Enhancement of Academic Reading Comprehension Skills through Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach (CALLA)

Abstract

Language skills are an integral part of quality education as it induces communication, creates comprehensibility of content and expedites knowledge acquisition. This requires students to actively involve in language learning, to meet the growing competent requirements of engineering education. Enhancing Reading competence is one of the crucial factors for achieving academic success. This paper examines the effectiveness of Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach in enhancing the reading comprehension skills of first year Engineering students. Cognitive Language Learning Approach is an instructional student – centred approach designed around cognitive and metacognitive strategies, to enable easy comprehension of academic language content. A study was conducted in one of the leading government aided institutions in southern Tamil Nadu, to enhance the reading comprehension skills through the academic subject of Technical English. Data were collected using post-test experimental design, with control group and experimental group (20 each). The quantitative data were analysed using descriptive statistics while the qualitative data recorded the responses of student’s perception on the efficacy of CALLA. The data analysis revealed in enhancement of reading comprehension skills, elevating the overall reading competency. Keywords— Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach; Explicit language instruction; Metacognitive strategies; Reading Comprehension skills Enhancement.