The Impact of Divergent and Convergent Tasks on Iranian EFL Students’ Reading Comprehension Success
Subject Areas : Journal of Studies in Learning and Teaching EnglishSeyyed Amin Azimi 1 , Fatemeh Behjat 2 , Ali Asghar Kargar 3
1 - Department of English, Abadeh Branch, Islamic Azad University, Abadeh, Iran.
2 - Department of English, Abadeh Branch, Islamic Azad University, Abadeh, Iran.
3 - Department of English, Abadeh Branch, Islamic Azad University, Abadeh, Iran.
Keywords: reading comprehension, EFL learners, convergent task, divergent task,
Abstract :
This study was an attempt to investigate the effect of divergent and convergent tasks on intermediate EFL students' reading comprehension success. The participants of this study involved sixty male and female EFL learners who were enrolled in the intermediate level at Kish English Institute in Yasuj. To make them homogeneous in terms of their general English knowledge, they were asked to take part in an English proficiency test. Having been homogenized through an OPT test, sixty students were selected and randomly divided into a control and two experimental groups. Then, a pretest was run, and participants' reading comprehension was assessed. For the treatment, during eight sessions, the participants in the experimental groups were instructed on convergent and divergent tasks. The control group, on the other hand, received a traditional reading instruction. Finally, as the last step of data collection, all participants of the experimental and control groups took part in a post-test of reading comprehension. After applying statistical analyses, significant differences were observed among EFL learners’ performances, and those who had divergent tasks could improve their reading comprehension better than the other two groups.