| dc.description.abstract | This study compares the effectiveness of content-based language instruction (CBLI) and communicative language teaching (CLT) in improving the reading comprehension skills of 60 primary and secondary school EFL students in Iran. Furthermore, it assesses Iranian EFL learners’ attitudes toward CLT and CBLI to examine which approach is more preferred and perceived as more effective by the L2 learners. The measures were two Cambridge Advanced English (CAE) reading comprehension tests administered as the pretest and posttest of an intervention study to measure the reading comprehension ability of the students in both groups who were instructed using CLT or CBLI approaches. During the intervention, the students in the CLT group were instructed by using CLT practices and the students in the CBLI group were instructed using CBLI principles for 15 weeks (30 sessions in total). : After having conducted the intervention study, the students in the two groups were surveyed about CLT and CBLI. The data shows that both CLT and CBLI were effective in improving the reading comprehension skills of the Iranian EFL learners as the learners who were instructed using each of these approaches did not show any significant differences in terms of reading comprehension skills compared to the other group. Moreover, the Iranian EFL students who received instructions through CLT perceived that the use of CLT was effective in improving their reading comprehension skills. Likewise, the students who were instructed using the CBLI principles favored the use of CBLI for teaching reading comprehension skills. While there are no significant differences of the two groups’ reading comprehension skills, the students in the CBLI group were overall more positive about CBLI compared to the students in the CLT group toward the use of CLT. | |
