Interpretive Reading as a Strategy to Construct Meaning in EFL Reading Comprehension: A Case Study at King Khalid University

Abstract

This study aims to investigate interpretive reading; as a strategy to construct meaning among English as a foreign language (EFL) beginner level students at the Faculty of Languages and Translation, King Khalid University(KKU). It will also suggest ways in which instructors can incorporate this strategy into their teaching. Reading appears to be one of the challenging skills for EFL Saudi students for various reasons; among them, the primary one can be that students are usually less motivated towards self-reading. The Interpretive reading strategy could go a long way to bridge the gaps in understanding comprehension passages, as it is a performance/rhetoric-related strategy and lies at a more intuitive level. Engaging and motivating students in learning requires a few essential factors, such as exciting tasks, the socio-cultural background of the learners, and people who manage the delivery of the course (Marshall,1992). An experimental and control group of students will be selected, enrolled in the reading course, at level 1. The test group will get training in the interpretive reading techniques through their EFL instructors, having excellent in-depth knowledge of the skill of interpretive reading techniques. After teaching for more than eight weeks, a proficiency test will gauge student's performance. The obtained results are compared using SPSS software to see the significant achievements and suggestions, and necessary recommendations are made.