Intervention in EFL Learners’ Reading Comprehension, Motivation, and Anxiety: A Team-Based Multi-Strategy Instruction

Reading education and reading affective factors significantly affect school-age students’ academic achievement. Nevertheless, most teachers disregard scientific strategy-based reading instructions and scholars have recently regarded L۲ reading affective factors, namely reading motivation and anxiety. Moreover, technology-aided EFL reading courses for primary schoolers have been neglected. Accordingly, the current study aimed to implement seven L۲ reading strategies suggested by Yapp et al. (۲۰۲۱a), and evaluate the effect of these strategies on English reading comprehension, motivation, and anxiety at virtual environment by using online team-teaching. The EFL fifth graders and pre-service teachers of the study were selected via volunteer sampling. The students (n = ۲۸) were randomly assigned to two groups (n = ۱۴ for each group) and the teachers (n = ۴) were randomly assigned to two groups (n = ۲ for each group) as well. One group was given Traditional Instruction (TI) and taught by two instructors whereas the other group received Strategy-Based Instruction (SBI) and was taught by the other two instructors. To assess L۲ reading motivation and anxiety, the questionnaires by Dhanapala (۲۰۰۸) and Saito et al. (۱۹۹۹) were administered. The within- and between-group analyses using paired-sample t-tests and ANCOVAs indicated that although both groups’ reading comprehension, motivation, and anxiety were enhanced, the SBI participants outperformed the TI participants. Moreover, the interview with the SBI group demonstrated their positive attitudes toward the SBI course. The current study would encourage EFL teachers to base reading instruction upon reading strategies when teaching young EFL learners.  

Keywords:

reading strategies , technology-aided instruction , online team-teaching , reading motivation , reading anxiety , reading strategies , technology-aided instruction , online team-teaching , reading motivation , reading anxiety