چکیده:
The main objective of the current English for Academic Purposes (EAP) programs
in Iran is to fill the gap between the students’ general English competence and their
ability to read discipline-specific texts. This study aims to investigate the target and
present reading comprehension needs of EAP undergraduate students of Persian
literature at Yasouj State University through a mixed method approach. A total of 30
undergraduate students who have passed ESP courses and 10 postgraduate students
along with two content and two EAP instructors participated in the study which was
designed on a mixed method approach using interviews and questionnaires. The
results indicated that ‘skimming texts’, ‘using bilingual general dictionaries’,
‘scanning texts’, ‘knowledge of Persian literature terminologies’, ‘guessing
meanings of words’, and ‘understanding main ideas’ were perceived as either
‘important’ or ‘very important’ to students’ success by all the participants.
Moreover, the results suggested that General English Proficiency (GEP) level of the
students was generally low. The undergraduates held that they need more general
English than highly specific academic English. Implications of this study can be
used for improving EAP reading courses for Persian literature students.
خلاصه ماشینی:
Exploring Reading Comprehension Needs of Yasouj EAP Students of Persian Literature Abdolvahed Zarifi٭(Corresponding Author), Assistant Professor of TEFL, Department of English, Faculty of Humanities, Yasouj University, Yasouj, Iran.
This study aims to investigate the target and present reading comprehension needs of EAP undergraduate students of Persian literature at Yasouj State University through a mixed method approach.
A total of 30 undergraduate students who have passed ESP courses and 10 postgraduate students along with two content and two EAP instructors participated in the study which was designed on a mixed method approach using interviews and questionnaires.
89-98 Introduction Although the language of education in Iran is Persian, discipline-based EAP programs are currently applied as compulsory courses at university level and all undergraduate students are obliged to pass one to three English for Specific Purposes (ESP) courses in addition to one general English course (Atai & Shoja, 2011).
Finally, Kazar and Mede (2015) suggested that the ESP program should focus on the effective use of language strategies in given tasks such as improving presentation skills, learning key terms, writing Email messages, and reading academic texts.
89-98 main aim of English classes at undergraduate level seems to be helping students to improve their domain of vocabulary, reading comprehension strategies, translation skills, and to fill in the gap between the students’ general English competence and their ability to read discipline-specific texts (Atai & Tahririan, 2003).
Figure 1 Figure 2 Instruments This study follows a mixed methods approach including first, semi-structured interviews with ESP instructors, and content instructors in the Persian literature and a questionnaire survey administered to undergraduates and postgraduate students.