ROLE OF COLLABORATIVE READING IN LEARNERS’ HOME LANGUAGE(S) IN DEVELOPING READING COMPREHENSION IN ENGLISH

Abstract

This paper reports the findings of a study that the researcher undertook in order to develop the reading comprehension of a group of tertiary level ESL students. The researcher teaches in the department of English Language Teaching to a linguistically diverse class of thirty four students in an Indian university. It was observed that the students were not able to critically engage with the text, and the assignments that were submitted indicated a lack of understanding of the course materials. An intervention was planned which aimed to determine whether the use of home languages while making notes facilitates the comprehension of challenging academic texts. In the first stage of the study, the participants read the texts on their own and made notes on them based on which they wrote individual summaries in English. In the second stage, the participants discussed the content in English in groups of three and made notes based on which they wrote individual summaries in English. In the last stage, the participants discussed the content in their home language/s in the same groups and made notes in whichever language/s they were comfortable in. Then they wrote individual summaries in English based on the notes. The scores for each stage were compared. The findings revealed that the participants successfully produced more detailed notes and summaries when they worked collaboratively and used their own home language/s for discussion and taking notes.