The Effect of Textual Awareness Raising on Undergraduate EFL Learners’ Reading Comprehension: A Focus on Degrees of Text Complexity

This study aimed to find out the effect of text awareness-raising with two degrees of complexity (linguistically and cognitively complex vs. linguistically complex and cognitively simple) on Iranian EFL learners’ reading comprehension. A factorial design with the use of pretest-treatment-posttest was utilized. In this regard, 120 students in four intact classes formed the sample of the study. They were randomly divided into two experimental and two control groups. In one experimental group, the awareness of linguistically and cognitively complex texts was raised and in the other the awareness of linguistically complex and cognitively simple texts was raised. In the control groups, the same texts were employed without textual awareness-raising. The results of Two-way MANOVA revealed the significant main effect of textual awareness-raising on both types of texts. The results also showed a significant interaction effect of teaching method and text complexity. It means the effect of textual awareness-raising was high when the text was linguistically and cognitively complex and it was low when the text was linguistically complex and cognitively simple. The results can be useful for teachers, students, syllabus designers, and course book writers.