The effectiveness of collaborative reading in tertiary level EFL teaching in Iran

Abstract

This research addressed four questions:

1. Does collaborative reading lead to greater comprehension of a text than private reading?

If so:

2. Does this effect vary according to students’ competence in reading comprehension?

3. What strategies are used by the students during collaborative reading, and

4. In what ways might these strategies contribute to the higher level of comprehension?

The study sample comprised two groups of students in two different universities. The major intervention consisted of four texts of equal length. Each class read two of the texts collaboratively in small groups and the other two privately. After reading the text the participants took a comprehension test. Collaborative reading resulted in consistently higher scores than private reading for all four texts. Group interactions during collaborative reading were tape recorded and transcribed. Analysis of the transcriptions revealed that collaborative readers were involved in five major processes of collaborative reading, namely: brainstorming, clarifying the language, paraphrasing, summarizing, and interaction management.