Comparing Effect of 'Summarizing', 'Question-Answer Relationship', and 'Syntactic Structure Identification' on the Reading Comprehension of Iranian EFL students

Fatemeh Hemmati,Safoora Bemani

doi:10.7575/ijalel.v.2n.1p.151

Abstract

This study aimed at comparing the effects of 'question-answer relationship strategy', 'summarizing', and 'syntactic structure identification training'on the reading comprehension of Iranian EFL learners. The participants were sixty (34 women and 26 men) intermediate students who answered an English reading comprehension test consisting of three reading passages as the pretest. During the treatment, the students in the first group were supposed to summarize the passages. The subjects in the second group familiarized with the syntactic structure identification strategy and the ones in the third group were taught the question-answer relationship strategy. At the end of the treatment, an English reading comprehension test similar to the pretest was administered to the groups as a posttest. The results suggested that there is statistically significant difference between the reading comprehension abilities of the three classes. Furthermore the use of QAR strategy led to better comprehension of reading texts with syntactic structure training and summarizing between which there was no significant difference.

Highlights

It is generally agreed that well-developed reading comprehension ability is the key to students’ academic success
To conduct the present research, three groups each consisting of 20 students of intermediate level based on the placement test were selected and treated as the experimental groups
The null hypothesis that "there is no significant difference between the three groups." is rejected

Summary

Introduction

It is generally agreed that well-developed reading comprehension ability is the key to students’ academic success. This comprehension ability is not a passive state which one possesses, but it is an active mental process which needs to be nurtured and improved. By taking the intricacy of this comprehension into account, educators must cope with the problem of specifying the best strategy for the purpose of contributing to its development. With this in mind, this research investigated the most frequently used learning strategies including summarizing, question-answer relationship, and syntactic structure training

Objectives

Methods

Results