Resumen de The effect of the teacher's reading aloud on the reading comprehension of EFL students
Although reading aloud receives considerable emphasis in English as a first language, it is traditionally discouraged by EFL teachers and methodology specialists. Reading aloud, in fact, is particularly important for EFL learners at the early stage of learning. Beginning readers tend to read word by word. Reading aloud helps them read larger semantic units rather than focusing on graphic cues. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of the teacher's reading aloud on the reading comprehension of EFL students reading a story. Seventy-five students participated in the study. The experimental group had a story read aloud to them by the teacher, whereas the control group read the story silently. Two dependent measures were used: a multiple-choice test and a story frame test. Results showed that the experimental group outperformed the control group on both measures. This indicated that reading aloud by the teacher may have a significant positive effect on learners' reading comprehension.
