چکیده:
This mixed-methods study aimed at investigating the effects of a gadget-based Internet multimedia extensive reading program on promoting language proficiency. In so doing, a pretest-posttest design was applied in the quantitative phase to comparatively analyze outcomes of three classes of college-level EFL learners (two experimental groups and one control, each including 30 university students) on how much they improved in their receptive proficiency, before and after the general English language course they were taking. The first group took the General English course along with a multimedia-based Internet extensive reading program as the study’s treatment, and the second group took a linear text (traditional) extensive reading program with their English course. The posttest scores showed that students in experimental group 1 (extensive reading using multimedia texts) outperformed both experimental group 2 (extensive reading using linear texts) and the control group. Furthermore, experimental group 2 had higher scores in comparison to the control group. As for the qualitative phase, results of the follow-up interviews and open-ended questionnaires also indicated that the learners liked, and would prefer to substitute traditional reading programs by gadget-based multimedia ones. EFL teachers may be most interested in outcomes of this study since insights may be gained regarding the extent to which Internet-based reading should enter language courses.
خلاصه ماشینی:
In so doing, a pretest- posttest design was applied in the quantitative phase to comparatively analyze outcomes of three classes of college-level EFL learners (two experimental groups and one control, each including 30 university students) on how much they improved in their receptive proficiency, before and after the general English language course they were taking.
The aim of this paper was to investigate the influences of reading multimedia gadget- based Internet texts extensively on developing Iranian university-level students’ receptive skills in English, and seeking whether learners would prefer such an approach over traditional paper reading The insight about this purpose was gained through two categories of the literature reviewed.
Literature Review A fairly large number of empirical investigations in EFL settings have proven that the extensive reading of printed materials, where information is usually conveyed linearly, helps develop the learners’ vocabulary knowledge (Seiter, 2020; Suk, 2016; Webb & Chang, 2015), speed of reading (Huffman, 2014; McLean & Rouault, 2017, Nakanishi, 2015), writing (Mermelstein, 2015; Park, 2016), comprehension in reading (Tanaka, 2007), as well as motivation in English reading (Asraf & Ahmad, 2003; Lao & Krashen et al.
Based on this support for the new concept of literacy, together with investigations which show the influences of Internet reading on reading pace (Al-Othman, 2003), interest (Arnold, 2009; Naderi Anari, Rostami Aboo Saeedi, & Shariati, 2019), and reading strategy application (Coiro & Dobler, 2007), this study investigates how extensively reading multimedia Internet texts affects Iranian university-level students’ receptive proficiencies.