چکیده:
The present study examines the role of gender in reading comprehension of short stories taught through awareness-raising among Iranian EFL learners. In so doing, twelve male and eighteen female learners with lower intermediate English proficiency were selected as the research sample. Next, they were randomly divided into two fifteen-member groups (i.e., a control group and an experimental group). The control group followed the conventional methods and the experimental group was taught the same short stories using awareness-raising activities. Consequently, an independent sample t-test was run. The obtained results indicate the experimental group demonstrates a better performance than the control one. According to the means, the female learners in both groups outperformed the male ones.
خلاصه ماشینی:
The Role of Gender in Reading Comprehension of Short Stories Taught Through Awareness-Raising Farzad Qanbarnejad Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz Farzad.
com Abstract The present study examines the role of gender in reading comprehension of short stories taught through awareness-raising among Iranian EFL learners.
According to some studies, prior knowledge does not have much effect on reading comprehension (Hammadou, 1991; Peretz & Shoham, 1990).
1. Participants To choose a homogeneous research sample, Oxford Quick Placement Test (QPT) was administered to 54 English learners from Iran Language Institute of University Students in Ahvaz, Iran.
Two researcher-made achievement tests designed to evaluate the participants’ reading comprehension proficiency of short stories administered at the end of each session were the second instrument in the study.
Material The materials in the study consisted of two short stories, including James Joyce’s Araby and James Thurber’s The Secret Life of Walter Mitty according to which the control group was taught through ordinary methods of short story teaching including a warm-up that gets students thinking about topic of the short story, comparison activities, that is, to point to similarities and differences between the short story and non-literary texts (Shackleton, 1987), pre-teaching new vocabulary, and asking some general comprehension questions after the students have read the story.
To investigate any possible differences between the experimental and control groups’ reading comprehension of the short stories, an independent sample t-test was run.