THE EFFECTIVENESS OF COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING ON STUDENTS’ ENGLISH READING COMPREHENSION

Abstract

People from non-native English speaking countries usually encounter the issue of learning and appropriately using the English language. It is an important to have higher acquaintance with the English language since most of the curriculums are designed and imparted in English. The non-native English speaking countries persistently put efforts to improve the English learning levels through innovative pedagogies. The study reports the results of an intervention for improving the reading comprehension skills. The study aimed to examine the effectiveness of communicative English language teaching program on students’ reading comprehension skills. To achieve the intended objectives, a non-equivalent pre-test, post-test quasiexperimental

design was employed. The participants were the first year law students in two classes at the University of Gondar. The principle of randomization was applied and the groups were categorized as experimental and control groups. The intervention was carried out for two months of the academic year 2017. It was hypothesized that the students taught through communicative language teaching instruction would improve their reading comprehension skills better than those doesn't had this exposure. An English reading achievement test was developed and employed to assess the pre and post intervention levels. The validity and reliability of the research instruments were statistically measured and found the fit. The intervention programme was focussed on different aspects of reading comprehension. The data were analyzed using appropriate statistical tests. Results indicate that the reading comprehension skills score of the experimental group improved significantly and to an extent greater than the control group due to the treatment. Hence, the present study strongly recommends that instructors should employ communicative language instruction at University level for teaching EFL reading lessons.