Effects of Pre―Reading Activities on EFL Reading Comprehension by Moroccan College Students.docVIP

Effects of Pre―Reading Activities on EFL Reading Comprehension by Moroccan College Students 　　Abstract 　　This study investigated the effects of two pre-reading activities （class discussion and vocabulary definitions） and a control condition on the reading comprehension of 57 Moroccan college freshmen. It also investigated the differential facilitative effect of the two pre-reading activities on the students’ comprehension. Each student read an expository text under one of the three conditions and immediately afterwards answered a 9-item short-answer test designed to measure comprehension of the text. A one-way ANOVA and a post-hoc comparison test were applied to the results. This revealed that the two pre-reading activities produced significantly higher comprehension scores than the control condition. Vocabulary definitions activity resulted in increased comprehension compared with the control condition， but was significantly less effective than the class discussion activity. Results of the study were interpreted in relation to the schema-theoretic view of the reading process， and to their implications for EFL reading instruction. 　　Key words： Pre-reading activities； Activating background knowledge； Reading comprehension 　　1. RESEARCH BACKGROUND 　　EFL students tend to experience considerable difficulty in understanding English texts. Not only do these texts most often contain unfamiliar vocabulary， but they also may contain unfamiliar concepts and cultural content that make comprehension difficult. Traditionally， attempts to enhance text comprehension for EFL students have focused on familiarizing the students with the vocabulary needed to comprehend the passage （Bernhardt， 1984）. Such instruction， however， is unlikely to raise students’ interest in reading the text or to well prepare them for the conceptually and culturally novel elements of the text. 　　A large body of research within the schema-theoretic view of reading comprehension has acknowledged the