Impact of Reciprocal Teaching on EFL Learners' Reading Comprehension

This study investigated the effect of reciprocal teaching (RT) on EFL learners' reading comprehension. Fifty intermediate learners participated in the study and were sampled as the experimental (n = 25) and control groups (n = 25). Participants were male and ranged in age from 15 to 16. The Reading section of Key English Test (KET, 2010) was used as the pretest to assess the participants' entry-level reading ability. MANOVA results for comparing the 2 groups' mean scores in the pretest were not significant, indicating that they were at the same level of reading ability prior to the study. RT strategies (i.e., predicting, questioning, clarifying, summarizing) were taught to the experimental group in reading classes for 6 months. Meanwhile, the control group received conventional reading instruction (i.e, prereading, while-reading, and postreading procedure). The Reading section of KET was used as the posttest to explore the improvement of both groups after the experiment. MANOVA results revealed a significant difference between the general reading ability of the experimental and control groups, in favor of the experimental group at the end of the course [F(5, 44)= 55.740, p =.000; Wilks' Lambda =.136; partial eta squared = .864]. Moreover, examining Tests of Between-Subjects Effects revealed that the experimental group outperformed the control group in all 5 parts of the posttest.