favor of the Prezi Strategy, and there was no statistically significant difference in the students’ achievement due to gender. There was no statistically significant difference due to the interaction between gender and group. The researchers recommend that researchers focus on new teaching strategies and conduct more studies related this topic. They also recommend that other researchers conduct studies and focus on the role play strategy.

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