The Effects of Literary and Non-literary Texts on the Reading Comprehension, Vocabulary Knowledge and Attitude towards Reading of EFL Students (Methods of Teaching EFL)

Abstract

Reading is of great importance for those who learn language, as it develops language vocabulary and culture. A current trend now is to make reading an independent lesson to give students the chance to study different subjects in different fields. The main goal in the classroom is to let students read literature using the suitable literary strategies. Reading here does not mean to gain knowledge only, but to infer, to evaluate, interpret, connect the familiar with the unfamiliar, and also to analyse. It is difficult to separate language and the culture. Historical, social and cultural backgrounds are an essential part in learning foreign languages. Literature gives a clear image of the life and culture of its people. The subject of reading should be of high interest and relate well to the background of the reader, since strong semantic input can help compensate when syntactic control is weak. The interest and background knowledge will enable the student to comprehend at a reasonable rate and keep him involved in the material in spite of its syntactic difficulty.