The Effect of Discourse-based Grammar Teaching on Reading Comprehension Ability in Iranian EFL Context

Farahman Farrokhi, Parviz Ajideh, Mohammad Zohrabi, Malek Panahi

Abstract


Reading is one of the most important activities in language classes. It helps the learners to enhance their world knowledge. Successful reading comprehension depends on a plethora of factors. One of which is grammatical knowledge. The purpose of this study was to examine the role of discourse-based grammar teaching in EFL context and its impact on developing upper intermediate EFL learners’ reading comprehension ability. In order to evaluate the effect of discourse-based grammar (independent variable) on the EFL learners’ reading comprehension ability (dependent variable), 50 upper intermediate English language learners were selected randomly from 2 English language Institutes. All subjects were pretested for their homogeneity in terms of language proficiency. Then, they were assigned into 2 groups. The experimental group was treated with discourse-based grammar teaching for 10 sessions, two sessions each week, and the control group just received the traditional grammar instruction. Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was run to probe the research question. The analysis showed that there was a significant difference between the two groups on the reading comprehension scores (F (1, 41) = 26.54, p = 0.000<0.05, partial eta squared =0.387 representing a medium effect size). Additionally, there was a significant difference between the two groups’ means on the posttest of reading while controlling for the possible effects of the pretest. The means of the scores for the experimental and control group are 14.81 and 12.96, respectively. Therefore, it is concluded that the treatment on experimental group caused significant improvement in their reading comprehension ability.

Keywords


Discourse, EFL Learners, Discourse-based Grammar Teaching, Reading Comprehension, Authentic Materials

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References


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