General English: Strategies that Worked Practically in Teaching Reading Comprehension Skill to the Students of Diploma
Creators: name: Nehal Ahmad
Publisher: name: gjrpublication
Year: 2024

description: The present study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of reading strategies of reading comprehension of the Diploma students who enrolled to study General English-1 and General English-2 and ESP (English for Specific purposes) at the College of Science and Arts, Alnamas, University of Bisha. Today’s class scenario is quite pathetic in the sense that the language instructors stressed more on assessing students’ reading comprehension rather than teaching them how to comprehend better.

The craze as well as trend for learning English has been growing day by day due to many reasons. English as a foreign language learning plays an important role in the global era since it is a lingua franca as well as an essential tool for communication. It is required for further studies, seeking for knowledge, career, understanding the culture and worldwide vision. Moreover, it is related to the job opportunities. In general everyone perceives it as an essential foreign language to learn. It is now sine qua non in our each and every sphere of life. Foreign language study broadens students’ vision and enables them to communicate with foreigners appropriately and confidently. It is quite essential in understanding the scientific literature available in the language. The beginner students who have good reading ability will definitely strive for success progress in their careers. For those who study English as a second/foreign language, ability in English reading comprehension is a must. The students in the beginning need reading comprehension to be able to continually increase their knowledge and complete understanding of a given text.

In this fast technological and global era, the teaching and learning of English as a foreign language should be looked upon as its most valuable resource in the national growth. English is now a lingua franca in the entire world and is a connecting language in one way or other way. Reading comprehension skill in general has been a quite challenging task before the language instructors since time immemorial. Consequently in a monolingual country like Saudi Arabia, the teaching of this specific skill has also been a bone contention and debatable among scholars and language instructors. The complexities in teaching reading comprehension skill of English language initiated healthy discussions in the past as well as at present too. The main objective of the present observation based study is to look upon the lacunae in teaching and learning and some of the pre-requisites and to provide accordingly effective reading comprehension skill strategies that can be taken into consideration during the course of teaching. It is hoped that the present study based on the observations in a practical class room situations will guide and assist the foreign language instructors to overcome the drawbacks in teaching as well in learning this particular skill. As a result, it would ensure the good functioning of the ongoing diploma program in our educational institutions.