The Effect of Concept Mapping and Translation Strategies Instruction on the Reading Comprehension Ability of the Iranian EFL Learners

The present study was an attempt to compare the effect of concept mapping strategy instruction and translation strategy instruction on the reading comprehension ability of the Iranian EFL learners. To do so, 90 EFL learners at the intermediate level studying English at Nasr language institute in Ardabil were chosen through a homogeneity test, which had been administered to a group of 150 individuals. The selected participants were randomly divided into three equal groups to represent the main participants of the study: experimental group I (concept map group), experimental group II (translation strategy group), and a control group. The participants received a validated test of reading comprehension as the pretest and then the treatment period continued for 20 sessions. Both experimental groups and the control group benefited the same course book, materials, vocabularies, and passages. In addition, the researcher himself taught all the groups. In the experimental group I ( Concept Mapping Group) concept mapping strategies were taught and practiced, while in the experimental group II (Translation Strategy Group), the participants were asked to focus on translation strategies while doing reading comprehension. The learners in the control group, however, did not receive any specific training on the concept mapping or translation strategy trainings. Following the treatment, all the learners received the posttest of reading comprehension and the data gathered was analyzed and reported. The findings revealed that the participants in the experimental groups (both of them) significantly outperformed the participants in the control group. Therefore, the obvious conclusion is that the devised treatment i.e. the application of concept mapping and translation strategy training had helped the participants in the experimental groups to perform better than the control group in which the learners relied on ordinary techniques of reading comprehension. The findings of the study, however, asserted that the Concept Mapping Group outperformed the Translation Strategy Group on the posttest of reading comprehension. This showed that reading comprehension ability of the EFL learners improved differently through using the concept mapping and translation strategies.

کلیدواژه ها:

Concept mapping ، Strategy instruction ، Translation strategies ، Reading comprehension ، EFL learners