Abstract:
This study investigated the effectiveness of discourse structure-based graphic organizers (GOs) on intermediate students' reading comprehension. It also compared the students who used discourse structure-based GOs as a post-reading activity to those who were involved in conventional method of reading post-activities. Ninety second year students were non-randomly selected at Azad Abadan University. They enrolled in Reading III classes. Oxford Quick Placement Test (OQPT) was administered to assess the learners' proficiency level. Thus 70 learners whose scores indicated their level of proficiency was intermediate were randomly divided in two equal experimental and control groups. They took a pre-test of reading comprehension designed based on their text book "Active Skills for Reading 3", developed by Anderson (2008). The experimental group analyzed the textual structures based on the frameworks of GOs and discussed the cohesive and coherent devices in each passage while the control group read the passage and do the textbook exercises including using new words, fill in the blanks, true/false, comprehension questions, etc. After 15 sessions of treatment, both groups took a post¬test of reading comprehension. Data were analyzed through Independent and Paired Samples t-test. Results revealed that the students who worked on discourse structure-based GOs as a post-reading activity performed significantly better than their counterparts do. The implications of this study for EFL teachers could be used in reading comprehension classrooms to familiar the learners with graphical structures of the reading passages and discover textual structures of various text types.
Machine summary:
Using Discourse Structure-Based Graphic Organizers (GOs) in Developing EFL Learners’ Reading Comprehension Bahman Gorjian Associate Professor, Department of ELT, Abadan Branch, Islamic Azad University, Abadan, Iran *Corresponding author (bahgorji@yahoo.
1. 2 Statement of the Problem and the Purpose of the Study This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of discourse structure-based graphic organizers on EFL students reading comprehension of selected texts.
2. Literature Review Graphic organizers are defined as “visual and spatial displays designed to facilitate the teaching and learning of textual material through the use of lines, arrows and a spatial arrangement that describe text content, structure and key conceptual relationships” (Kim, Vaughn, Wanzek, & Wei, 2004, p.
The pre-test to determine the learners’ level of reading comprehension of selected texts at the beginning of research period and a post-test to determine the effect of discourse structure-based graphic organizers on students reading comprehension of selected texts.
The text structures of the four reading passages that were used in the study included description, definition, sequence, procedure, cause-effect, classification, and various graphic organizers that reflected the discourse structures of these texts, a homogeneity test, that was used as the pre-test and a post-test were administered.
Independent and Paired Samples t-test were conducted in order to explore how the discourse structure-based graphic organizer treatment affected the participant students’ comprehension of each text as well as the students’ overall reading performance in the study.
Question One: How does the use of discourse structure-based graphic organizers affect students reading comprehension of selected texts?