The Effects of Genre-based Instruction on ESP Learners’ Reading Comprehension

Abstract

Despite the important role the genre-based instruction as a novice approach to teaching at tertiary level, little research has been done on its application in ESP learners’ reading comprehension. Furthermore, the actual implementation of this approach and its outcomes on enhancing learners’ reading comprehension have not yet been fully explored, this study aimed to investigate the effects of genre-based instruction on ESP learners’ reading comprehension. The participants of the study included 116 junior and senior B.S students (both males and females) at Islamic Azad University of Kurdistan, majoring in biology. Participants were randomly assigned into 2 groups of control and experimental. The instructors taught the experimental group (genre-group) based on the genre and the control group (non-genre-group) based on the traditional method of teaching ESP, prevailing in Iranian universities. To meet the aim of the study, the instructors administered one 30-item proficiency test of English and two 30-item standard tests of English reading comprehension to the participants. The results of the reading comprehension test, analyzed through a t-test and independent samples test suggested teaching based on genre had a significant role in enhancing ESP learners’ reading comprehension ability and the descriptive and inferential statistics showed learners improved significantly in reading comprehension compared with that of non-genre-group.