Effect of elaborative text modification on pre-intermediate male and female efl learners’ reading comprehension

Abstract

The current study was carried out to investigate whether elaborative text modification improves reading comprehension ability of pre-intermediate male and female EFL learners. To do this, 60 pre-intermediate learners were chosen based on their performance on a standard version of Longman's New Opportunities Placement Test. The participants also received a piloted version of a researcher-made reading comprehension test as the pretest to ascertain their homogeneity. The participants were then divided into two equal groups to represent the experimental and the control groups. Each group was further subdivided into male and female groups. Five reading passages in two formats (unmodified and elaborated) were administered to the participants in five weeks which was followed by a posttest. The experimental group received the elaborated texts, while the control group received the unmodified baseline texts. The results of a Two-way ANOVA indicated no significant effect for gender but there was a significant difference between the experimental and the control groups' reading comprehension. Findings of the study suggest that elaborative text modification can be a worthy option in EFL reading classes.