scholarly journals The Effect of Reading Strategies Instruction on EFL Learners’ Reading Performances

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (S1-May) ◽  
pp. 74-80
Author(s):  
Mohammadreza Valizadeh

This study, using pretest-intervention-posttest, investigated whether instructing English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ in the use of reading strategies when they read English passages affects their English reading performances. The participants were 51 Turkish learners of English, who were at elementary level of language proficiency,based on the results of the Oxford Quick Placement Test. The whole treatment/control period lasted for 20 sessions during 10 weeks on a Reading course. The experimental group (n = 26) received instruction in reading strategies (i.e., previewing, finding the main idea, scanning, identifying examples, identifying definitions, identifying time and sequence words, reading numerical tables, making inferences, reading statistical tables, distinguishing fact from opinion) and the control group (n = 25) received instruction based on traditional teaching methods (i.e., reading, paraphrasing, translating, and answering the exercises).Data were collected via a reading proficiency test. The result of the independent samples t-test showed that the experimental group significantly outperformed the control one.

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (S1-May) ◽  
pp. 69-73
Author(s):  
Mohammadreza Valizadeh

This experimental study, using pretest-intervention-posttest design, investigated whether or not teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) learners to use comprehension strategies when they read English passages, increases their self-efficacy in reading. The participants were 55 EFL learners in Turkey who were at lower-intermediate level based on the results of the Oxford Quick Placement Test. Data were gathered via a Reading Self-Efficacy Questionnaire. The whole treatment/control period lasted for 11 weeks during a reading course. The experimental group (n = 28) received instruction in reading comprehension strategies (i.e., previewing, scanning for details, skimming, identifying the topic and main idea, finding supporting details, making inferences, understanding the author’s purpose, making predictions, dealing with unfamiliar words, using context clues, and summarizing). The control group (n = 27) received instruction by traditional teaching methods (i.e., reading, paraphrasing, translating, and answering the exercises).The results of the Mann-Whitney U Test indicated that instruction in English reading comprehension strategies had a positive effect on EFL learners in terms of increasing their self-efficacy in reading.


2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 24
Author(s):  
Mohammad Davoudi ◽  
Mojtaba Rezaei

<p>The present study aims at investigating the influence of podcasts (POD) on language comprehension of Iranian pre-intermediate EFL learners. An Oxford Placement Test (OPT) was administered to 60 male and female university students. The participants were considered as pre-intermediate learners and were divided into two groups (one experimental group and one control group). During the fifteen sessions of the treatment, thirty podcasts were presented to the two groups. The experimental group received just the audio file of the POD, and the control group received a different treatment which was the transcript file of the same audio podcast file of the experimental group. The results of the t-tests revealed that there was no significant difference in language comprehension scores across the posttest between two groups. Based on the interview results after the post-test, all of the participants (100%) agreed that both audio and the transcripts (written texts) were useful for them and claimed that it is a good method of improving language comprehension.</p>


2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-73
Author(s):  
Azadeh Rajaei ◽  
Seyed Hassan Talebi ◽  
Shirin Abadikhah

In an EFL context reading is a very important skill in language learning. This study aims at finding if instruction of reading strategies in two different collaborative and non-collaborative approaches affects reading comprehension and attitude toward reading differently. Forty-five Iranian adult female EFL learners at pre-intermediate general English proficiency level in Iran Language Institute (ili) were selected and divided into three groups of 15 students. One group functioning as the control group did not receive any strategy instruction; the second group, as the first experimental group, received reading strategy instruction in collaborative groups (Collaborative Strategic Reading or csr), and the third group considered as the second experimental group received reading strategy instruction in a non-collaborative way. A reading comprehension test and a reading attitude questionnaire were given to all three groups at the beginning of the term as pretests and after the experiment as posttests. The results obtained through one-way anova indicated that though both experimental groups outperformed the control group, there was no significant difference between the two experimental groups in reading comprehension and attitude toward reading. Therefore, it is up to teachers to weigh the advantages of using the collaborative approach to teaching reading against its disadvantages.


2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 337
Author(s):  
Shahram Esfandiari Asl ◽  
Asgar Mahmoudi

The current study was carried out to investigate whether elaborative text modification improves reading comprehension ability of pre-intermediate male and female EFL learners. To do this, 60 pre-intermediate learners were chosen based on their performance on a standard version of Longman's New Opportunities Placement Test. The participants also received a piloted version of a researcher-made reading comprehension test as the pretest to ascertain their homogeneity. The participants were then divided into two equal groups to represent the experimental and the control groups. Each group was further subdivided into male and female groups. Five reading passages in two formats (unmodified and elaborated) were administered to the participants in five weeks which was followed by a posttest. The experimental group received the elaborated texts, while the control group received the unmodified baseline texts. The results of a Two-way ANOVA indicated no significant effect for gender but there was a significant difference between the experimental and the control groups' reading comprehension. Findings of the study suggest that elaborative text modification can be a worthy option in EFL reading classes.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (8) ◽  
pp. 956
Author(s):  
Mohammad Hossein Keshmirshekan

The present study aimed to investigate the effects of authentic materials on enhancing Iranian English as a foreign language learners' communicative competence. To this end, 106 upper-intermediate participants out of 136 were selected based on their performance an Oxford Placement Test (OPT) and randomly assigned to two equal groups- one experimental group and one control group. Then a pre-test was administered to assess the participants' communicative competence at the beginning of the course. Then, the experimental group received the treatment. The control group was taught the course content using the regular communicative method through which students received teacher-course from the textbook. After the treatment, the two groups took the post-test. The data analysis through paired and independent sample t-tests revealed that the experimental group outperformed the control group on the posttest. In other words, teaching authentic materials showed to have a significant effect on improving learners' communicative competence. The implications, limitations, and suggestions of this study are explained at the end of the study.


2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (01) ◽  
Author(s):  
Golyas Akhavan Tabatabaee ◽  
Ehsan Rezvani

This study is an attempt to explore the potential effects of using podcasts on idiom and vocabulary learning of Iranian EFL upper and lower intermediate learners as well as their attitudes toward learning via podcasts. To achieve the goals of the study, 100 participants who are made homogeneous in terms of language proficiency using an Oxford Placement Test (OPT) are selected, and are subsequently divided into four groups: two experimental groups and two control groups. Those students whose scores fall two standard deviations above the mean are considered as the upper intermediate group and those whose scores fall two standard deviations below the mean constituted the lower intermediate group. Then, researcher make vocabulary and idiom pre-tests are administered to assess the learners� knowledge of the target vocabulary and idioms prior to treatment. As for the treatment, the students in the control group are taught conventionally using the readings in an ELT textbook, whereas the experimental groups� learners are taught using podcasts containing idioms and vocabulary in focus. Finally, the learners are given a post-test parallel in form to the pre-test. The findings indicate that the learners who are taught via podcasts outperformed the control group on the post-test. Moreover, the findings show that learners have a significantly positive attitude toward learning via podcasts. The results will have implications for EFL teachers and materials developers.


2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lida Mohammadnejad

One of the most problematic areas for foreign language learning is collocation. Iranian EFL learners mostly complain about being unable to talk voluntarily in class since they are not able to produce collocations and new vocabularies because they have of feeling anxious. This study aimed at investigating the effect of reading short stories on learning English collocations among pre-intermediate EFL Learners. The study had an experimental design and the sample of the study consisted of 54 students chosen from the results of a placement test to determine the pre-intermediate level students in Simin Language Institute in Sari. They were placed into 2 groups of experimental and control. Data of the study were collected through a collocation test used as pretest and posttest. The teacher assessed the effect of reading short stories on learning English collocations among pre intermediate EFL learners. The collected data were analyzed through statistical methods by SPSS software version 21. Results showed that the experimental group outperformed the control group on the measure. This indicated that reading short stories had a statistical significant effect on EFL learners’ collocation learning. Results had implications for teachers, learners and material developers. 


2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (10) ◽  
pp. 912
Author(s):  
Nasim Abdi ◽  
Mehran Davaribina

The purpose of the present study was to find out the effect of using pre-speaking strategies coupled with strategic planning on Iranian EFL learners’ fluency, lexical resources and language awareness. The study involved 70 intermediate male and female learners divided into two groups-experimental and control. Prior to the main phase of the study, Nelson test was carried out to check the homogeneity of the participants. In the pre-test stage, a picture-cued narrative task was administered to the two groups. Next, during ten treatment sessions the experimental group received pre-speaking strategies instruction and strategic planning with ten minutes of planning time while the control group did not receive them. To answer the research questions, Independent-samples t-test and Mann-Whitney U test were used. Data analyses showed the experimental group outperformed the control group. Therefore, for effective speaking, strategic planning should be coupled with pre-speaking strategies.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Ehsan Namaziandost ◽  
Arash Hashemifardnia ◽  
Albina Anvarovna Bilyalova ◽  
Doris Fuster-Guillén ◽  
Jessica Paola Palacios Garay ◽  
...  

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of online instruction through different mobile applications has become more common in education all over the world. Therefore, this research investigated the potential effects of using WeChat-based online instruction on Iranian EFL learners’ vocabulary knowledge. To achieve this objective, 44 Iranian intermediate subjects were picked out among 67 students based on the findings of the Oxford Quick Placement Test (OQPT). The subjects were then randomly divided into two equal groups: experimental and control. After assigning the subjects to two groups, they were pretested by a vocabulary test. Then, the experimental group received vocabulary instruction using WeChat application, while the control group received a conventional vocabulary instruction. After the instruction, a vocabulary posttest was given to both groups to assess the effectiveness of the treatment. The gathered data were analyzed through independent samples t-test, one-way ANCOVA, and paired samples t-test. The outcomes attained in this research demonstrated that there was a significant difference between the posttests of both groups in favor of the experimental group. Eventually, the conclusions and the pedagogical implications of this study were explicated.


2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-106
Author(s):  
Khalil Motalebzadeh ◽  
Abdolghafour Bejarzehi ◽  
Hossein Sheikhzadeh

This study aims at investigating the effects of types of oral texts’ genres on listening comprehension of Iranian EFL learners. The participants of the study were 65 male and female EFL students which all of them from Issar institute in Nikshahr and Chabahar. In order to have homogeneous groups and real-intermediate level students, the first part of the Oxford Placement Test (OPT) containing 40 questions was performed. After the sampling procedure, the pretest was performed and then students were randomly assigned to two groups of control and experimental. The experimental group received a course encompassing the instruction of generic features including news with two genres, political and economic, for twenty sessions of instruction. The subjects in the control group listened to some pieces of news (without any specific generic features, mostly reports with ordinary people about routines). The results showed the experimental group had a better performance on the listening comprehension posttest.


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