A Study on the Effect of Structured Inquiry-Based L2 Teaching Approach on Intermediate Iranian EFL Learners’ Reading Comprehension

Although inquiry-based language teaching to reading comprehension, in which the learners are treated by being encouraged to make queries, collect and analyze information, create solutions,make decisions, justify conclusions and take action, has long been hitting the spotlight of L2 teaching massively, it has been barely implemented in Iran. In the light of the above issue, the present study was an attempt to delve farther into the effect of inquiry-based language teaching approach on reading comprehension of intermediate EFL Iranian L2 learners. To this end, 112 subjects were conveniently selected out of four EFL classes from two high schools located inHamadan, Iran. Having made sure on the homogeneity of the participants through piloting them 60 subjects were selected. The participants were randomly divided into two groups of 30 as the experimental and the control group. A researcher-made reading comprehension test, composed of standardized tests employed through state-wide university entrance exam was designed and administered to the subjects as the pretest. The experimental group was treated to increase their reading comprehension skills by means of getting involved in five major inquiry-based activities (i.e. asking, investigating, creating, discussing, and reflecting) whereas the control group, was treated traditionally. In the final session, the same version of pretest was administered to the study participants as the posttest. The obtained data was analyzed through running ANCOVA. The final results revealed that the subjects taught by means of structured inquiry-based teaching outperformed those treated through traditional reading comprehension teaching techniques. There is a potential possibility for the findings of the present study to be fruitful for the syllables designers, course book designers, L2 language teacher trainers, L2 language teachers and learners

Keywords:

Inquiry , Structured Inquiry Based Learning , Reading Comprehension