Cooperative activities to improve reading comprehension in the EFL classroom.

Abstract

[eng] These last years have been marked by a steady decline in reading comprehension skills among Spanish students. Reading is often considered an ability already acquired in the learner´s mother tongue. As a result, teaching reading strategies in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classrooms has not been prioritized, this negligence having implications for students' overall language proficiency and academic performance. This thesis aims to explore the communicative and cooperative approaches to learners’ reading comprehension and critical thinking development. To that avail, a pre-task quantitative questionnaire has been conducted to learn about the reading strategies, interests and habits of a group of 1st and 2nd ESO students in IES Sineu. The data collected from this questionnaire provided valuable insights into the current learners’ reading practices and their literary preferences. Based on these findings, reading texts generated with Artificial Intelligence are offered to the students to increase their motivation to read in English. These reading texts are designed to be engaging and adapted to the learners’ proficiency levels. Furthermore, group activities are created to enhance reading skills through cooperative work. Finally, a post-task questionnaire has been administered to evaluate the effectiveness of the implemented activities and to gauge students' satisfaction in regard to the reading materials and exercises. The results from the follow-up questionnaire indicate the success of the interventions