The Role of Content and Procedural Repetition in EFL Learners’ Reading Performance

ABSTRACT

The present study aimed to investigate the role of procedural and content repetition in enhancing intermediate EFL learners’ reading fluency (measured by reading rate) and comprehension. To this end, 45 intermediate EFL learners were recruited and randomly divided into three groups: procedural repetition (PR), content repetition (CR), and control group. Through adopting an experimental design, the data for reading comprehension and fluency were respectively collected by pre- and posttests of reading and the number of words read per minute and analyzed by analysis of variance (ANOVA) and paired-samples t-test. The findings demonstrated that content and procedural repetition improved EFL learners’ reading comprehension, although procedural repetition was more effective. Nevertheless, repetition tasks could not improve the reading rate. Therefore, course designers, material developers, and language teachers are recommended to use procedural and content repetition to design and develop the reading tasks and activities or teach reading comprehension to EFL/ESL learners.

KEYWORDS:

• Comprehension
• content repetition
• EFL learners
• procedural repetition
• rate
• reading

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Shiela Kheirzadeh

Shiela Kheirzadeh is an assistant professor of TEFL. Her areas of interest are teaching, learning, and language assessment.

Maryam Malakootikhah

Maryam Malakootikhah is an MA graduate of TEFL. Her areas of interest are teaching and child language acquisition.