THE EFFECT OF TEACHING SYSTEMIC-ORIENTED SUMMARIZATION STRATEGIES ON THE READING COMPREHENSION OF ADVANCED IRANIAN EFL LEARNERS

Reading comprehension is central to language and reading is often referred to as the most important of the four language skills for English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners. One of the problems, however, that EFL learners complain about is how they can summarize the text and comprehend the text immediately. In this regard summarizing strategies through expansion (de-expanding) is an approach which helps learners. Therefore, this study is an attempt to study the effects of systemic-oriented summarization strategies on the reading comprehension of advanced Iranian EFL learners. To do so, out of a pool of 100 learners, 68 advanced-level EFL learners were randomly selected based on the results obtained from the Preliminary English Test (PET). They were divided into two groups, one experimental group (n=34) and one control group (n=34). In order to get assurance as to the homogeneity of the learners they were pre-tested. The same test was repeated as a post-test after 9 weeks. The experimental group was taught three expansionsʹ sub-classes (such as elaborating, extending, and enhancement) while the control group did not receive any strategies. The results based on the t-test indicated that teaching systemic-oriented summarization strategies had no effect on the reading comprehension of advanced-level Iranian EFL learners. Moreover, it was found that systemic-oriented summarization strategy instruction made no statistically significant difference in reading comprehension of male and female EFL learners.