A Comparative Study of the Effect of Inter-lingual translation and intra-lingual translation (Elaboration) on Reading Comprehension of EFL pre-university students of high school

This study pursued a main purpose of identifying the efficacy of intralingual translation (elaborative techniques) over interlingual translation in boosting the comprehensibility of written texts for pre-university students of high school in Iran. In an attempt to ascertain the superiority of one over the other, a quasi-experimental study was conducted in the classroom context with intact groups. Two classes (groups) with similar English language proficiency were selected to be studied in a high school. Prior to study, a proficiency test (following validation process) was administered to check the homogeneity of the groups in terms of ability in reading in English as a foreign language. It was found that students enjoyed similar reading ability. For each group, a different instruction was presented; one group was allowed to make use of teacher’s explanations of grammatical as well as lexical problems in students’ mother language (Persian) while linguistic problems occurred during the reading activities, another group made use of teacher’s explanation in English. The teacher was to illustrate the linguistic difficulties through elaborative techniques of providing synonym, antonym, offering explanatory sentences, etc. Posttest conducted at the end of the sessions, following the treatment, showed that the group enjoying teacher’s elaboration in English outperformed the groups using directions and explanations of teacher in their mother language. The study suggests that on the spot use of elaborative techniques in English can provide sufficient context for the clarification of problematic items while reading a text in the classroom and can replace teacher’s overuse of Persian language in teaching English language.