The Effect of Recognizing Lexical Cohesive Relations of Written Text on the Reading Comprehension of Libyan EFL University Students

Abstract: This paper investigates the ability of supplying the elliptical items omitted from a written text and its impact on the reading comprehension of Libyan university students studying EFL. Ellipsis can be defined as the omission of one or more lexical items that are understood in the context, but which are required to make the sentence or utterance grammatically correct. An elliptical item could be nominal, verbal or clausal. 4th year English Department students from the English Department- Faculty of ArtsGharian in Al-Jabal Al-Gharbi University completed reading comprehension test. Seventy one out of a hundred and four students accepted to participate in the study. The test was modified to include many elliptical items and the students were asked to supply them. The results, which were statistically analyzed, suggested that the study participants were not able to supply the correct elliptical items and consequently had poor reading comprehension results. The mean marks achieved were only 33.8. This result may have many pedagogical implications. Keywords: Ellipsis, nominal, verbal, clausal, reading comprehension 

This paper studies the impact of the implementation of

extensive reading programme on the reading comprehension

and the development of other English language skills such as

speaking, spelling and writing of Libyan university students

studying EFL. 50 students studying English in the English

Department, Faculty of Arts, Al-jabal Algharbi University had

read a written materials of their choice, summarised their

main events and completed a self-completion questionnaire.

The findings of the questionnaire data analysis suggested that

the respondents had a positive attitude towards their selfreading,

learned some new words. These findings may encourage the

teachers of reading comprehension courses to implement

extensive reading programme to complement the intensive

reading programme which is practiced in classroom. Also,

reading materials are required to be available in the

educational institutions' libraries.found the information of the written texts useful and

This study investigated the impact of textual cohesive conjunctions on the reading comprehension of Libyan university students studying English as a foreign language. The study assumed that conjunctions have a positive effect on reading comprehension if students are explicitly taught these items. Data were collected through using a self-completion questionnaire, and the application of two intervention programmes in Gharian and Sabrata English Departments. A hundred students participated in the programmes that included the administration of pre-and post-test and only post-test experiments. As a part of the experiments, participants who were assigned randomly to the treatment groups attended about thirty hours of explicit teaching of conjunctions. The results revealed that conjunctives facilitate the reading comprehension of the fourth-year English department students in two Libyan universities. These findings could have important pedagogical implications, which may require explicit teaching of conjunctions in order to improve reading comprehension.

Key words: conjunctions, cohesion, coherence, reading comprehension.

1. This study investigated the impact of textual cohesive conjunctives on the reading comprehension of Libyan university students studying English as a foreign language. Conjunctions as defined by Halliday and Hasan (1976) in their theory of textual cohesion provide the theoretical background to this work. The literature reviewed revealed contradictory findings in relation to the effect of conjunctions on reading comprehension. Many linguists and psycholinguists found that all conjunctive types (i. e. additives, adversatives, causals, and temporals) can facilitate reading comprehension. However, other studies came to the conclusion that conjunctives affected reading comprehension in different ways, or that they had no effect or a negative effect on the reading comprehension of native and foreign language readers. In order to explore the effects of conjunctions on the reading comprehension of university students for whom English was a foreign language (i. e. 4 `h year English department students in two Libyan universities) an intervention programme was designed. This programme involved the application of pre-post tests and only post-test of reading comprehension. The first experiment was organised in the Gharian English Department and the second took place in the Sabrata English Department. The participants were divided into comparative/control and treatment/intervention groups. The treatment group was explicitly taught conjunctions for three months. The comparative groups were taught their current traditional syllabus. The rationale behind having two different types of experiments in two English departmentsis the recommendatioonf Bryman( 1989)a nd otherm ethodologisttso be cautious of the possible negative effect of pre-testing. There is a possibility that the participants who attend the pre-test could benefit from this experience when they answer the same questions in the post-test, especially if the interval between the tests is short. By organising two experiments enough data were available for the study even if a negative effect from the pre- and the post-test experiment was discovered. That was followed by interviewing the participants of the treatment groups and asking them about the strategies they had used in answering the reading comprehension test. By organising semi-structured interviews, the researcher was able to explore the extent to which the participants had used their understanding of conjunctions to facilitate reading comprehension. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse the collected data. T-tests were conducted to find out if there were any significant differences between the means of the treatment group, and the comparative groups' pre and post-tests results. The results revealed that all of the conjunctive types investigated facilitated the reading comprehension of the fourth year English students in the two Libyan university English departments. However, it was found that some conjunctive types were more facilitative of reading comprehension than others. The pedagogical implications of the findings for the teaching of reading in Libyan universities and beyond are discussed.