Abstract
The present study was an attempt to compare the effect of teaching Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR) and Content-Based Instruction (CBI) on the reading comprehension of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners. To fullfill this objective, a group of 90 intermediate female EFL learners, within the age range of 17 to 19, took a piloted sample of the PET as a pre-treatment proficiency test. Sixty of them were selected as homogeneous learners and were randomly divided into two experimental groups of CSR and CBI. The CSR group receieved CSR strategy training based on Klingner, Vaughan, and Schumm's model (2001), while the CBI group receieved CBI-based strategy training, using Tsai and Shang's (2010) model. At the end of the training, another piloted PET reading test was administered as the posttest. The pre-treatment reading scores were analyzed using the Mann-Whitney U test whose results confirmed the pre-treatment homogeneity of the participants. The post-treatment scores were also analyzed using the Mann-Whitney U test whose results indicated no significant difference in the reading posttest levels of CBI and CSR groups, U = 423.5, z = -.401, p = .688, r = -.0517. The article concludes with a discussion on the results and presenting some implications.
Highlights
Reading, functioning as a major channel for receiving information, is widely believed to be one of the most necessary and vital language skills (Lightbown & Spada, 2013; Nosratinia, Mirzakhani & Zaker, 2013), and testing reading comprehension is one of the measures for estimating the degree of pedagogical success, stated to be a valid measure for evaluating English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners' overall achievement (Harmer, 2007)
The present study was an attempt to compare the effect of teaching Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR) and ContentBased Instruction (CBI) on the reading comprehension of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners
The CSR group receieved CSR strategy training based on Klingner, Vaughan, and Schumm's model (2001), while the CBI group receieved CBI-based strategy training, using Tsai and Shang's (2010) model
Summary
Reading, functioning as a major channel for receiving information, is widely believed to be one of the most necessary and vital language skills (Lightbown & Spada, 2013; Nosratinia, Mirzakhani & Zaker, 2013), and testing reading comprehension is one of the measures for estimating the degree of pedagogical success, stated to be a valid measure for evaluating EFL learners' overall achievement (Harmer, 2007). People might engage in reading for multiple purposes, e.g. for learning or for pleasure (Goodman, 1967); like other language skills, readers' involvement and cognitive engagement is of crucial importance in mastering this skill (Zaker, 2015), and it has been stated that "If the person is not aware of the text, not attending to it, not choosing to make meaning from it, or not giving cognitive effort to knowledge construction, little comprehension occurs" In the real life, reading comprehension is not developed without involvement in a social context, highlighting the role of social exchange and communication in the process of mastering this language skill (Zaker, 2016). Research on reading development has shown that good readers use strategies that are not used by poor readers (Grabe & Stoller, 2011)
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