Enhancing EFL Freshman Students’ Reading Skills

Two groups of freshman students participated in the study. The pre-test scores showed no significant differences between both groups in their reading skills. Then, both groups studied the same reading textbook, and completed the same lessons and exercises in that textbook. In addition, the experimental group used an online course with Nicenet (www.nicenet.org). They accessed the Nicenet reading course from home. Every week, reading websites (hyperlinks) related to the reading skills covered in class were added in “Link Sharing”. The links contained short stories, world newspapers, an ESL students’ magazine, reading comprehension, main idea, recognizing details, and guessing meaning from context examples and exercises. The students checked the specific reading links posted, answered the reading quizzes and did the exercises. 30% of the websites were posted by the students. Questions that required the students to write a paragraph about themes similar to those read in class were posted in the “Conferencing” area. The discussion threads also covered paragraphs written by the students on themes of their choice. Exercises that required the students to find the main idea, identify details, recognize the pattern of organization, guess word meaning from context, and understand idioms and phrasal verbs were posted. In addition, reading study guides and strategies help with reading problems, test anxiety and factors that lead to success were also posted in the “conferencing” or “Documents” areas of the course. Comparisons of the post-test mean scores showed significant differences between the experimental and control groups. Results showed that in learning environments where technology is unavailable to EFL students and instructors, use of online activities helped motivate and enhance EFL freshman students' reading skills.