Volume 7-1 February 2011.

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Title
How Many Reading Comprehension Strategies to be Taught in a Semester?

Authors

Hossein Askari
Islamic Azad University, Safa Shahr branch, Iran
Moussa Ahmadian
Arak University, Arak, Iran

Bio Data

Hossein Askari is a Lecturer of TEFL at Azad University of Safashahr, Safashahr, Iran. He received his M.A. from Arak University majoring in TEFL. He has already presented two articles in two conferences, and published an article and has translated two books into Farsi.

Moussa Ahmadian is an academic member of Department Of English Language and Literature, at Arak University, Arak, Iran. As a senior lecturer, he runs courses on translation, English Literature and Applied Linguistics at both B.A. and M.A. levels. He has published and presented a number of articles on Translation Studies, Second Language Acquisition and Teaching, and Literature in different journals and conferences, and has carried out a number of research projects most of them on Translatology (the psycholinguistic aspect of translation), and texology (text analysis) and translation. He has supervised more than 20 M.A. theses in the fields of (applied) Linguistics, Second Language acquisition and Teaching.

Abstract
The time limit of a semester often hinders teachers from teaching all reading comprehension strategies to learners. This is while we are suggested, in the literature, to teach as many reading comprehension strategies as possible (e. g. Tankersley, 2003, p. 144). The aim of this study was to determine how many reading comprehension strategies are effective to be taught to university students in a given semester. To this end, a study was conducted with 102 students who were learning English as a partial requirement of their BA degree. They were divided into 3 groups (3 intact classes chosen randomly out of 7 ones), in one class, students were taught only one strategy, in another 3 strategies and in the third one more than 8 strategies. All groups were given a pre-test (Michigan test). Then, after 12 sessions of treatment, they took a post-test (the same Michigan test as pre-test); this was followed by the teacher’s final exam which was based on the course book. Results (achieved through Statistical computations: Correlations, Paired sample t-tests and ANOVA, scheffe) showed that all classes progressed significantly regarding their post-tests, with class 2 (3 strategies) performing noticeably better. But considering learners’ performances on teacher’s final exam, only group no. 2 progressed significantly. Group no. 3 did not show any significant changes in the results and group 1 was on the verge of being significant (at p<0.05). From the findings it can be concluded that it is more advisable to teach a limited number of reading comprehension strategies through limited 12-14 sessions of a semester.

Keywords: reading comprehension, reading strategy, time limit, General English