The Effect of Pre-reading Activities on Male ESL Upper-Intermediate Students’ Comprehension in a Post Basic Education School in Oman?

Abstract

The study aimed at investigating the impact of pre-reading activities on male ESL upper-intermediate students’ comprehension in a post-basic education school in Oman. To this end, two reading comprehension tests and two questionnaires were administered to two groups of participants. One group served as control and the other served as experimental. Control group were assigned a reading comprehension test with follow up questions to answer. However, experimental participants were introduced to 10 minute-pre-reading activities prior to starting the test. The findings drawn from the comprehension tests revealed that experimental participants outperformed control participants. Data drawn from questionnaires showed that control group had a negative attitude to reading a text without pre-reading activities. However, experimental group had a positive attitude to reading a text after being introduced to the pre-reading activities. Although the study has shown empirically how effective the schema-based pre-reading activities were in maximizing ESL leaners’ comprehension ability, it had its limitations. It was restricted in setting and gender. It involved only two post-basic state schools. It was also restricted to male students. Second, it was limited to only two sample groups. Nevertheless, the findings of this study have confirmed preceding research on the effectiveness of the pre-reading activities and how they facilitate L2 learners’ comprehension ability of the target text. Therefore, it might be paramount for teachers and syllabus designers to incorporate pre-reading activities, which are in different forms and types, to the reading texts students read