The Role of Motivation through Cultural Awareness in Enhancing Reading Comprehension of ESP Learners
Abstract
Either motivation or culture are two key concepts in the field of second language learning. However, the incorporation of motivational and cultural aspects into curricula has been under investigated. To fill the existing gap, this study aimed to investigate the effects of motivation and cultural awareness raising based curriculum on Iranian ESP learners’ reading comprehension. To achieve these aims, 40 advanced adult participants were recruited and divided into 2 groups of experimental and control group. While the control group received the routine tradition curriculum, without any focus on cultural awareness and motivation, experimental group received a treatment which included a motivational and culturally based curriculum. The main instrument of the present study was a reading comprehension subtest of the 2006 institutional TOEFL Test which contained five passages. The findings revealed that motivation and cultural awareness raising based curriculum enhances participants reading comprehension. These findings have pedagogical implications for course designers and material developers.
Key words:
cultural awareness
ESP
motivation
reading comprehension
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1. INTRODUCTION
In his introduction to foreign language learning and teaching, Johnson (2017) rightly states that educators have entered a new millennium with exponential changes and opportunities in foreign and second language education. The author further states that, along similar lines, innovative teaching approaches have evolved and these new approaches have an enormous effect on language education. Moreover, reading comprehension is a vital component to the development of any language and literacy education.
As several researchers have found, reading comprehension is critically important for the development of first and second language learners’ reading proficiency and their ability to improve other language skills including writing, speaking, listening, and critical thinking (Alkhawaldeh 2011; Kouri and Telander 2008). Additionally, reading comprehension is considered a fundamental factor that contributes to the success of language and literacy programs (Hock and Mellard 2005; Reid and Lienemann 2006).
With this in mind, Grabe (2004: 192) states that “L1 [first language] and L2 [second language] reading abilities are similar enough in terms of cognitive processing skills that L2 researchers and practitioners can draw on-but not accept wholesale- L1 instructional results, and motivation and cultural awareness are critical for addressing this challenge”. Gambrell, Block and Pressley (2002) report that current research shows that educators must develop a motivational and awareness raising context for reading, provide appropriate reading texts, and teach research-based comprehension strategies in order to improve comprehension. Further, Gambrell, Block and Pressley (2002) reviewed research-based comprehension strategies and they concluded “that both qualitative and quantitative studies provide evidence that teaching comprehension strategies based on reading research benefits and increases students’ comprehension.
Therefore, among various strategies to promote EFL reading comprehension could be relying on using strategies that focus on motivational aspects (both Integrative-Instrumental) and awareness raising issues. For the purposes of this study, cultural awareness will mean "the awareness about ideas, customs, skills, arts, and tools that characterize a given group of people in a given period of time" (Brown 2007: 380). Regarding the concept of motivation, Dörnyei and Ushioda (2013: 292) state that integrative motivation is a kind of motivation “in which an activity is approached for the learning, enjoyment, or challenge inherent in engagement in the activity itself”. Moreover, they define instrumental motivation as a kind of motivation in which “engagement in the activity is motivated by external and instrumental concerns instead”.
Despite the importance of the role of motivation and cultural awareness, no research to date has been conducted in the context of Iran to investigate the effect of using motivational and cultural awareness raising strategies to improve EFL learners’ reading comprehension. Therefore, the present study aims to fill this gap in the literature.
If it is proved that different levels of motivation and cultural awareness have a significant effect on the learners’ RC, it will assist teachers and material developers to devise courses and teaching activities in ways that develop learners’ comprehension of the text respective to their motivational level, which in turn will result in their improvement of RC skills. Moreover, these results may be used to create more nurturing, creative, individualized and challenging classroom environments where teachers adopt multidimensional innovative, exciting and effective teaching approaches to their reading comprehension courses.
It is also hoped that the results of this study will (a) add in a significant way to the body of literature on foreign language reading comprehension; (b) make teachers of students aware of the motivation-related skills that these students have and need to be successful; (c) provide insight as to how educators can incorporate motivational and cultural awareness instructional strategies into the curriculum; and (d) provide an awareness to administrators of the need to integrate motivational skills into the general curriculum.
2. COMPREHENSION MODELS AND THEORIES
The process of reading English as a second language has been looked at over the past five decades (e.g., Eskey 1988; Plaister 1968; Rivers 1964; Yorio 1971). Second language reading comprehension process models and theories are greatly influenced by first language reading models or theories. It is consistently found that “the process is essentially the same whether reading English as the first or second language” (Peregoy and Boyle 2005: 266). Therefore, any examination of ESL/EFL reading process need to address theories, approaches and models that have been developed to explain L1 reading. Reading process theories will be described in the following section, followed by examples of L1 and L2 reading process models.
Before theories of L1 and L2 reading process are described, the history of reading process research will be briefly introduced. Current reading research has also supported the idea that both L1 and L2 readers seem to go through similar cognitive processes (Grabe 2004; Eskey 2005). These reading models have been influential in both L1 and L2 reading research and can be distinguished from one another by its focus regarding how meaning is attained from print. For instance, the bottom-up model indicates that the reading process is guided by each word in the text and a reader decodes each word to obtain meaning. In contrast to the bottom-up model, the top-down model specifies that the reading process is guided mostly by a reader’s past experience and prior knowledge. The interactive model points out that the reading process is guided by an interaction between the text information and the reader’s previous knowledge as well as interaction between various reading strategies (Brunning et al. 1999).
2.1. THE BOTTOM-UP MODEL
Bottom-up approach basically assumes that the process of reading starts at the lowest levels (Chun 2000) and “a reader constructs meaning from letters, words, phrases, clauses, and sentences by processing the text into phonemic units that represent lexical meaning, and then builds meaning in a linear manner” (Hudson 2007: 33). That is to say, readers first identify features of letters; link the features together to recognize letters; combines letters to recognize spelling patterns; link spelling patterns to recognize words; and then proceed to sentence-, paragraph-, and text-level processing (Vacca et al. 2006). Bottom-up approach is seen to be data-driven (Vacca et al. 2006) and to “correspond to the cognitive and information-processing psychological concerns” (Hudson 2007: 33). In this model, “words” are the basis for processing a reading text and comprehension occurs through word by word processing. Then, rapid word recognition is highly appreciated in this bottom-up processing model (vanDuzer 1999). This reading model believes that students who master this process quickly become proficient readers. However, students who are not successful at decoding become struggle readers whose proficiency is interrupted by their inability to decode. Pressley (2000) claimed, skilled decoders are able to recognize frequent letter chunks, prefixes, suffixes, and foreign root words rapidly and such ability can free more memory capacity in the brain for reading comprehension. In contrast, less skilled readers put more effort into decoding words which leaves less processing capacity in the brain for reading comprehension. This notion has also been confirmed by Breznitz (1997; cited in Pressley 2000) who concluded fast decoding improves reading comprehension. However, the bottom-up has been criticized since “bottom-up models suggest that all reading follows a mechanical pattern in which the reader creates a piece-by-piece mental translation of the information in the text, with little interference from the reader’s own background knowledge” (Grabe and Stoller 2002: 32).
In addition, this word-by-word decoding process causes slow and laborious reading because short-term memory is overloaded, and readers forget easily what they have read when reading comes to an end (Adams 1990). As a result, readers may only remember isolated facts without integrating them into a cohesive understanding. Without cohesive understanding, readers won’t evoke critical thinking. Without critical thinking, readers will lack the motivation to read on a regular basis. Therefore, the criticism of this model has been that it does not seem to consider the contribution of a reader’s active role and background knowledge to reading comprehension. In other words, the linear nature (letters→ words→ sentences) of this reading model limits the scope of the reading process or envision the reading process as a one-way makes it fail to notice the global or top-down processes (will explain in the next section) that take place during reading. Recognition of the limitations within the bottom-up model in explaining the reading process led to the emergence of the top-down reading model.
A growing body of research in L2 has supported the critical role of lower-level processing in reading comprehension (Eskey 2005; Koda 1992) and the lack of vocabulary “maybe the greatest single impediment to fluent reading by ESL readers” (Grabe 1991: 63). In a comprehensive review of L2 word-recognition research, Koda (1996) again stressed the very significant role of word recognition in L2 reading comprehension. What's more, in a study conducted the relationships between the role of higher-level syntactic and semantic processes and word recognition of 60 adult ESL learners in Canada, Nassaji (2003) found that lexical knowledge was strongly correlated with L2 reading comprehension. However, reading in a second language bears some knowledge specific to that culture and society. Therefore, although number of researchers and studies has emphasized the role of lexical knowledge in reading comprehension, some researchers maintain that vocabulary knowledge is a necessary, but insufficient condition for the outcome of successful reading comprehension (Koda 1996). In other words, in order for true comprehension of a text to occur, a reader needs to possess other source of knowledge (Bernhardt 1991; Carrell 1988) and develop appropriate reading strategies (Anderson 200).
2.2. THE TOP-DOWN MODEL
Top-down approach emphasizes that reading processing is triggered by readers’ experience in relation to the writer’s message and background knowledge of the topic. This approach assumes that the more the readers already know about the topic to be read, the less they need to use graphic information on the page (Smith 1985; Vacca et al. 2006). Contrast to bottom-up approach, top-down reading processing approach is seen as conceptually driven (Chun 2000; Vacca et al. 2006) and “generally more sympathetic with the psycholinguistic and sociological perspectives” (Hudson 2007: 33). As Eskey (2005: 564) proposes, the top-down model emphasizes that the whole reading process is basically “from brain to text”. That is to say, a reader starts with certain expectations about the reading text derived from his or her background knowledge and then uses his or her vocabulary knowledge they possess in decoding words to confirm and modify previous expectations (Aebersold and Field 1997). In other words, a reading text itself has no meaning in the top-down reading model. It is the reader who constructs the meaning of the text by fitting it into his or her prior knowledge.
According to Goodman (1967), who developed the top-down model, reading is a “psycholinguistic guessing game” and readers use their background knowledge to guess meaning. Smith (2004), who is also in favor of the top-down model, claims that a reader plays a very active role in the process of translating print into meaning by using knowledge of a relevant language, knowledge of the subject matter, and knowledge of how to read to confirm or reject his or her hypotheses. The process of the top-down model is also called “sampling of the text” (Cohen 1990). Describing the sampling process, Cohen (1990) maintains that a reader does not read all of the words and sentences in the text, but rather chooses certain words and phrases to comprehend the meaning of the text. Therefore, the top-down model focuses on reading skills like making predictions and inference as well as guessing from context. The top-down model influences both L1 and L2 reading instruction in promoting the importance of prediction, guessing from context, and getting the gist of a text’s meaning. Nevertheless, the top-down reading model has been criticized for its problem of overreliance on a reader’s prior linguistic and conceptual knowledge and neglect the importance of the text (Eskey 1973; Pearson 1979). The top-down model is concerned with the difficulties that learners may face regarding guessing the meaning, inferencing, and predicting (Samuels and Kamil 1988). Up to this point, both the bottom-up and the top-down theories have been considered inadequate in terms of describing a sound reading process. For the bottom-up theory, it was criticized for its failure to consider the reader’s role in the reading process, while the top-down theory relies too much on the reader’s prior linguistic and conceptual knowledge and neglects the importance of the text (Eskey 1973, 1986; Pearson 1979). Thus, the inadequacy of both the bottom-up and top-down models in explaining the reading process has led to the emergence of the interactive reading model.
Since reading materials tends to be culture specific the top-down model takes into consideration that L2 readers may fail to understand a text if they do not possess or cannot access the appropriate cultural knowledge embedded in it. Reliance on top-down strategies at the expense of word identification skills might not contribute to comprehension. That is to say, limitations on cultural knowledge may cause distortion of the text meaning if the reader relies on guessing from context and prediction (Eskey 1988). It has long been argued that during the reading process, the reader’s language knowledge, personal experiences and knowledge of the textual structure connect interactively to achieve comprehension. Thus, Alderson (2000: 38) specifically stresses that “the whole reading process is not an “either/or” selection between the bottom-up and top-down models, but involves the interaction between both approaches”.
2.3. THE INTERACTIVE MODEL
When reviewing literature of reading comprehension processing approaches, we should always keep in mind that “there are few adherents to the strong form of either polar approach” (Hudson 2007: 33), and “neither prior knowledge [of the topics] nor graphophonemic information is used exclusively by readers” (Vacca et al. 2006: 28). Due to the shortcomings of bottom-up and top-down approaches, an alternative reading processing approach was accepted. The interactive model combines features of the both bottom-up and top-down models and stresses the interrelationship between a reader and the text. It is now commonly accepted as the most conclusive picture of the reading process for both L1 and L2 readers (Anderson 1999). Introduced by Rumelhart (1977), the interactive model suggests that there is an interaction between the bottom-up and top-down processes and this model advocates that neither bottom-up nor top-down models can by themselves describe the whole reading process. Rumelhardt (1977: 735) says that “both sensory and non-sensory come together at one place and the reading process is the product of simultaneous joint application of all the knowledge sources”. Grabe (1991) further describes the interactive theory of reading as one that “takes into account the critical contributions of both lower-level processing skill (word identification) and higher-level comprehension and reasoning skills (text interpretation).” Therefore, reading comprehension is the result of meaning construction between the reader and the text, rather than simple transmission of the graphic information to the readers’ mind (Eskey 2005). Proponents of this model suggest that a skilled reader simultaneously synthesizes the information available to him or her from several knowledge sources of either bottom-up or top-down during the reading process. In addition, Stanovich (1980) brought the view of “compensation” into the interactive necessary to comprehend a text; he or she will resort to high level processes. This phenomenon explains for the process that poor readers tend to resort to high level processes more often than skilled readers given that the use of top-down processes seems to compensate for the poor readers’ limited ability of bottom-up processes (Stanovich 1980).
Because second or foreign language learners often find it challenging to understand the context due to limitations with knowledge of the language and the culture unfamiliarity, most L2 reading specialists support the interactive reading model (Grabe and Stoller 2002, 2019; Eskey 2005). According to Bernhardt (1990), in L2 reading, both text-driven and knowledge-driven processes operate simultaneously with varying degrees of success. The text-driven factors consist of word-recognition, phonemic decoding, and syntactic feature recognition, while knowledge-driven operations involve intertextual perception, metacognition, and prior knowledge. All of these factors contribute to successful L2 reading. Cook (2001) and Nassaji (2003) point out that even though readers may know all of the vocabulary and grammar, there are times that second language learners still cannot understand the text meaning. The difficulty seems to stem from the lack of social-cultural knowledge as comprehension is based on linguistic data (Bernhardt 1991). Thus, background knowledge, in addition to the lower-level processing, has been viewed as another critical factor that needs to be developed as part of the reading process. In the reading process, the reader integrates the new information with the existing schemata (Anderson and Pearson 1984; Carrell 1983). Schema can be categorized as content schema and formal schema. For context schema, both Razi (2004) and Pritchard (1990) conducted studies in investigating the influence of cultural schema on reading comprehension. The results all showed that relevant cultural schemata obviously facilitated the reading process. In addition to relevant content or cultural knowledge, familiarity with text structure (formal schema), is another factor affecting comprehension. Formal schema refers to the readers’ expectations about how information parts in a text are organized (Carrell, 1987) and this knowledge has been recognized as an important factor in comprehension. For instance, Carrell’s (1984) study found that students from different language backgrounds recalled more information when the structure of the reading task was close to the structure of their own language. In summary, reading comprehension is a complex cognitive process, and it seems more complex in an L2 context. Clearly, reading in an L2 is an active process involving various sources of knowledge such as relevant language knowledge, appropriate background knowledge and knowledge of text structure. In addition to the relevant linguistic, content, and formal schemata, L2 learners also need to be equipped with effective strategies when approaching a reading task to compensate for insufficient knowledge in either language or content knowledge.
As discussed above, reading comprehension can be influenced both top down and bottom up processes. Reader’s cultural awareness can be considered as a type of knowledge which affects comprehension inductively; On the other hand, motivation can trigger the language learners to enhance their reading comprehension whether inductively or deductively. Then, the present research work aims to contribute to a great extent to the development of better learning materials in the field of ESP reading comprehension and will be designed to cater to a very diverse population. The researcher also hopes this study will be a vehicle for bringing much innovation to the RC context in Iran. Considering the significance of inductive and deductive reading, and also the scarcity of literature in this area, the present study aims to investigate the effect of motivation and cultural awareness on improving Iranian ESP learners’ reading comprehension. In particular, the study will seek to understand how a motivation and cultural awareness based model affects student reading comprehension. To this end, this study will seek to formulate the following questions:
RQ. What potential effect(s) does a motivation and cultural awareness raising based curriculum have on students’ reading comprehension?
3. METHODOLOGY
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More than 100 students were volunteers to participate in the preset study. However, after administering the Oxford Quick Placement Test (the OQPT), the final sample consisted of 40 Iranian advanced ESP learners who, at the time of this research, were studying engineering in Iran. They were divided into two groups of experimental and control. One class was assigned as the control class. In the control class, there were some 20 students. Students were engaged in traditional teaching and learning a foreign language that was part of the curriculum. This traditional teaching involved focusing on grammar and reading issues as prescribed by the curriculum and the syllabus. The other class was the experimental class. The experimental class similarly consisted of 20 students. Students in this particular class received special training (see below for details) in motivation and cultural awareness. It is also worth mentioning that the participants of the present research work were all from Iran and had Farsi as their native language. To preserve the confidentiality of the participants, each student was given a unique number for identification.
The Quick Placement Test, paper and pen version was utilized in this particular study. It has been produced by Oxford University Press (2001) in cooperation with the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate. It is a short test in multiple choice formats, assessing reading, vocabulary and grammar skills and presenting the results mapped to the ALTE (Association of Language Testers in Europe) levels, which have been anchored to the CEFR (Council of Europe 2001: 248–249). The administration of the whole test (Part 1 and Part 2) normally takes about 40 minutes. It is also worth mentioning that using such tests allows high numbers of test takers. Scores were calculated on a scale out of 100 at the end of the test.
The treatment in this study was students’ participation in the program of the motivation and cultural awareness raising. Students from different backgrounds were engaged in cross-cultural experiences through participation in advanced placement coursework. Students were integrated in these classes—they sit together, work on language tasks collaboratively on projects, and engaged each other in reflective activities. The mission of the CA is (a) to foster a harmonious culture within the institute, regardless of ethnic group or religion, and (b) to expect students to show respect to all staff and classmates.
TOEFL Reading Comprehension Subtest (TOEFL-RBC) is a standardized multiple-choice reading comprehension test (Schedl et al. 1995). It is a reading comprehension subtest of the 2006 institutional TOEFL Test and contains five passages, reflecting general academic matters and 30 questions. Participants read the passages silently and answered the questions by choosing one from multiple choices. Qian and Mary (2004) reported that internal consistency reliability was .93 in the sample of adult EFL learners. The administration time was about 20 minutes. At the beginning of the semester, the reading comprehension test was distributed to all the participants under equal conditions in the class, and the students were given standardized instructions to circle the answer choice. In advance, given that the participants were low level learners of English, the teacher went over all the questions and explained them. It was made clear to the participants that no part of this research would have any influence on their course grades, so that students do not feel any pressure to look good in the eyes of the teacher. The treatment included the motivational and cultural based curriculum and it was started right after the pretest. However, the control group received traditional instruction without any modification to the course curriculum. The treatment in the experimental group consisted of culture related tasks which were designed in a way to motivate learners. Some instances of the tasks are provided in the following table.
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Table 1
Topic, task type, and the description of the task
Topic | Task type | Description of the task |
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Ordering food in Iranian and American culture | Jigsaw | Information gap; convergent; one closed outcome |
Saying condolences | Spot-the-differences | Goal-oriented; convergent; one closed outcome |
Going to a birthday party | Open-ended question | Opinion exchange; divergent; multiple outcomes |
| *Description of each task is based on Pica et al. (1993) |
| Regarding the tasks, the cultural awareness element was incorporated into the subject of the tasks while the element of motivation was obtained through a double comparison: a) comparison between small groups’ performance on tasks; b) comparison between the Iranian and the American culture |
At the end of the eight weeks of instruction, participants answered the same reading test again. The purpose of the experiment was to investigate whether embedding cultural awareness and motivation in context help comprehend EFL readings better.
For the data analysis, the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) program version 21 was used. This program has several characteristics which make it ideal as a data analysis tool. Among them are its wide usage, being user-friendly, and its comprehensive collection of statistical tools. After the data were entered into the program, SPSS performs the analysis and then presents the output in different formats (e.g. charts or graphs). One advantage of this feature is that it saves time. Descriptive statistics, including frequencies and measures of central tendency, was calculated for the data. Moreover, a t-test analysis using IBM SPSS statistics software was also applied to compare the results on pre-tests and post-tests.
4. RESULTS
The research question was concerned with the role of motivation and cultural awareness raising based curriculum in enhancing advanced ESP learners’ reading skills. Indeed, the research question was designed to investigate which of the two types of intervention (traditional curriculum and motivation and cultural awareness raising based curriculum) would change students' reading skills more strongly. To this end, two independent t-test procedures were used to compare the writing score between the two groups, before and after the intervention. Descriptive statistics for reading skills related to pretest comparison of the two groups' reading test scores is shown in Table 2.
Table 2
Descriptive statistics related to pre-test reading score difference of the two groups
Group Statistics |
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| | Grouping | N | Mean | Std. Deviation | Std. Error Mean |
Pretest Difference | Pretest-Exp | 20 | 13.61 | .60851 | .11500 |
| | Pretest-Con | 20 | 13.82 | .47320 | .08787 |
As Table 2 indicates, the two groups had different reading skills before receiving the treatment. While mean reading score of the experimental group in pretest equaled 13.61, that of control group equaled 13.82. Although mean writing score across the two groups during pretest was different before intervention, it needs to be statistically investigated if this difference is significant or not. To check the significance of reading skill score difference across the two groups, the means were compared (Table 3). The results of t-test indicated that, as we expected, the reading score difference between the two groups, in the pretest was not significant (p > 0.5; Sig. = .78).
Table 3
Pretest comparison of the two groups' reading score difference
| | | F | Sig. | T | df | Sig. (2-tailed) | Mean Difference | Std. Error Difference |
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Pretest | Equal variances assumed | 2.361 | .130 | .276 | 38 | .784 | .03973 | .14409 |
Difference | Equal variances not assumed | | | .275 | 38 | .785 | .03973 | .14473 |
As Table 3 indicates, Levene test result is higher than 0.05, which by itself indicates that the two groups are homogeneous. Since Levene test t-test result is not equal to 0 (zero), it is need to have the equal variance assumed (the first row) for the Sig. (2-tailed), which equals 0.784. As the t-test result indicates the two groups were not significantly different before the treatment. However, as the post test result indicated, students' reading score had changed after the treatment. While participants' pre-intervention mean reading score equaled 13.61 and 13.82 in experimental and control group, after intervention their mean reading score was raised to 16.03 and 14.92, respectively. Descriptive statistics for posttest reading score difference of both groups is indicated in Table 4.
Table 4
Descriptive statistics related to post-test reading score difference of the two groups
Group Statistics |
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| | Grouping | N | Mean | Std. Deviation | Std. Error Mean |
Posttest Difference | Posttest-Exp | 20 | 16.0361 | .50774 | .09595 |
| | Posttest-Con | 20 | 14.921 | .60390 | .11214 |
Independent samples t-test was carried out to check if this difference is statistically significant or not. The results of post intervention indicate that motivation and cultural awareness raising based curriculum raises participants' reading skills more than general and traditional curriculum does. In other word, based on the results, participants' reading scores among experimental group participants was significantly higher (t-test for p < 0.05 is significant). T-test results have been shown in Table 5. T-test results for p < 0.05 equaled 0.654.
Table 5
Posttest comparison of the two groups' reading score difference
| | | F | Sig. | T | df | Sig. (2-tailed) | Mean Difference | Std. Error Difference |
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Posttest | Equal variances assumed | .671 | .016 | − .450 | 38 | .044 | − .06669 | .14804 |
Difference | Equal variances not assumed | | | − .452 | 38 | .046 | − .06669 | .14759 |
Therefore, based on the results of data analysis reported above, the null hypothesis, predicting an insignificant difference between traditional curriculum and motivation and cultural awareness raising based curriculum in terms of developing Iranian advanced students' reading skills, was rejected.
5. DISCUSSION
The present study aimed at examining the effect of cultural awareness and motivation based curriculum on reading comprehension of Iranian ESP students. In general, the results point to the notion that readers culture awareness and motivation injected through curriculum play a positive role in their reading comprehension of TOEFL tests. Based on the interactional model of comprehension, readers achieve the writers intended meaning through combining existing knowledge with what they read (Alderson 2000; Nassaji 2002). The results of present study revealed similar findings to the ones in the study of Ketchum (2006) who reported that cultural background has positive effect on reading comprehension. The reading score difference between the two groups’ reading comprehension indicates the possibility that cognitive load on the memory system imposed by the complex reading procedures is reduced among the learners who receive cultural awareness (Baddeley, 1997), as opposed to the students who did not get culturally aware. One explanation could be that the cultural knowledge enables experimental group readers to activate their appropriate schemata more effectively than the control group readers.
Another explanation for the findings of the study has been suggested by Stanovich (2000) as “interactive compensatory model”. It is probable that the experimental group who have cultural awareness could compensate for their possible vocabulary deficiencies by drawing on their background knowledge in order to infer the meaning of the new vocabularies or phrases. This point has been supported by empirical research by Pulido (2007) who reported that readers' their cultural background knowledge, can improve lexical inferencing in reading process.
6. Conclusion
The findings suggest that motivation and cultural awareness help the performance and understanding of one’s reading comprehension. This results revealed that the explicit instruction of motivation and cultural awareness are practical tools to improve learners’ reading comprehension. One of the significant findings of the present study is that ESP learners should be motivated and culturally aware to increase their reading comprehension ability and become proficient readers. Reading motivation and cultural awareness can result in the improvement in language learning performance for advanced level learners. On the whole, it can be stated that ESP teachers should go beyond their traditional roles by providing opportunities for the learners to become motivated and culturally aware and substantially improve their reading comprehension proficiency.
Obviously, the positive effects of motivation and culture based curriculum on reading comprehension results several conclusions. One of the conclusion is the point that classroom instructors need to focus more on the motivation and cultural awareness of the learners as on direct instruction of reading comprehension techniques.
It is quite evident that the comparison of scores in this particular study reinforce the idea that motivated students will comprehend better than non-motivated students. A logical course of action, therefore, would be to scrutinize not only the level of motivation in students, but also methods of raising that level through curriculum. The teacher’s goal of curriculum designer in that case should be more of motivation or inspiration and may require a tremendous effort.
As with any study of this type, there is still much to be learned with regards to what motivates students. Reading for academic classes exists as a fairly low priority for those individuals without much academic motivation. Perhaps a study involving surveys and other descriptive types of research would shed more light on the role of motivation. The purpose of this study was merely to understand the role of motivation and cultural awareness curriculum on reading comprehension. Then, there is a need to understand the way motivation and cultural awareness assist reading skills.
The findings of the present study have some pedagogical implications, too. Curriculum developers, and ESP teacher can incorporate cultural awareness tasks, as a tool, into the books and curriculums in order to make the students more motivated, confident, cooperative, and autonomous. They will help student develop culture related reading skills. Language instructors and material developers can also integrate cultural awareness into reading tasks. In this way, the students will develop to skills in one task. For example, reading a topic like " the comparison of Persian and English Greeting customs" can be helpful both for developing reading skills and cultural knowledge. The instruction of cultural awareness can be used as a motivation raising too in language classes. Previous studies had indicated that the incorporation of culture into language classes can make the learners more motivated. The findings of this study showed that teaching cultural awareness operates in the same way.
The process, results and conclusion of the present study lead to some further lines of research. First, students’ different performance after treatment could be due to the quality factors. Certainly, as for any other skill, there is not a single method and approach for incorporating motivation and cultural awareness. Other researchers can draw on other ways of incorporating motivation and cultural awareness and come to findings which might be different from the findings of this study. In other words, other studies can be conducted to investigate the influence of different ways of incorporating motivation and cultural awareness on learners' reading comprehension. Second, short-term results might not be equal to longer-term results. The effects of longer-term incorporation of motivation and cultural awareness on learners' reading comprehension needs more attention and exploration.