This research was carried out in Iranian EFL （English as a foreign language） reading comprehension classes in an attempt to answer three research questions： （1） Does collaborative reading lead to greater comprehe...This research was carried out in Iranian EFL （English as a foreign language） reading comprehension classes in an attempt to answer three research questions： （1） Does collaborative reading lead to greater comprehension of a text than private reading？; （2） If so, what strategies are used by the students during collaborative reading？; and （3） In what ways might these strategies contribute to the higher level of comprehension？. A quasi-experimental design was used to answer the first question. The participants were pre-tested and streamed into two classes of equal reading comprehension abilities. The intervention consisted of four texts of equal length, comprising two rated in a pilot study as conceptually difficult/linguistically easy, and two rated as conceptually easy/linguistically difficult. The subjects in each class were involved in reading the two types of texts collaboratively and privately for four sessions. After reading the text, the subjects were asked to answer in writing 10 comprehension questions. Collaborative reading resulted in consistently and significantly higher scores than private reading for all four texts. Qualitative methods were employed to answer the last two questions. Group interactions during collaborative reading were tape recorded and transcribed, and 10 students selected at random from the two classes were interviewed in depth. Analysis of the group interaction transcripts revealed that the participants were using five major strategies in co-constructing meaning from the texts. These strategies included brainstorming, clarifying the language, summarizing, paraphrasing, and interaction management. Other minor （i.e., infrequent） strategies were also identified, such as making PCU/NCU （positive/negative claim to understand）, eliciting confirmation, and confirming.展开更多
文摘This research was carried out in Iranian EFL （English as a foreign language） reading comprehension classes in an attempt to answer three research questions： （1） Does collaborative reading lead to greater comprehension of a text than private reading？; （2） If so, what strategies are used by the students during collaborative reading？; and （3） In what ways might these strategies contribute to the higher level of comprehension？. A quasi-experimental design was used to answer the first question. The participants were pre-tested and streamed into two classes of equal reading comprehension abilities. The intervention consisted of four texts of equal length, comprising two rated in a pilot study as conceptually difficult/linguistically easy, and two rated as conceptually easy/linguistically difficult. The subjects in each class were involved in reading the two types of texts collaboratively and privately for four sessions. After reading the text, the subjects were asked to answer in writing 10 comprehension questions. Collaborative reading resulted in consistently and significantly higher scores than private reading for all four texts. Qualitative methods were employed to answer the last two questions. Group interactions during collaborative reading were tape recorded and transcribed, and 10 students selected at random from the two classes were interviewed in depth. Analysis of the group interaction transcripts revealed that the participants were using five major strategies in co-constructing meaning from the texts. These strategies included brainstorming, clarifying the language, summarizing, paraphrasing, and interaction management. Other minor （i.e., infrequent） strategies were also identified, such as making PCU/NCU （positive/negative claim to understand）, eliciting confirmation, and confirming.
