Is Reading Comprehension of ESP Program Improved by Explicit Teaching of Grammar?

Researchers state that grammatical explanation in the classroom relies on the assumption that rules learnt consciously can be converted into unconscious process of comprehension and production. Little research, if any, has been carried out regarding the role of explicit teaching of grammar in enhancing reading comprehension of ESP students. To make up for the dearth of research in this area, the present study was conducted to investigate whether explicit teaching of grammatical structures enhances reading comprehension of ESP students or not. To achieve this goal, two groups of students were selected, one as the experimental group and the other as the control group. Through a pretest it was found out that the two groups were to a remarkable extent homogenous. The experimental group received explicit instruction of grammatical structures as well as general reading comprehension instruction, but the control group received only general reading comprehension instruction. After the treatment, both groups were post-tested through a reading comprehension test on computer science. The results demonstrated a positive effect of explicit teaching of grammatical structures on enhancing the reading comprehension of our ESP students