scholarly journals Digital Posters to Engage EFL Students and Develop Their Reading Comprehension

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 169
Author(s):  
Samah Zakareya Ahmad

This study investigates the effect of digital posters on the reading comprehension and engagement of EFL students. Thirty-three 3rd-year EFL college students were divided into a control group (n = 17) and an experimental group (n = 16). Both groups were pretested on reading comprehension and engagement before the experiment and then posttested after it. For 12 weeks, participants in the control group received their regular instruction while those in the experimental group used digital posters. Using digital posters went through six steps: orientation, preparation, production, presentation, evaluation, and reflection. While Mann-Whitney U Test showed no significant differences between the two groups in the pretest of reading comprehension (U = 118.00; p > 0.05) or engagement (U = 102.00; p > 0.05), it showed significant differences between them in the posttest of reading comprehension (U = 70.00, p < 0.05) and engagement (U = 57.00, p < 0.05). This led the researcher to reach the conclusion that digital posters significantly improved the reading comprehension and engagement of EFL students.

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (32) ◽  
pp. 743-774
Author(s):  
Qassim Hammadi Dawood

         The present study aims at finding out the effect of using PORPE Strategy on improving EFL college students’ reading comprehension skills. To attain the aim of the study, an experiment has been conducted on a sample of (60) EFL students at the Department of English, College of Education, University of Wasit during the academic year 2016-2017. The sample has been distributed into two groups with (30) students in each, a control group taught according to the conventional techniques and an experimental one taught by using the proposed strategy. The two groups have been equalized according to age, levels of parents' education and pre –test scores.           At the end of the experimental instruction period, an achievement test has been administered to both groups. The findings of this test reveal that the results of the experimental group are significantly superior to the results of the control group.           Pedagogical recommendations and suggestions for further research are presented in the light of the results at the end of the study.


Author(s):  
Fereydoon Rasouli ◽  
Omid Ahmadi

Determining the motivational impact of enhancing reading comprehension, through pictorial fictions, on the EFL students to involve them more in writing activities, is the prime purpose of the present study. The study took place in the Iranian Language Institute (ILI), the branch of Mahabad. Key English Test (KET) administrated to a hundred students to select the subjects of the present study. Finally, 60 male students were selected and randomly divided into the experimental and control groups. The experimental group received pictorial fictions as treatment, utilizing input reading comprehension enhancement through typographic elements, and direct and indirect feedback provided to them, while the control group received pictorial fiction texts without such inputs, then to collect the intended data, the "Academic Writing Motivation Questionnaire" (AWMQ) was administered to both groups separately in two stages of pre-tests and post-tests. The results showed that enhancing reading comprehension has a significant motivational impact on the writing engagement of Iranian EFL learners.


2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ramazan GOCTU

Reading is one of the most significant skills, particularly for EFL students. Many students today do not have the reading skills needed to do effective work in their courses. This paper explores reading for pleasure, its importance and impact on reading comprehension. Pleasure reading helps students to communicate, listen and, most importantly, to express themselves freely and it also allows them to acquire specific language skills. That is why reading for pleasure is definitely important. An experimental study using reading for pleasure was carried out at international Black Sea University for eight weeks with 42 English Philology freshman students. The experimental group was given texts for their selection: newspaper articles and graded readers on various topics which students were interested in, while the control group has just read the reading excerpts and texts which are given in their course book. The duration of the experiment was 8 weeks. Pre- and post-tests were implemented to determine the degree of improvement of students’ reading comprehension skills. The experimental group showed better improvement of comprehension skills.  The study demonstrated a measurable positive effect of reading for pleasure on students’ language acquisition.


2009 ◽  
Vol 157 ◽  
pp. 75-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nasrin Shokrpour

Abstract The view that explicit instruction of metacognitive strategies is important for raising reader consciousness has become prominent recently. This study was an attempt to determine the impacts of instructing metacognitive strategies on readers’ comprehension. Two groups of students majoring in English language at Shiraz University/ Iran were compared using Schraw & Denisson’s (1994) “Metacognitive Awareness Inventory” to find out the participants’ degree of awareness towards metacognitive strategies. After a period of four months of pretest- treatment–posttest design, the results revealed a significant improvement in the experimental group who were trained to use metacognitive strategies consciously in their reading tasks as compared with the control group. The pedagogical implications of the study are also discussed.


2017 ◽  
Vol 56 (8) ◽  
pp. 1238-1257 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mei-Mei Chang ◽  
Mei-Chen Lin

This quasi-experimental study investigated whether a strategy-oriented media-based reading program could improve English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students’ reading comprehension. Eighty-five students who were registered for English Reading at a university were recruited through convenience sampling to take part in the study. In this study, a web-based Strategy-oriented Multimedia-Assisted Reading Training (SMART) program was designed and implemented. On the basis of a literature review, four instructional strategies were selected and implemented in this program. The SMART program was used by students in the experimental group but not by students in the control group. Students in both groups were taught by the same instructor with the same instructional materials. The experiment lasted for 10 weeks, and the effects of the SMART program on students’ reading comprehension were investigated. A questionnaire on students’ attitudes toward the use of the strategies was given only to the experimental group. The results show that mean score of the reading test was significantly higher for the experimental group than for the control group. Students’ feedback about using the SMART program was positive and encouraging.


2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 94-103
Author(s):  
Somayyeh Mousavian ◽  
Hossein Siahpoosh

Reading comprehension is a key issue in learning English as a foreign language, and it is critical that teachers utilize pre-reading strategies in reading classes in order to help students enhance their comprehension. The present study investigated the effectiveness of two pre-reading strategies of pre-questioning and vocabulary pre-teaching on EFL students’ performance in reading comprehension. A group of 60 students participated in this study. An experimental design was used, with 20 students being assigned to the first experimental group that received one pre-reading strategy (vocabulary pre-teaching), while the second experimental group which also consisted 20 students received another pre-reading strategy (pre-questioning) and the remaining 20 students received the traditional method. Students in the groups were asked first to perform the pre-reading strategy, read a passage, and then answer comprehension questions. Results indicated that there were statistically significant differences between the groups. The experimental groups got better results than the control group. Comparison of the two experimental groups, moreover, showed that the vocabulary pre-teaching group outperformed the pre-questioning group.   Key words: EFL teaching, Pre-reading strategies, Pre-questioning, Reading comprehension, Schema theory, Vocabulary pre-teaching


Author(s):  
Thekrayat Ali Al-Subaihat, Ahmad Mousa Bataineh

This study aimed to explore the effect of using IPod technology on EFL students' writing skill. It also aimed to investigate whether teaching writing via using IPod Technology is better than the conventional method of teaching. To carry out the study, 65 male and female undergraduate EFL students who registered for a Writing 2 course at, Al-alBayt University, in the second semester of the academic year 2015/2016 were chosen as participants of the study. They were assigned randomly into two groups: Group one consisted of 35 students, which was chosen as an experimental group and was taught writing using IPod technology and group two consisted of 30 students, which was assigned as a control group and was taught using conventional method of teaching. Both groups were taught the same material, on the same days of the week, and on the same period. Both groups sat for a pre-post-test to assure that both groups have the same linguistic ability level in the aspects of writing. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software was used to conduct the required statistical analysis of the data related to the objectives of the study. Means, standard deviations, one-way ANOVA, and Scheffe tests were used for all the variables of the study. Data were collected within eight weeks. The findings of the study showed that there were statistically significant differences between the mean scores of the experimental group and control group students' writing performance in favor of the experimental group. Thus progress might be due to using IPod technology. A number of related recommendations were presented to the Ministry of Education and the teachers.


Author(s):  
Abeer Al-Ghazo

The present study investigates the effect of push out hypothesis in language acquisition that is based on Swain’s push out hypothesis (1985) on promoting Jordanian language learners' reading performance. The sample of the study consists of two classes of English reading comprehension  Course , Level one with 60 EFL students, 30 in the control group and 30 in the experimental group. Those students were belonging to the Department of English Language and Literature. The researchers choose the reading texts from reading comprehension course which was published by Macmillan Education LTD, intermediate level (2001). The researchers construct a multiple-choice reading comprehension test to assess the students reading comprehension. The participants in the two groups took a vocabulary test and an achievement reading comprehension test as a pre-test  in order to be sure that the participants formed a homogenous sample. The experimental group underwent a treatment based on Swains’ push out task, while the control group did not receive any treatment. Then, Proper statistical analyses were used to analyze the results. The scores of control and experimental group were compared at the end of the treatment period. The results reveal that the scores of the experimental group on the post-test were significantly higher than those of the control group. These results prove that teaching on the basis of the Swains’ push out hypothesis was successful to develop the students’ reading comprehension as well as their performance.


2015 ◽  
pp. 91-118
Author(s):  
Maysaa Rasheed Abdul-Majeed

   Scaffolding is a process that supports and improves the performance of students before, during, and after reading. Graphic organizers, pictures, and charts can all serve as scaffolding tools. All of them can help, guide and shape students’ thinking when they apply them, i.e., students can discuss, write an essay, or use them with the difficult reading texts and new challenging information. This study is an attempt to investigate the effect of using scaffolding strategies on EFL students’ achievement in reading comprehension. To fulfil the aims of the study, the researchers have adopted two null hypotheses: first, there is no statistically significant difference between the achievement mean scores of students who practice scaffolding strategies and that of students who do not practice them. Second, there is no statistically significant difference between the experimental group students' achievement mean scores in the pre and posttests of reading comprehension. To achieve the aims of the study, a six-week experiment was conducted using pretest-posttest non-equivalent groups design. Two groups of 22 students each were selected from the population of second year students (N=123)/College of Education for Women/Department of English during the academic year (2013-2014). One group was selected as the experimental group that was taught reading comprehension using scaffolding strategies and other group was selected as the control group that was taught according to the lecture method. The students of both groups were exposed to pre and posttests. Using the t-test for two independent samples, it is found that there is a statistically significant difference in favour of the experimental group. This indicates that teaching by scaffolding strategies is more effective than the presentation practice production teaching or the Lecture Method teaching. Conclusions, recommendations and suggestions for further studies are put forward.


2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mehrnoosh Karimi ◽  
Raouf Hamzavi

The present study aimed at investigating the effect of flipped model of instruction on EFL learners’ reading comprehension ability. Moreover, this study aimed at identifying EFL students’ attitudes toward flipped model of instruction. To this end, 60 EFL learners studying at an accredited private language institute in Isfahan were first conveniently sampled and were homogenized through a sample of PET. 50 EFL learners within age range of 19 to 25 were selected for the study and equally assigned into two groups-experimental and group. A researcher-made reading comprehension test was given to the participants as the pretest of the study. The experimental group received flipped model of instruction, whereas the control group received traditional model of instruction. At the end of the study, the researcher-made reading comprehension test was administered to the two groups of the study as their posttest. Moreover, in order to identify the EFL students’ attitude towards the flipped model of instruction, the participants were asked to complete a questionnaire on flipped model of instruction developed primarily by Elfatah and Ahmed (2016). The results of ANCOVA revealed that flipped model of instruction had a significant positive effect on the reading comprehension ability of EFL students. Moreover, the results of frequency analyses indicated that EFL students in the experimental group had positive attitude towards attitude flipped model of instruction and agreed that it was helpful to them in many ways. The results and implications of the study are discussed in more detail in the paper. 


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