Effect of Collaborative Learning Strategy on EFL Students' Skimming, Scanning and Questioning Abilities

Abstract

This paper examines how collaborative learning strategy (CLS) impacts Saudi University EFL students’ reading comprehension, especially their skimming, scanning and questioning abilities in order to determine the effect of CLS in improving reading strategies. This 14-week study employed a quasi-experimental method to collect data through the pre-test, the post-test, and the semi-structured interview. The participants were 30 students divided into the control group and the experimental group of 15 students each. The quantitative data were analysed using t-test as inferential statistic, and the qualitative data were analysed using thematic transcription. Findings from the t-test analysis revealed that the experimental group outperformed the control group in terms of reading skills under collaborative learning approach. The study will play a significant role in determining the impact of CLS on 30 EFL learners from monolingual backgrounds when they worked collaboratively in a classroom as an experimental group and a controlled group of 15 participants each. The research findings will be helpful in foregrounding the problems of reading strategy of monolingual EFL learners, facilitating thereby the designing of a more effective reading pedagogy to hone EFL, TOEFL, ELETLS reading skills.