The Effect of Teaching Summarization Strategies on Reading Comprehension of Science and Humanities Iranian High school Students

The Effect of Teaching Summarization Strategies on Reading Comprehension Indonesian Journal of EFL and Linguistics Vol. 2 No. 1, 2017 eISSN: 2503-4197, pISSN: 2527-5070 www. indonesian-efl-journal.org The Effect of Teaching Summarization Strategies on Reading Comprehension of Science and Humanities Iranian High School Students Azam Sadat Pourhosseini Maybodi Department of English, Islamic Azad University, Maybod Branch, Yazd, Iran e-mail: Ashraf Haji Maibodi Department of English, Islamic Azad University, Maybod Branch, Yazd, Iran e-mail: Abstract: This study investigated the effect of teaching summarization strategies on the reading comprehension of English as Foreign Language (EFL) high school students. To this end, 80 high-school students from science and humanities sections were divided to two groups of 40 each. Two reading comprehension tests were developed and administered as pre-test and post-test. The obtained data that was analyzed using SPSS software showed that EFL learners in both groups showed significantly more improvement in their reading comprehension from the pre-test to the post-test. However, the numerical findings obtained from the paired samples ttest showed that students in the science group outperformed those who were in the humanity group and their scores seemed to be more statistically significant. The major pedagogical implication of this study is that summarization strategy can help to improve the reading comprehension of EFL high school students in Iran. Keywords: EFL learners; Reading comprehension, Summarization strategy. 1. INTRODUCTION Reading and learning to read, according to Wallace (1992), is “a social, interactive process as well as a personal activity (p.17)” In fact, in the age of the internet and Indonesian Journal of EFL and Linguistics, Vol. 2 (1), 2017 41 The Effect of Teaching Summarization Strategies on Reading Comprehension information revolution, reading retains its importance as an essential skill for learners of any language (Alderson, 2000). Although reading comprehension is sometimes overlooked, it is clear that reading for comprehension is the primary purpose and raising student’s awareness to the main ideas in a text and exploring the organization of a text are essential for good comprehension (Richards & Renandya, 2001). It is generally agreed that well-developed reading comprehension ability is the key to students’ academic success. This comprehension ability is not a passive state which one possesses, but it is an active mental process which needs to be nurtured and improved (Karbalaei & Rajyashree, 2010). McNamara (2007) believed that comprehension is the ability to go beyond the words, to understand the ideas in a text and the relationships that exist between those ideas. However, in practice, it is difficult for many beginner readers to comprehend what they read. Often, they face problems even with the typical question and answer format that is provided after they read a passage. Research (Dole, Brown, & Trathen, 1996; Janzen, 2003; Karbalaei & Rajyashree, 2010; Khoshsima & Rezaeian Tiyar, 2014; Pakzadian & Eslami Rasekh, 2012; Nurhayati, 2014; Roohani, et al., 2015; Deshpande, 2016; Teng. 2016; Damayanti, 2017) has shown that together with direct instructions when students are taught reading strategies this will improve not only their comprehension of the reading passage but also their performances on the tests. There is no doubt that, according to Nation and Angell (2006), “The ultimate goal of reading is not to read isolated words, but to understand what has been read” (p. 77). Therefore, if reading for meaning is the goal for both students and teachers, more emphasis should be placed on the teaching of successful reading comprehension strategies. Notably, since the past decades, there has been sustained interest in promoting reading comprehension ability as a significant and viable means of language development for foreign language (FL) learners (Susser & Robb, 1990). According to Susser and Robb (1990), “reading in English as a foreign language (EFL) has been greatly emphasized in traditional FL teaching contexts, and until today, EFL reading is the core of language instruction in many countries” (p.17). Today, this instruction focuses on teaching readers rather than teaching texts (Davis, 2010). To be more specific, teachers now teach reading skills and strategies to understand some elements related to the process like content, textual features, rhetorical elements, and cultural background. In fact, reading strategies are more and more welcomed by the teachers. Although there are a small number of studies investigating the application of such strategies for other Asian EFL learners (Madkhali, 2005; Mushait, 2004; Al-Nujaidi, 2003; Al-Seweed, 2000), there is an unclear picture about the most popular uses of reading strategies by Iranian EFL learners in high schools. At present, few studies have been conducted on the effectiveness of reading strategies on Iranian EFL learners’ reading comprehension. The scarcity of such studies does not permit the creation of any firm conclusions or generalizations about the effectiveness or success of teaching reading strategies in Iranian context. Taking the above perceptions and the gap that exists in the Iranian EFL context, the overall aim of this study was to explore the effect of summarization on reading Indonesian Journal of EFL and Linguistics, Vol. 2 (1), 2017 42 The Effect of Teaching Summarization Strategies on Reading Comprehension comprehension of Iranian science and humanities high school students. It also tried to provide a comparison of the learners’ performances in the two educational groups and about the application of summarization strategy in L2 reading comprehension context. Since very little research has been reported so far considering this area, the primary goal of this study was to find the effect of this strategy on learners’ reading comprehension and proficiency level, as a whole. This study was prompted by the following research questions: 1. To what extent do teaching summarization strategies affect reading comprehension of Iranian high school (science and humanities) students? 2. Do teaching summarization strategies increase proficiency level of science Iranian high school students? 3. Do teaching summarization strategies increase proficiency level of humanities Iranian high school students? 2. LITERATURE REVIEW Reading as an important skill is the fastest and simplest way to raise people’s educational level (Hung & Tzeng, 2000). It is a process of how information is processed from the text into meanings, starting with the information from the text, and ending with what the reader gains. Reading comprehension is a complex process that has been conceptualized and explained in a countless number of ways. The literature on reading provides several definitions of reading strategies. According to Garner (1987), reading strategies a (...truncated)