The Efficiency of Using KWL Strategy in Teaching Arabic for Speakers of Other Languages

Abstract

KWL strategy is an abbreviation for what students know, what they want to know and what they learned. It is an educational technique used to improve the comprehension of reading skill through connecting the previous knowledge of the students with what s/he learned. Students start to think about what they know then they start to think of what they want to learn or discover and finally they actively learn new things about the topic.
This study aims at assessing the efficiency of KWL strategy in improving the skills of reading comprehension for the students of the second level in the division of Arabic for speakers of other languages/Language Centre in Jordan University.
To achieve the objective of the study, the researcher applied the empirical method on a sample that contains one group for three semesters. The sample consists of (65) students.
By using the Independent Samples Test, the study revealed that teaching reading skill based on KWL strategy has a positive influence on students. Students got higher marks in the test held after teaching based on this method unlike when they were studying reading skill based on the traditional methods. This means that teaching reading based on KWL strategy enhances the ability of students to learn the reading skill in Arabic better as a second language.