Evaluating the reading activities on the basis of cohesion and suggesting activities reflecting textual unity for `a preparatory English course book one and two` used by the ministry of education and training of Iran

Abstract

ABSTRACT As considered by many colleges and universities, reading comprehension is recognized as the principle objective of language courses in the educational system of Iran. The students need to understand and use the information contained in modern sources in their respective fields of study efficiently. This study investigates students' control over the use of linguistic devices that contribute to textual cohesion for the comprehension of texts. Recent development in English language teaching has shown that without the knowledge of how words.and clauses are formed, the production and understanding a text is impossible. It means, however that aspects within the entire domain of language teaching, ranging from vocabulary to syntax, from pronunciation to intonation, from punctuation to paragraphing and from reading to writing should be taught with a discourse orientation. The first chapter of this study includes the background knowledge to the study, the aim and scope and limitations of the study while the second chapter stresses some theoretical issues on materials evaluation, taxonomy of reading comprehension and reading skills. The third chapter concentrates on the results of the questionnaire which has been administered to the students of English preparatory courses at Gazi University. The subjects answered two different kinds of reading comprehension tests. Test 1 was the exact activities of lesson two of book one from the preparatory English course of Iran. And test 2 was the activities based on the role of cohesion in reading comprehension. Each test was followed by the same questionnaire. The data have been obtained and evaluated by using statistical methods, and the findings have been displayed in tables. The fourth chapter of the study focusses on cohesion and reading activities. Suggested techniques and activities have been presentedreflecting textual unity for each lesson separately in the same chapter. The conclusion chapter provides some suggestions on improving reading comprehension with the help of cohesion. The appendices of the study include some information about the education system in Iran, the passages of the course-book under study, the above-mentioned questionnaire, test one, test two and the answer key of suggested tasks.