A Study on the Effectiveness of Textual Modification on the Improvement

تخفیف ویژه

Abstract

This study was conducted to investigate the impact of textual Modification on Iranian upper-Intermediate EFL Learners’ Reading Comprehension ability. For this purpose, 115 male and female university students majoring in English Translation participated in this study. Having being homogenized by an MELAB test, 60 learners were selected and they were randomly assigned into two groups, control and experimental. Then both groups sat for a pre-test, which was a reading comprehension test. The purpose of this test was to measure the learners’ initial subject knowledge of reading comprehension ability. Afterwards, the experimental group received treatment based on textual Modificationstrategy. However, the control group received no treatment. The treatment procedure took 10 sessions. Finally at the end of the course both groups sat for the post test of reading comprehension. Then the statistical analysis was run through ANCOVA. It was explored from the study that learners’ reading ability improves more when they are provided with textual Modificationstrategy.

Key words: textual Modification, Reading comprehension

Table of Contents

Title                                                                                                                           Page

Chapter 1: Introduction

1.0) Introduction……………………………………………..........................................1

1.1) Theoretical framework …………………………………………..……….……….1

1.2) Statement of the Problem…………………………………………………….…....5

1.3) Purpose of the Study………………………………………….…………….....…..7

1.4) Research Question…………………………………….…………….……….........7

1.5) Research Hypothesis……….……………………………………………………..7

1.6) Significance of the Study...……………………………………...………………...7

1.7) Definitions of Key Terms ………………………………………….……………..9

1.7.1) Textual modification……………………..……………………….……………..9

1.7.2) Reading comprehension………………………………………….……………..9

1.8) Summary ………………………………………………..…………………….....10

Chapter 2: Review of the Related Literature

2.0) Introduction ……………………………………...................................................11

2.1) Theoretical framework…………………………………………………...……....11

2.2) Reading Comprehension, Past and Present …………………………….....…..…15

2.2.1) The Top down (Concept-Driven) Approach ………………………..…………18

2.2.2) The Bottom up (Serial) Approach (Text-based)…………………..…..…..…...19

2.2.3) The Interactive Approach ………………………………………...……...…….20

2.3) Schema theory ……………………………………….……………….……..…. 22

2.4) Parsing ……………………………………………….………………..…….…...23

2.5) Reading materials …………………………………….……………….…….…. 24

2.5.1) Interest……………………………………………………….…………..…......25

2.5.2) Objectives…………………………………………………………..………......25

2.5.3) Readability………………………………………………………..…..………..26

2.5.4) Authenticity ………………………………………………….……………..….26

2.6) Some Sources of Syntactic Complexity………………………..….......................27

2.6.1) Surface complexity ………………………………………….............................28

2.6.1.1) Amount ………………………………………………..……..…………........28

2.6.1.2) Density ………………………………………………....………..……..…....29

2.6.1.3) Ambiguity ………………………………………….......……………..……..29

2.6.2) Interpretive Complexity......................................................................................29

2.6.3) Systematic Complexity …………………………………..…............................29

2.6.3.1) Sentence Length ………………………………….……………………..…...31

2.6.3.2) Preposed Clause…………………………………...........................................31

2.6.3.3) Passive Sentences ……………………………………………………....…....32

2.6.3.4) Relative clause and Embedding ……………………..................................…33

2.6.3.5) A Proposition-based Measure of Comprehensibility.………………………..34

2.7) Syntactic Complexity and Reading…………………………………..……..…....35

2.8) Simplification of Reading Materials ……………………………………..….…..38

2.8.1) Splitting the sentence………………………………………..…………………40

2.8.2) Changing discourse marker………………………………….………..……......41

2.8.3) Transformation to active voice …………………………….……..………....…41

2.8.4) Inversion of clause ordering ………………………………………..……….....42

2.8.5) Subject-Verb-Object ordering ………………………………..…………….….42

2.8.6) Topicalization and Detopicalization……………………….………………......42

2.9) Simplification and Authenticity…………………………………..…..………….45

2.10) Summary ………………………………………………………..……………...47

Chapter 3: Methodology

3.0)Introduction…………………………………………………………...………..…48

3.1) Design of the study ………………………………………………..…………..…48

3.2) Participants of the Study……………………………………..…....……………..49

3.3) Materials of the Study ……………………………………..........................….....49

3.4) Procedures of the Study……………………………………….............................49

3.5) Statistical Collection………………………………………..………....………....50

3.7) Summary……………………………………….…………………..….…………50

Chapter 4: Results

4.0) Data Analysis and Findings …………………….……………………..………...51

4.1) Results of Hypothesis Testing ……………………………………………..….…53

4. 2) Summary ……………………………………………………………………......54

Chapter 5: Discussion and Implication

5.0) Discussion ……………………………………………………………….……....55

5.1) Pedagogical Implication ……………………………………………………..…..56

5.3) Implication for teaching …………………………………………..……………..57

5.4) limitations of The Study ……………………………………….………...…..…..57

5.5) Suggestions for Further Research ……………………………………......……...57

References ………....................……………………………………..…..….....……..59

Appendices

Appendix A: MELAB Test ………………………………......................………..…..66

Appendix B: Pre-test (A test from Nelson-Denny Reading Comprehension Tests)………...82

Appendix C: Treatment procedure for experimental group (syntactically simplified text) ...84

Appendix D: Post-test ……………………………………………………………..….87