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Journal of Language & Education Volume 8, Issue 1, 2022 Aghazadeh, Z., Mohammadi, M., & Sarkhosh, M. (2022). Oral and Written
Summarizing Strategy Training and Reading Comprehension: Peer-Mediated Recive<i. Jul22,2020 vs. Individualistic Task Performance. Journal of Language and Education, 8(1),
Accepted:Mar U,2022 11-22. https://doi.org/10.17323/jle.2022.11157
Published: Mar 31,2022
Oral and Written Summarizing Strategy Training and Reading Comprehension: Peer-Mediated vs. Individualistic Task
Performance
Zahra Aghazadeh , Mohammad Mohammadi , Mehdi Sarkhosh
Urmia University
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Zahra Aghazadeh, Urmia University, Urmia, Iran. E-mail: zahra.aghazadeh.zm@gmail.com
Background: Drawing upon Socio-Cultural Theory (SCT), this study inspected the impact of spoken and written summary training on intermediate EFL students' long-term reading comprehension in individual and peer-mediated conditions.
Method: 120 Iranian EFL intermediate male and female learners aged 16 to 18 years were randomly assigned into two main conditions (i.e., individual and peer-mediated). Moreover, each condition was divided into spoken, written, and no summary groups. The treatment lasted for six sessions, and then a delayed post-test, summarization scale, and a researcher-developed collaboration scale were administered at the end of the study.
Results: The outcomes of one-way ANOVA revealed that summary training was efficacious in improving EFL students' reading skills. However, the verbal summary group exceeded the written and control groups. In addition, the findings of the independent-samples t-test demonstrated that the learners' reading skills in peer-mediated groups significantly improved in the delayed post-test compared to their counterparts. Similarly, the findings emerging from the analysis of the questionnaires highlighted both instructors' and the students' positive perceptions on summarizing strategies and collaboration in the classrooms.
Implication: The implications are presented concerning the effectiveness of summary training and peer-mediation in EFL reading courses.
Keywords: peer-mediation, perception, reading skill, socio-cultural theory, summarizing strategy training
Introduction
Collaborative learning has its roots in Vygotsky's Socio-Cultural Theory (SCT), which regards learning as a social activity based on an interaction between the learner and a context (Lantolf & Thorne, 2007). Mediation, the most fundamental theme in SCT, highlights that in performing tasks, the instructors or more knowledgeable peers ought to support or provide scaffolding to the less competent learners to help them move toward the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) elucidated by Vygotsky (1978) as the gap between learners' independent performance and when guided by more capable peers. A significant educational consequence of ZPD is its focus on interaction in learning and teaching contexts. As a corollary, one way to promote social interaction in the classroom is to engage learners in collaborative pair or group works (e.g., Nassaji & Tian, 2010; Swain, 2010).
Based on the social constructivist view, the primary origin of cognitive tasks is the external tasks. Once people interact, their cognitive processes are activated, which take place on the inner-psychological or social module and encompass both mental and language development. Differently stated, external tasks are converted into mental activities by internalization processes (Fahim & Haghani, 2012). With regard to second language (L2) education, this implies that students build knowledge first cooperatively as a shared task, and after that, they turn it into a mental one via internalization processes. This co-construction of information involves students in cognitive development that could be an essential avenue for L2 acquisition (Swain & Lapkin, 2002).
As it is axiomatic, collaborative learning, as a learner-centered method, is backed by Input, Output, and Interaction hypotheses. In cooperative learning classrooms, since the group members' language levels are approximately equal, the input the learners
Research Article
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receive from each other is comprehensible, learners' output is increased due to decreased teacher talk. Consequently, negotiation and interactional adjustments augment meaningful interaction among learners, contributing to linguistic and cognitive developments (Jacobs & Renandya, 2019). Another most outstanding theory to which cooperative learning clings is Social Interdependence Theory, which affirms that learners should be accountable for their and others' learning, and gradually proceed from other-regulation to self-regulation (i.e., autonomous learning), which is the most cherished conviction in collaborative learning (Veldman et al., 2020).
Research on language learning strategies has recently gained popularity (e.g., Chamot & Harris, 2019; Oxford & Amerstorfer, 2018; Thomas & Rose, 2019; Zhang et al., 2019). Thereby, using strategies is one of the prominent parts of reading instruction, leading to better comprehension (Oxford, 2017). Anderson (1991) suggested that reading strategies are a learner's various techniques to accomplish effective reading comprehension. Successful readers are equipped with a myriad of strategies and know how to utilize them effectively (Milla & Gutierrez-Mangado, 2019). Summarizing is a strategy that relates reading to speaking or writing; moreover, it is a top-down process that can attract students' attention who enjoy an analytical bottom-up approach (Nuttall, 1996). As Ozdemir (2018) has remarked, summarization indicates the degree of reading comprehension and needs to be incorporated in all reading studies. Moreover, researchers have demonstrated that summarizing is a complicated cognitive skill that nurtures and flourishes in the long run (e.g., Brown & Day, 1983; Johns & Mayes, 1990; Winograd, 1984).
Earlier investigations document that learners can be trained in summarizing (e.g., Cheng & Su, 2012; McDonough et al., 2014; Yasuda, 2015). In the first language (L1) context, Rinehart et al. (1986) explored the influence of summary instruction on 70 learners' L1 reading and studying behaviour. The participants were trained in summarizing and then were requested to respond to comprehension questions. The findings revealed that the instruction improved learners' recall of more critical ideas in the passages and enhanced the study time. Furthermore, Bean and Steenwyk (1984) studied how summary instruction influenced the L1 reading skill of learners. The experimental groups that received training in summarizing in L1 outperformed the control group in the comprehension test. These investigations explored the association between reading skills and summarization in the L1 context. Nevertheless, they neglect to consider the impact of summarization instruction, particularly oral
summarization, on reading comprehension regularly and over time, which is an issue that the present research examines.
It is also worth mentioning that reading remains problematic for most EFL students (Gorusch & Taguchi, 2010; Mehrpour & Rahimi, 2010), particularly Iranian EFL learners (Karbalaei, 2011), due to the predominance of the traditional reading method (Memari Hanjani & Li, 2017). Collaborative learning is not applied, and the educational system is oriented toward competitive and individualistic learning (Memari Hanjani & Li, 2017). Teachers curb learners' active roles in reading and their opportunities to interact with one another (Rocca, 2010; Zou, 2011). Admittedly, teachers' lack of time to encourage learners to write or tell the summaries of the texts and learners' negative attitude toward writing are the principal reasons for this unsatisfactory situation in the Iranian EFL educational settings, which impedes instructors from moving learners toward employing effective strategies to help learners comprehend the texts (Zoghi, Mustafa, & Maasum, 2010). Moreover, Gow and Kember (1990) believe that collaborative learning techniques cannot be applied in Eastern and Asian contexts since the students are assumed to be more passive in these contexts. Hence, more inquiry seems necessary in this realm to obtain more accurate results in non-Western countries. Besides, as van Rijk et al. (2017) declared, while a substantial number of studies have concentrated on sociocultural theory (SCT) in practice, it has not been perspicuously addressed in reading research.
Very few attempts have been made to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the efficacy of summary writing (e.g., Huang, 2014; Marzec-Stawiarska, 2016; McDonough et al., 2014; Mokeddem & Houcine, 2016), and also the effectiveness of collaboration in reading courses (e.g., Duxbury & Tsai, 2010; Fan, 2010; Khan, 2008; Pan & Wu, 2013), and if investigated at all, most have been done in Taiwanese and Thai EFL university contexts. In the Iranian EFL context, some studies (e.g., Khaki, 2014; Khoshsima & Tiyar, 2014; Yousefvand, 2013; Zafarani & Kabgani, 2014) concentrated merely on the efficacy of summary writing on learners' reading comprehension. Nonetheless, the above-mentioned studies did not delve beneath the effects of oral summarizing strategy training; therefore, the number of studies evaluating the benefits of summarizing strategy training in the spoken discourse is meager compared to the research assessing the advantages of summary writing. It is noteworthy to mention that the aforementioned studies have not employed a socio-cultural theoretical perspective that underlines the
prominence of social interactions in learning and development, which is thoroughly pertinent to the ultimate focus of this paper.
Indeed, the current query pinpoints written and spoken summarizing strategy instruction in which peer-mediation is central in the class based on the SCT model of language learning, and to the best of our knowledge, no such exploration has hitherto been carried out to delve beneath this particular issue. Another impetus for conducting this research is that less attention has been paid to uncover what happens in both pair and individual conditions in the Iranian EFL context and delineate its effectiveness on EFL students' reading skills in the long run. Focusing on the long-term influence of collaboration on students' reading comprehension provides another justification for its novelty. To recapitulate, the eminence of the study lies in the fact that no study before has appraised various summarizing strategies (i.e., verbal and written) under different conditions, including individual and collaborative, as well as the views teachers and learners hold toward summarizing strategies and collaboration all in one study. Although learners' and teachers' attitudes toward summarizing strategy and collaboration are regarded as overriding constructs in L2 reading, the fact is that their perceptions have remained relatively unexplored in the Iranian context. To this end, it is desirable to carry out surveys to obtain an in-depth comprehension of (1) what students are expecting of their teachers, (2) what beliefs they hold toward collaboration and summarizing, and (3) their application in EFL classes to account for how they approach L2 reading. Thereupon research into learners' and teachers' beliefs can enrich our understanding of collaboration and summarizing strategies. This is a virgin and pristine territory upon which more studies are needed. Hence, the research questions that guided data collection are as follows:
1. Is there a significant difference among patterns of summarizing strategy training regarding their delayed impact on EFL students' reading skills in individual conditions?
2. Is there a significant difference among patterns of summarizing strategy training regarding their delayed impact on EFL students' reading skill in collaborative conditions?
3. Is there a significant difference between collaborative and individual approaches regarding delayed effects on EFL students' reading skill?
4. What are EFL teachers' and students'
perceptions toward summarizing strategies?
5. What are EFL teachers' and students' perceptions toward collaboration?
Correspondingly, the following research hypotheses were formulated:
HO1: There was no significant difference among patterns of summarizing strategy training (oral, written, and control group) in terms of their delayed effect on intermediate EFL learners' reading comprehension in the individual condition. HO2: There was no significant difference among patterns of summarizing strategy training (oral, written, and control group) in terms of their delayed effect on intermediate EFL learners' reading comprehension in collaborative conditions. HO3: There was no significant difference between collaborative and individual conditions in terms of delayed effects on intermediate EFL learners' reading comprehension.
Method
Design
The current examination employed an experimental Pretest-Posttest Design, in which a pretest was conducted to ensure the comparability of the control group and experimental groups before the treatment. Then, the experimental groups received the treatment, and the control group proceeded with the default instruction. Finally, a post-test was administered to measure the extent to which the treatment was effective. Likewise, two questionnaires were used to measure the teachers' and learners' attitudes toward summarizing strategy and collaboration.
Participants
Through Preliminary English Test (PET), 120 homogenous intermediate EFL male and female learners out of the pool of 150 whose scores fell one standard deviation above and below the mean at Shokouh English Institute (SEI) in Salmas, Iran, were selected. Attendees had at least three years of EFL learning experience, aged between 16-18 years old, and spoke Turkish and Kurdish. They were randomly assigned into two core categories: peer-mediated (N= 60) and individual (N= 60). Moreover, each category was divided into three subcategories receiving different types of summarizing strategy training (i.e., verbal, written, and no summary). In addition to the students, ten teachers with at least six years of
experience participated in the study. Threats to internal validity were eliminated since the participants in this examination did not have any experience in summary writing and oral summary since there was no requirement to tell and write summaries in the institute and the secondary school curriculum. In addition, none of the attendees had participated in collaborative learning activities before.
Instruments
In order to explore whether the utilized scales in data collection were appropriate ones, reliability was needed to be investigated. Thereby, the internal consistency of the instruments was calculated by applying Cronbach's alpha coefficient.
Proficiency Test
PET was implemented as a proficiency test which included 67 items, that is, listening (25 items), writing (7 items), and reading (35 items). The test enjoyed a good level of reliability (a = 0.81). The scoring followed a binary criterion, with an incorrect response getting zero and the correct response receiving 1 point. The researchers scored the test.
Pre-test and Delayed Post-test
The researchers employed First Certificate in English (FCE) reading test to determine the participants' reading ability. The test contained 34 items with four reading tasks, including matching headings to paragraphs, answering multiple-choice items, choosing which sentence fits into gaps in a text, and deciding which short texts contain the given information. Before administering the test to the principal population of the study, the researchers piloted the test with a sample similar to the key population and estimated its reliability using a-Cronbach, which was 0.79. These tests were subjected to the same scoring procedure utilized in the PET test (i.e., correct response one score; incorrect response zero scores), and the researcher scored them. Basically, the researchers used the test to ensure that the participants' reading ability was not different from each other. Afterward, the same test was executed in the delayed post-test stage to look into the effect of treatments. It needs to be noted that the researchers applied the same test twice to ensure comparability regarding the difficulty of the comprehension questions and enhance the reliability of the results. Even though using the same test twice could make the learners learn from the test, to eliminate the practice effect, the answers of the pretest were not discussed with the learners. Besides, to remove the memory effect, the delayed post-test was conducted a month later.
Questionnaires
The questionnaires encompassed an introductory section, a demographic characteristics section, and the main section. In the introduction, confidentiality, anonymity, and voluntary participation were clarified. The next section was an inquiry into the participants' data, including gender, age, educational level, and teaching experience (this option was included only in the teachers' questionnaire). The main section of the summarizing strategy questionnaire was adopted from the questionnaire designed by Nguyen and Nguyen (2017) and contained ten statements. Based on a-Cronbach, the credibility of learner and teacher questionnaires was 0.81 and 0.83, respectively. The main section of the collaboration questionnaire was designed according to the conceptual underpinnings of SCT and comprised eight statements. Based on a-Cronbach, the credibility of learner and teacher questionnaires was 0.83 and 0.80, respectively. Both scales were developed on a five-point Likert scale, whose responses varied from Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree. Moreover, the questionnaires were piloted with a group of English teachers and learners representative of the main participants and checked against the content validity by several EFL professors from the English department of Urmia University. Having ensured that the questionnaires possess appropriate qualities for use in the study, we administered them in the primary research.
Reading Passages
The participants in this study read, prepared, wrote, and told summaries of the texts selected from the intermediate Select Readings textbook, Second Edition. The researchers selected the same texts for all the groups. Therefore, five intermediate-level texts were chosen for reading purposes. Every session, only one reading passage was studied in the class, and the students wrote and told their summaries in collaborative and individual conditions.
Procedure
As stated earlier, the researchers utilized the PET test to select 120 intermediate homogeneous students. Subsequently, the candidates were randomly assigned into two dominant conditions (i.e., peer-mediated and individual). The learners in each condition were randomly assigned into verbal and written experimental groups and one control group. FCE reading test was carried out as a pre-test among all the attendees.
All the groups pursued the same curriculum, discussed the same topics, read the same books, and received identical pre-reading activities. Notwithstanding,
during the treatment, participants in the experimental groups (both verbal and written) received training on summarizing strategies expounded by Brown and Day (1983). This instruction entails identifying the topic sentences and main ideas of the paragraphs and writing them in their own words, removing redundant and repeated information, eliminating unimportant details, recognizing supporting sentences and paraphrasing them, generalizing the statements, relating new ideas mentioned in the text with their schematic knowledge, making connections among ideas integrated into the reading text, changing the order of the ideas, and using proper linking words to produce coherent texts. The teachers defined one step in each session, showed examples of that strategy, and provided learners with sufficient time to prepare their summaries. The students in the first experimental group got engaged in written summarizing. In the post-reading phase, the teachers asked the students in the individual group to jot down the summaries of the passages individually in the class, and the collaborative group wrote the summaries in pairs in the class each session and handed them to the teachers. The attendees in the second experimental group got engaged in verbal summarizing, which was audio-recorded using a smartphone. On the one hand, students were requested to prepare a verbal summary individually in the individual group and collaboratively in the collaborative group. On the other hand, the control groups followed the procedures used in the other groups for pre-reading, reading, and post-reading without any treatment. In other words, the control groups did not receive any particular instructions in summarizing strategies, and the teacher read and explained the passages sentence by sentence. The time of the instruction was equal among the groups. The treatment lasted six sessions (2 hours each session), and the delayed post-test was administered after a month. Finally, to perceive the teachers' and learners' points of view toward summarizing strategies and collaboration, the researchers asked the participants to fill out the questionnaires, except for the control groups.
Data Analysis
In order to test the hypotheses of the study, the researcher carried out some quantitative data analyses. The researcher used Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS), version 20, to analyze the relevant quantitative data. The level of significance was set at 0.05. Preliminary analyses were conducted to ensure no violation of the assumptions of parametric tests, such as the normal distribution of the data. To satisfy this assumption, the most commonly used test of normality, Kolmogorov-
Smirnov statistic, was performed in the current study.
Having met the assumptions of parametric tests, we carried out a series of one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) tests in the pre-test to establish homogeneity across the participants in both groups (i.e., peer-mediated and individual), and also in the delayed post-test to discover the possible influences of various treatment patterns. Furthermore, post hoc comparisons using the Tukey HSD test were conducted in the delayed post-test stages to detect where the difference among the pairs existed. Correspondingly, an independent-samples t-test was run to analyze the variation between the collaborative and individual approaches in the delayed post-test. Finally, the researchers examined the items of the questionnaires in terms of their percentage to realize what the teachers' and learners' points of view toward summarizing strategy and collaboration were.
Results
The analyses of data are reported according to the research questions. First, the normality of the participants' scores using a One-Sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was calculated in pre-tests for individual and collaborative conditions. The results of the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test indicated that the samples were normally distributed in both individual (i.e., p=.55> .05) and collaborative conditions (i.e., p=.78> .05).
Results for the First Research Question
Quantitative Data Analysis for Individual Condition at Pre-test
Descriptive statistics demonstrates that the mean score and standard deviation of the reading pre-test in oral summarizing group are (M = 73.50, SD = 3.316), in written summarizing group are (M = 72.25, SD = 3.126), and in control group are (M = 73.60, SD = 3.393) in individual condition. According to the mean scores, there was no notable difference among the three groups in the pre-test, and ANOVA was employed to verify the candidates' homogeneity at pre-test (see Table 1). As can be seen from Table 1, there were no notable variations (F = 1.05, p = .35>.05) among the three groups at pre-test.
Quantitative Data Analysis for Individual Condition at Delayed Post-test
Based on the results of the descriptive statistics, the mean score and standard deviation of the delayed reading post-test in oral summarizing group are (M = 85.42, SD = 8.662), in written summarizing group
are (M = 83.31, SD = 10.190), and in control group are (M = 62.67, SD = 16.351) in individual condition. The mean scores indicated differences among the groups in the individual condition in delayed post-test. Table 2 exhibits ANOVA outcomes indicating the differences among the learners in individual approaches in the delayed post-test.
The outcomes intimated statistically outstanding variations (F = 23.36, p = 0.00<0.05) with a large effect size ( = .42 > .13,= .40 > .13) among three groups at the delayed post-test, that is, the verbal summary group surpassed the written summary and control groups. To denote the precise spots of variation among the groups, Tukey post-hoc was employed (see Table 3).
Tukey HSD test outcomes represented an increase in the students' reading comprehension from pre-test to delayed post-test in spoken and written summary groups. Nonetheless, in the verbal summary group, the increase was higher. Results for the Second Research Question
Quantitative Data Analysis for Collaborative Condition in Pre-test
As descriptive statistics indicate, the mean score and standard deviation of the reading pre-test are M = 71.55, SD = 3.425 in the oral summarizing group, M =
Table 1
71.45, SD = 3.590 in the written summarizing group, and M = 72.75, SD = 2.935 in the control groups. In addition to descriptive statistics, a one-way ANOVA was used to explain the participants' homogeneity in the pre-test. The outcome is illustrated in Table 4.
As Table 4 depicts, no difference (F = .94, p = 0.39>0.05) was obtained for three groups at pre-test.
Quantitative Data Analysis for Collaborative Condition in Delayed Post-test
According to the descriptive statistics, the mean score and standard deviation of the delayed reading posttest are M = 85.42, SD = 8.662 in the oral summarizing group, M = 76.87, SD = 10.155 in the written summarizing group, and M = 44.16, SD = 11.905 in the control group. The mean scores demonstrated variations among the collaborative groups in delayed post-test. Table 5 specifies ANOVA outcomes manifesting the differences among the learners in the collaborative category in delayed post-test.
The outcomes (F = 65.99, p = 0.00<0.05) with a large effect size ( = .67 > .13,= .66 > .13) were in favour of the spoken summary group that performed better than the written summary and control groups. To display the precise spots of variation among the groups, Tukey post-hoc was deployed (see Table 6).
ANOVA Results of Homogeneity Measures of Learners in Individual Category (Pre-test)
Sum of Squares Df Mean Square F Sig.
Between Groups 22.633 2 11.317 1.051 .356
Within Groups 613.550 57 10.764
Total 636.183 59
Table 2
ANOVA Results for Learners in Individual Category (Delayed Post-test)
Sum of Squares Df Mean Square F Sig.
Between Groups 6951.346 2 3475.673 23.365 .00
Within Groups 9371.747 63 148.758
Total 16323.093 65
Table 3
Tukey HSD for Learners in Individual Category (Delayed Post-test)
95% Confidence Interval
(I) Type (J) Type Mean Difference (I-J) Std. Error Sig. Lower Upper
Spoken Summary Written Summary No Summary -20.64182* -22.74636* 3.67742 3.67742 .000 .000 -29.4688 -31.5734 -11.8148 -13.9193
Written Summary Spoken Summary No Summary 20.64182* -2.10455 3.67742 3.67742 .000 .835 11.8148 -10.9316 29.4688 6.7225
No Summary Spoken Summary Written Summary 22.74636* 2.10455 3.67742 3.67742 .000 .835 13.9193 -6.7225 31.5734 10.9316
Note: * The mean difference is significant at the 0.05 level.
Tukey HSD test outcomes manifested that there was an increase in the students' reading comprehension from pre-test to delayed post-test in verbal as well as written summary groups; yet in spoken summary group, the increase was higher.
Results for the Third Research Question
Quantitative results of the difference between Individual and Collaborative Conditions in Delayed Post-test
As descriptive statistics reveal, the mean score and standard deviation are M = 77.13, SD = 15.84 for the collaborative condition and M = 61.73, SD = 20.88 for the individual condition. Based on the mean scores, there was a significant difference between the two conditions; therefore, to ascertain the possible variation between the learners' scores in collaborative and individual categories at delayed post-test, the researchers used independent-samples t-test the outcomes of which are illustrated in Table 7.
There was a considerable variation in learners' scores for collaborative condition (M=77.13, SD=15.84) and individual condition [M=61.73, SD=20.88; t (78) =4.77, p=.00 < .05], with a large effect size ( = .22 > .13), i.e., the collaborative group outperformed the individual condition.
Results for the Fourth Research Question
Regarding their perspectives toward summarizing strategies, the students believed that they had problems in summarizing (60%). They stated that they adored summarizing texts (85%), though summarizing texts was far from easy (85%). Most of them disagreed that writing or telling a summary is a squandering of time (92%) and believed it is imperative to learn summary writing or telling strategy (95%). They concurred that it is better to teach summary telling or writing strategy explicitly (95%). They protested that writing or telling a long summary is better than writing or telling a summary (95%). Additionally, they disagreed that it is good to write or tell more in detail in summary (85%). In addition, they believed that the most cumbersome step in summary writing or telling is generating ideas (85%), and it is better to rehearse summary telling or to write more in class (100%). In sum, they had a positive attitude toward summarizing strategies.
Considering the teachers' attitudes toward summarizing strategies, the teachers were skeptical that students knew how to summarize a text very well (80%). They stated that students cherished summarizing texts (75%), and in their opinion, this task was not simple for the students (80%). They all objected that writing or telling a summary is a waste
Table 4
ANOVA Results of Homogeneity Measures of Learners in Collaborative Category (Pre-test)
Sum of Squares Df
Mean Square
Sig.
Between Groups Within Groups Total
20.933 631.650 652.583
2
57 59
10.467 11.082
.945
.395
Table 5
ANOVA Results for Learners in Collaborative Category (Delayed Post-test)
Sum of Squares Df Mean Square F
Sig.
Between Groups Within Groups Total
19643.986 9375.805 29019.792
2
63 65
9821.993 148.822
65.998
.00
Table 6
Tukey HSD for Learners in Collaborative Category (Delayed Post-test)
(I) Type (J) Type Mean Difference Std. Error Sig. 95% Confidence Interval
(I-J) Lower Upper
Spoken Summary Written Summary No Summary -12.70773* -41.25727* 3.67822 3.67822 .003 .000 -21.5367 -50.0862 -3.8788 -32.4283
Written Summary Spoken Summary No Summary 12.70773* -28.54955* 3.67822 3.67822 .003 .000 3.8788 -37.3785 21.5367 -19.7206
No Summary Spoken Summary Written Summary 41.25727* 28.54955* 3.67822 3.67822 .000 .000 32.4283 19.7206 50.0862 37.3785
Note: * The mean difference is significant at the 0.05 level.
F
Table 7
Independent-Samples T-test for Collaborative versus Individual Approaches (Delayed Post-test)
Levene's Test for Equality of Variances t-test for Equality of Means
F Sig. T Df Sig. (2-tailed) Mean Difference Std. Error Difference 95% Confidence Interval of the Difference LowerUpper
Equal variances assumed 7.92 .00 4.77 78 .00 15.409 3.2267 9.02521.79
Equal variances not assumed 4.77 78 .00 15.409 3.2267 9.021 21.79
of time for students (100%). Besides, it is crucial to teach summary writing or telling strategies in the class (100%). They conceded that it is prudent to explicitly teach summary writing or telling strategy (100%). However, they did not condone that writing or telling a long summary is better than writing or telling a shorter one (95%). Moreover, they believed that writing or telling more in detail in a summary is not a good idea (90%). Further, in their opinion, the most challenging step in summary writing or telling is generating ideas (95%), and learners had better practice summary telling or writing more in class (100%). To put it in a nutshell, most of the teachers had a positive conception toward summarizing strategies and their instruction in the classroom.
other and improved more (95%). A vast majority of them agreed that collaboration was very beneficial because students could correct each other (90%) and believed that they could learn more when they worked with a friend (80%). They agreed that students cherished working with a friend as they could express their ideas freely (98%). They agreed that collaboration was highly favored since it lowered students' anxiety and facilitated learning (100%). Plus, they agreed that collaboration helped students share ideas and learn from each other (90%). In précis, the majority of the teachers had a positive attitude toward collaboration.
Discussion
Results for the Fifth Research Question
Concerning learners' perceptions toward collaboration, the students preferred to work in tandem with friends because they could learn from each other (80%). They confirmed that they liked collaboration as they could help each other more (90%). Besides, collaboration was regarded to be far better because they interacted with each other and progressed more (93%). Most of them concurred that collaboration was beneficial because they could rectify each other (95%) and believed that they could learn more when they worked with a friend (75%). They agreed with the statement that they liked working with a friend as much as they could express their ideas freely (95%). They stated that collaboration was very utilitarian because it reduced stress and facilitated learning (98%). Further, they concurred that collaboration assisted them to share ideas and learn from each other (85%). To cut a long story short, they looked through rose-coloured spectacles at collaboration.
With respect to teachers' attitudes toward collaboration, the teachers believed that students preferred to work with a friend because they could learn from each other (95%). They affirmed students enjoyed collaboration because they could help each other more (97%) and they deemed collaboration was a lot better because learners interacted with each
Borrowing insights from the Vygotskian social constructivist notion of learning, we attempted to scrutinize the possible long-term impact of spoken and written summarizing strategy training on developing EFL learners' reading skill in individual and peer-mediated groups. In this study, all the null hypotheses were rejected. The results revealed that verbal and written summarizing strategy training effectively ameliorated students' reading comprehension; nevertheless, the spoken summarizing group outperformed the other two groups (i.e., written and control) in the long run. In addition, collaborative groups excelled the individual ones over time. Both teachers and learners staunchly supported using collaboration and summarizing strategies in their classes. The results of the present investigation are in congruence with the previous explorations indicating remarkable effects of summary writing on students' reading skills (e.g., Huang, 2014; Khaki, 2014; Khoshsima & Tiyar, 2014; Marzec-Stawiarska, 2016; McDonough et al., 2014; Mokeddem & Houcine, 2016; Yousefvand, 2013; Zafarani & Kabgani, 2014). In line with the findings of the current study, Aghazadeh et al. (2019) found that summary training was a suitable and essential technique in enhancing students' reading ability. For this reason, teachers ought to integrate summarizing strategy into reading lessons because it can assist learners in improving their reading comprehension.
Additionally, the results emanating from this research study intimated that applying collaboration in reading courses can bring about learners' higher performance in reading comprehension, which buttresses other researchers' studies on collaboration and reading comprehension (e.g., Aghazadeh et al., 2019; Duxbury & Tsai, 2010; Fan, 2010; Khan, 2008; Pan & Wu, 2013). In the same vein, Kuiken and Vedder's (2002) research disclosed the fact that the collaboration in which students built texts as a shared task provided them the opportunity to communicate meaningfully, generate outstanding and accurate texts, and involved them in mental processes that could be used in L2 acquisition.According to the results of this study, despite Gow and Kembers' belief (1990), the countries located in Asia can benefit from cooperative learning techniques. Consequently, their idea about the passivity of Asian learners is refuted, and instead, horizons of hope have been shown to the teachers and researchers interested in the field. Besides, the outcomes of the present query are in accordance with those of Abramczyk and Jurkowski (2020) and Nguyen and Nguyen (2017) in that participants' answers to the items of the questionnaires showed their positive attitudes toward collaboration and summarizing strategies.
Our study has several practical and conceptual implications for practitioners and educators and sheds light on augmenting the students' reading skills. From a theoretical perspective, the results can be considered a step forward to substantiating the existing theories. A theory that has implications for the use of collaboration is SCT, which emphasizes supportive interpersonal learning. In other words, the results provide evidence in favor of Vygotsky's (1978) notion of ZPD, which incorporates real and possible levels of growth. Individuals' current development is established by independent problem solving; whereas, they will need adults' guidance or cooperation with more competent peers to reach the possible level of development.
Consequently, individuals develop both linguistically and cognitively when they interact with their peers and adults who provide them with assistance or scaffolding. In language classrooms, the assistance or scaffolding occurs as the students engage in collaborative pair or group works (e.g., Nassaji & Tian, 2010; Swain, 2010). Furthermore, the outcomes substantiate the claim put forward by Ellis (2008), who maintains that learners may internalize their way of performing tasks when more competent individuals assist them in this process. It is assumed that social interaction promotes the learning process. Supporting the current results, Fahim and Haghani (2012) state
that if a person would like to be an efficient language speaker, his/her commitment cannot lead to the mastery of the language without others' assistance.
In this study, the learners in the collaborative groups experienced a more relaxing atmosphere and more communication opportunities in the class and actively created written and spoken texts. As a result, they developed their reading comprehension skill more efficiently. Along the same lines, Nudee (2010) also found that cooperative learning creates a less threatening environment, boosts the amount of learner participation, and decreases competitiveness and the teacher's dominance. From a pedagogical vintage point, enhancing learners' reading comprehension ought to be perceived as one of the chief objectives of EFL teachers through the application of collaborative tasks in the long run. Students who work with other learners yield linguistically more accurate passages and statements than individual learners (Dobao, 2012). Moreover, learners need sufficient guidance to move from being contingent upon the teacher to reading independently. To accomplish this purpose, teachers should instruct summarizing strategies to the students, albeit time-consuming and cumbersome. In the same manner, teachers need to present the learners with ample and suitable chances to work on the target strategies collaboratively, and the aims and the virtues of group work should be enunciated clearly to the learners.
Since the provision of collaboration and summarizing strategy is a significant aspect of L2 reading, the current investigation can uncover the underlying perceptions that influence teachers' practices and assist in recognizing elements that can lead to the learners' reading comprehension more efficiently. The findings of the current research can be insightful for L2 educators in adapting collaboration and summarizing techniques to the needs of their students. Furthermore, insights gained from this study contribute to understanding learners' viewpoints toward collaboration and summarizing strategies since little learning will happen if there is a mismatch between the educators' and the learners' attitudes. We recommend instructors make their viewpoints more explicit to figure out their learners' perceptions and address the mismatches in their learners' perspectives.
The findings greatly benefit teachers who are unwilling to apply collaboration in their classes due to a lack of time and knowledge. In this way, as learners share and exchange knowledge, skills, and strategies, they can become more independent language learners. The findings can also inform
learners of the importance of learner autonomy and independence. It is implied that collaboration fosters interdependence, and as a consequence getting cognizant of the advantages of peer-mediation, more proficient learners can assist less capable partners through scaffolding and encourage them to maximize their self-reliance and accountability to build expertise independently. Teachers should revisit their techniques and adhere more strongly to implementing collaborative learning techniques. Teacher trainers should keep in mind that collaborative learning in pre-service and in-service programs lets the instructors consider students' viewpoints, culminating in a more practical classroom. Summarizing strategies and cooperation may be beneficial to policymakers and syllabus designers who are extremely worried about ameliorating learners' reading comprehension. This means that textbook designers are the most significant figures who should consider using summarizing strategies and collaborative learning techniques. They can design curriculum sections that incorporate summary writing and summary telling strategies and suggest collaborative learning. In the same vein, material developers can design and prepare materials that foster learners' collaboration. For instance, they can deploy task-oriented activities as almost novel learning and teaching tactics to develop EFL students' reading comprehension skills.
Conclusion
The overarching theme of the present study was to investigate the impact of spoken and written summary training on intermediate EFL students' long-term reading comprehension in individual and peermediated conditions. Moreover, teachers' and learners' perceptions toward summarizing strategies and collaboration were explored. The findings disclosed that verbal and written summarizing strategy training ameliorated students' reading comprehension. Nonetheless, the spoken summarizing group outperformed the other two groups (i.e., written and control), and the collaborative groups excelled the individual ones over time. Furthermore, both teachers and learners hold favorable views toward using summarizing strategies and collaboration in their classes. This study, akin to other research studies, is less than immaculate and has some drawbacks, and thus it is indispensable to interpret the findings of the study cautiously. As proficiency is a salient variable in language learning, it may affect the findings. Our results may likely be different in the case of other proficiency groups. Moreover, this study did not take into account gender in applying summarizing and collaboration
techniques. Eventually, it behooves future researchers to explore the role of gender in moderating the impact of cooperative learning on reading comprehension skills among EFL learners. In this research, the participants were selected from among language institute populations. Future researchers should examine the current topic with participants from other contexts, such as universities and high schools. Finally, future studies may look into the present issue by employing other data collection tools, including diaries, interviews, observations, think-aloud protocols, and other introspective and retrospective methods to yield more reliable findings.
Declaration of Competing Interest
None declared.
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