Reading Psychology
ISSN: 0270-2711 (Print) 1521-0685 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/urpy20
Improvement of EFL Students’ Academic Reading
Achievement Through the Cognitive Academic
Language Learning Approach (CALLA)
Abeer Hameed Albashtawi
To cite this article: Abeer Hameed Albashtawi (2019): Improvement of EFL Students’ Academic
Reading Achievement Through the Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach (CALLA),
Reading Psychology, DOI: 10.1080/02702711.2019.1658669
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/02702711.2019.1658669
Published online: 11 Sep 2019.
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Reading Psychology, 0:1–26, 2019
Copyright # Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 0270-2711 print / 1521-0685 online
DOI: 10.1080/02702711.2019.1658669
IMPROVEMENT OF EFL STUDENTS’ ACADEMIC READING
ACHIEVEMENT THROUGH THE COGNITIVE ACADEMIC
LANGUAGE LEARNING APPROACH (CALLA)
ABEER HAMEED ALBASHTAWI
Luminus Technical University College, Irbid, Jordan
This mixed-methods study examined the effectiveness of the Cognitive
Academic Language Learning Approach (CALLA) on the improvement of
EFL students' academic reading achievement. Participants were 122
Jordanian EFL undergraduate students who were divided into two groups:
experimental and control groups. Data were collected using academic reading
test and focus group interviews (four groups; with six students in each).
While the students in the experimental group were taught using CALLA, students in the control group were taught using the conventional method of
teaching. While quantitative data were analyzed using SPSS package program, qualitative data were analyzed using thematic analysis. The statistical
analysis of academic reading test data revealed that students’ reading
achievement increased only in the experimental group. Further, the analysis of
the interviews showed that students’ overall perceptions of the effectiveness of
CALLA were positive. Thus, this study has revealed the feasibility of implementing CALLA in EFL academic reading contexts.
Introduction
At tertiary level, academic reading and the use of academic language are important foundational skills which can help Second
Language (L2) students to develop as skilled readers and writers
(Albashtawi, Jaganathan, & Singh, 2016; Csomay & Prades, 2018).
The importance of academic language has been noted by various
researchers. For example, (Francis et al., 2009) argued that for
students at tertiary level to get successful achievement in written
and oral tasks and activities, they need an extensive focus on a variety of strategies which can be used for understanding words and
Address correspondence to Abeer Hameed Albashtawi, Luminus Technical University
College, Irbid Campus, Irbid, Jordan. Email: abeerbashtawi11@gmail.com
1
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A. H. Albashtawi
academic language used in their disciplines. Although similarities
that distinguish highly academic genres from less or more conversational language exist, the features of academic language differ
based on factors such as the discipline, function of the language,
topic, and mode of communication (speech or written). Due to
these factors, L2 learners encounter various difficulties in comprehending and producing academic language in an effective way
(Snow, 2010). Thus, it is important to recognize the various academic reading difficulties encountered by L2 students in reading.
These difficulties can be attributed to students’ lack of a good
level of academic language and their need to apply various strategies in order to improve their academic reading achievement
and do reading tasks successfully (Grabe & Stoller, 2004).
Accomplishing tasks that involve the use of academic language
requires the use of both lower-order and higher–order thinking
skills. Lower-order thinking skills include recalling facts, identifying vocabulary, and making definitions (Jiang & Kuehn, 2001).
On the other hand, higher thinking skills involve using language
to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate (Chamot, 2009).
Consequently, students at the tertiary level have to be aware of
the goals of reading and should be trained on how to use effective
strategies for reading academic materials. These goals can include
reading selectively, linking ideas together, activating the previous
knowledge, finding out the meaning of the new words, making
inferences, and distinguishing the important ideas in academic
texts (Cabral, 2008).
Teaching academic reading in L2 contexts has received
attention in the recent years as a response to research that has
reported L2 students’ difficulties in academic reading
(Albashtawi et al., 2016). Considering the importance of academic reading in Jordan and other Arab countries, researchers
have shown that EFL university students encounter various learning problems due to their lack of required academic reading
skills (Albashtawi et al., 2016; Schiff & Calif, 2004). Additionally,
reading intervention programs in EFL contexts that have been
employed for developing academic reading at the postsecondary
level have not been given adequate attention.
In order to help students overcome their academic reading
difficulties, several approaches have been employed to examine
Improvement of EFL Students’ Academic Reading Achievement
3
their effectiveness in improving L2 students’ academic reading
achievement (Tsai & Shang, 2010). One of these approaches is
the Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach
(CALLA) which has been employed in various contexts.
Various studies have employed CALLA framework in teaching
reading. Using the instructional framework of CALLA,
O'Malley and Chamot (1990) examined the effect of metacognitive strategies instruction among American high school students. The researchers divided the sample into three groups.
While the first group received instruction using metacognitive
strategies, the second group received instruction using cognitive and socio-affective strategies. The third group (the control
group) received no strategy instruction. The study revealed that
the achievement of the experimental groups was better than
the control group. Furthermore, the tests done after the intervention program showed that the experimental group which
received instruction using metacognitive strategies (which is
one of the components of CALLA) performed better than the
cognitive group. In the Malaysian ESL context, Marimuthu,
Muthusamy, and Veeravagu (2011) employed a quasi- experimental design with 32 students in the control group and 33 students in the experimental group to investigate the effectiveness
of CALLA as a strategy training approach. The study revealed
that the experimental group outperformed the control group.
The group that received training through CALLA showed better use of metacognitive strategies, which led to improvement
in their reading comprehension achievement.
Surveying previous studies in which CALLA was used reveal
that most of the studies that have employed CALLA were in L1
and ESL contexts (refer to Chamot, 2009). Very few studies
have considered CALLA in EFL contexts (refer to the review of
related studies in the following section). Furthermore, the
employment of CALLA for the improvement of academic reading achievement has not been fully explored in previous studies. Therefore, the use of CALLA in EFL contexts is considered
to be an issue that has not been addressed adequately and is
considered to be a niche in pervious literature. Thus, the main
purpose of this mixed-methods study is to examine the effect
CALLA on the academic reading achievement of Jordanian
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A. H. Albashtawi
EFL undergraduate students. Specifically, the study reported in
this paper addresses the following two research questions:
1. To what extent does CALLA affect EFL undergraduate students’ academic reading achievement?
2. How do EFL students perceive the effectiveness of CALLA in
improving their academic reading achievement?
Review of Related Studies in EFL Contexts
In EFL contexts, most of the studies that have employed
CALLA were carried out in the Iranian EFL context. For
example, Takallou (2011) had two experimental groups and
one control group. One of the experimental groups received
instruction on planning as one of metacognitive strategies,
while the other experimental group received instruction on
self-monitoring strategy. The two experimental groups outperformed the control group on the reading comprehension test.
This reflects the effectiveness of using CALLA for the development of reading comprehension among Iranian EFL students.
In another study in the Iranian EFL context, Karbalaei (2011)
examined the effect of an intervention program that was based
on CALLA on the development of EFL students’ reading. He
reported that the reading achievement of students in the
experimental group was better than the students in the control
group. In another study, Ravari (2014) examined the effect of
teaching reading strategies on reading comprehension of a
group of Iranian EFL students. She employed explicit instruction of strategies which were selected based on CALLA framework. She reported that explicit reading comprehension
strategy training enhanced Iranian EFL learners’ reading comprehension. Employing CALLA instructional model, Nejad and
Mahmoodi-Shahrebabaki (2015) examined the effect of metacognitive strategy training on reading comprehension. They
reported that there was a significant positive relationship
between the students' metacognitive reading strategy use and
EFL students’ reading comprehension achievement.
Other EFL contexts in which CALLA was employed are
Turkish, Indonesia, and Jordan. Examining the effect of metacognitive awareness strategy instruction in helping Turkish EFL
Improvement of EFL Students’ Academic Reading Achievement
5
students to improve reading comprehension of expository texts,
Cubukcu (2008) selected 65 students and divided them into
two classes (experimental group and control group). The participants (teacher-trainees) in the experimental group were
taught how and when to use the metacognitive strategies. The
study adapted CALLA model to prepare the materials for the
intervention program. The study showed that the experimental
group achieved significant differences in reading achievement
which resulted in an increase in the reading comprehension of
expository texts (Cubukcu, 2008). Furthermore, the findings
showed the importance of strategies to facilitate learning process and to create self-regulated learners. In the Indonesian
context, Rifa’i (2013) examined the effect of CALLA on the
improvement of school students’ reading comprehension on
narrative texts. The study employed the design of an action
research and showed that there was an improvement in students’ reading comprehension. In a recent study in the
Indonesian EFL context, Prakoso, Setiyadi, and Yufrizal (2016)
examined students’ cognitive reading strategies and reading
comprehension after being taught using a modified version of
CALLA. The researchers selected cognitive reading strategies
based on the classification that was proposed by O'Malley and
Chamot (1990). The researchers collected data using a reading
test and a questionnaire. The questionnaire was used to measure the improvement of students’ cognitive reading strategies
before and after the implementation of the adapted CALLA.
The study reported that CALLA helped students to develop
reading comprehension and cognitive strategies’ use.
Furthermore, the results of the study revealed that EFL students who were taught explicitly through the adapted version
of CALLA used cognitive strategies better than students who
were taught implicitly.
In the Jordanian EFL university context, only two studies
have employed CALLA to examine the improvement of students’ reading comprehension. These two studies are AlKhasawneh and Huwari (2014) and Al-Ghazo (2016). Both of
them focused on metacognitive strategies as a component of
CALLA. Al-Khasawneh and Huwari (2014) examined the effect
of the metacognitive strategies on vocabulary learning. Sixty
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A. H. Albashtawi
students were chosen randomly and divided into two groups:
control and experimental groups. The study affirmed that the
students in the experimental group outperformed the students
in the control group in learning vocabulary. The researchers
attributed this improvement in vocabulary learning to the use
of the adapted version of CALLA the metacognitive strategies
in the experimental group. In a recent study in the Jordanian
EFL context, Al-Ghazo (2016) employed quasi-experimental
study to examine the effect of using metacognitive reading
strategies and found that students who received instruction
based on CALLA gained better scores in reading comprehension. Thus, the results of these two studies in which CALLA was
used have obviously reflected that teaching metacognitive strategies using CALLA helped Jordanian EFL students to develop
their reading comprehension and abilities to learn vocabulary.
It is worthy to mention that it is difficult to draw generalizations related to the effectiveness of CALLA in EFL contexts
including the Jordanian EFL context based on the results
reported by only few studies. Thus, there is a need for further
research that can explore how CALLA can help EFL students in
the EFL contexts to improve their academic reading achievement. Furthermore, it is important to mention that most of these
studies have focused mainly on metacognitive strategies and
there is no inclusion of the cognitive strategies in the intervention programs which were based on CALLA. Additionally, one of
the weakness in studies that have employed CALLA in EFL contexts is that these studies have not implemented CALLA for long
period of time. For example, the intervention program in
Cubukcu (2008) was implemented for only five weeks, which is
considered to be a short period that might not provide good
results on the effectiveness of teaching metacognitive strategies.
Thus, this study was carried out to fill this gap in literature.
Method
This mixed-methods study adopted an explanatory sequential
design which consisted of two phases: quantitative and qualitative.
In the first phase, a quasi-experimental design was employed in
which data were collected using Academic Reading Test (ART)
Improvement of EFL Students’ Academic Reading Achievement
7
given to the students before and after the implementation of
CALLA. In the second phase, focus group interviews were conducted with the students of the experimental group in order to
gain information on their perceptions of the effectiveness of
CALLA in the development of their academic reading achievement. Taking into account the recommendations of Leech and
Onwuegbuzie (2009), in this study the qualitative data were collected and analyzed to explain and elaborate on the quantitative
results. Through collecting qualitative data, the researcher was
able to refine, extend, and explain the results obtained through
the analysis of the quantitative results which were obtained
through statistical analysis of students’ achievement in the ART (
refer to Creswell & Plano-Clark, 2011a, 2011b).
The Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach (CALLA)
CALLA is an instructional model for second and foreign language learners based on cognitive theory and research. It is
employed for the purposes of teaching students the essential
academic content and academic language. It has been argued
that CALLA helps students to develop as independent and selfregulated learners through their increasing command over a
variety of strategies which can be exploited for better learning
that aims at the improvement of reading skills (Chamot &
O’Malley, 1994; Chamot & Robbins, 2005). Compared to other
integrated programs and instructional frameworks, it is believed
that CALLA is distinctively known for its focus on explicit
instruction of learning strategies (Chamot, 2009). CALLA is
based on the cognitive theory which assumes that learners are
mentally active participants in the teaching-learning process.
The mental actions of students are characterized by the function of using prior knowledge to solve new problems, searching
for meaning in receiving information, higher level thinking,
and developing abilities to monitor and regulate one’s own
learning (Chamot, 1995). CALLA can be used in ESL, EFL,
bilingual, foreign language, and general education classrooms.
Yet, its effectiveness in EFL contexts for students at both tertiary
and school levels, especially for the improvement of academic
reading achievement, has not been tested.
8
A. H. Albashtawi
The instructional sequence developed for CALLA provides
a useful framework for teaching learning strategies. The
sequence provides a five-phase recursive cycle for introducing,
teaching, practicing, evaluating, and applying learning strategies. In this approach, explicit instruction in applying strategies
to learning tasks is gradually faded so that the students can begin
to assume greater responsibility in selecting and applying suitable learning strategies (Cubukcu, 2008; Rasekh & Ranjbary,
2003). Such strategies can include imagery, elaboration, making
inference, making predictions, paraphrasing, and classifying.
Explicit instruction is emphasized because it is believed that it
can enhance the use of these strategies by students who are
engaged in learning new topics and ideas from academic texts.
Teachers are required to support students learning processes
through modeling which is the focus of teaching stage, and
extensive practices which is the focus of the applying stage.
Participants and the Context of the Study
The participants were 122 students who were randomly selected
from B.A students who registered for the Advanced Reading
course at the Department of English and Literature, the
Hashemite University in Jordan. The participants were in two
intact groups and were assigned as participants for the experimental and the control groups. The experimental group
included 62 students, while the control group were 60 students.
The Advanced Reading course is a compulsory course for all
students at level four in the second year of the B.A program.
The students who registered for the Advanced Reading course
had already passed the pre-requisite course of Reading course.
The students’ ages ranged between 19 and 21 years old. They
were also homogenous in terms of (1) their mother tongue
(which is Arabic), (2) cultural background, and (3) the years of
studying EFL (12 years) in the Jordanian schools.
Data Collection and Sampling
The present study has employed an ART to collect quantitative
data, while qualitative data were collected using semi-structured
Improvement of EFL Students’ Academic Reading Achievement
9
focus group interviews. A panel of five PhD holders reviewed
these measures, assessed them, and provided their comments
on its reliability. In response to the comments raised by the
panel, some modifications were made accordingly (e.g., deletion of some items and time needed to answer ART items). The
ART instrument was used to measure the academic reading
achievement of the participants before and after the implementation of CALLA. Taking into account the suggestions of
Alderson (2002) who argued that no single technique can be
recommended for the selection of reading test, the ART used
in this study consisted of 32 multiple-choice and multiple
matching questions which were used to achieve the purposes of
the study. The two selected texts which were used in the ART
were relatively easy to difficult. The first text entitled ‘Regions
of the World’ focused on climate change and natural vegetation and animals, a topic for which most people would have
considerable previous knowledge. The other text, entitled ‘the
Creation Myth’, was about the talented people and their changing actions and behaviors. The first text was adopted from the
Building Bridges: Content and Learning Strategies for ESL for
(O'Malley, Chamot, & K€
upper, 1989). However, the second text
was adopted from TOEFL 2003. While the first text has 440
words, the second one is composed of 778 words.
Qualitative data were collected using focus group interviews. According to Creswell ( (Creswell, 2013)), focus group
interviews intend to develop an in-depth exploration about the
phenomenon to be studied. To achieve this objective, the
researcher chose four focus groups; each one consisted of six
participants. This was done to gain in-depth information on students’ perceptions of the effect of CALLA on the development
of their academic reading achievement. The sampling technique that was used to select participants for the focus groups
was purposeful sampling. Creswell (2013) mentioned that to
obtain a purposeful sampling, a researcher should identify a
strategy or a technique so that the validity of the method can
be increased. Thus, six participants were included in each
group. Most of the participants were female, except one male
student in Focus Group Four. Furthermore, the researcher
used pseudonyms to ensure anonymity of the respondents and
10
A. H. Albashtawi
confidentiality of the data related to the participants in the
focus group. The researcher ensured that there is variation
among the 24 participants in terms of different levels of
English Language Proficiency (very good, good, and fair) as
determined by the instructor of the course.
Reliability of the Academic Reading Test
One of the best ways to find the consistency coefficient of the
test is the equation of Kuder-Richardson 20 (KR-20) for reliability, depending on the measurement of the homogeneity of the
test questions. It belongs to the methods of Analysis Variance.
This method deals with the ratio of the number of respondents
who answered correctly each question and those who did not
answer the questions. The consistency of the test coefficient
value was calculated. The value was 0.83, which means that it is
a homogenous test.
Implementation of CALLA
Five instructional stages which include preparing, teaching,
practicing, evaluating, and applying learning strategies were
implemented in CALLA classroom in this study. Various activities and procedures were employed to achieve the main objective for each stage. The researcher introduced the students to
CALLA as an integrative instructional approach that aims at
helping them to enhance their academic reading achievement.
ART was employed before and after the intervention. Yet, the
focus group interviews were carried out immediately after the
intervention programs in the experimental group. The first
stage of the implementation of CALLA was preparation in
which the focus was on introducing the suitable strategies and
academic language that match to the content in each lesson.
For example, introducing the theme was done through showing
students pictures and giving them the chance to predict or
guess the topic through the picture. At this stage, prediction
strategy was defined by the teacher. In the second stage, the
teacher showed students a video about the person or the theme
to motivate and engage them in the class. Practicing stage
Improvement of EFL Students’ Academic Reading Achievement
11
included exposing the students to various texts to find specific
information. Next, some exercises were introduced to the students who were encouraged to apply in reading texts. The evaluating stage involves assessing the outcome. This was done
through using learning log or asking questions to take students'
overall feedback about achieved and not achieved goals. In the
applying stage, students give decision concerning main ideas
which can be represented in the graphic organizer.
Data Analysis
The two research questions were directed towards examining
the effect of using CALLA on the improvement of academic
reading achievement. To answer the first research question, the
Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) Version 23
was used, where descriptive statistics (frequency, mean score,
and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (t-test and
one-way ANCOVA) were used. To answer the second research
question, four focus group interviews were conducted at the
end of the intervention. The purpose of the interview was to
investigate the students’ perceptions towards the effectiveness
CALLA. The interviews were tape-recorded, and the data were
then coded and analyzed. In the interviews, the four major
issues were: (1) the effect of CALLA on students’ academic
reading achievement, (2) the usefulness of CALLA for the
Advanced Reading course, (3) students’ perceptions of the conventional reading classes compared to CALLA classes, and (4)
students’ evaluation of their reading abilities after they spent
one semester in this reading course in which CALLA was used.
To establish credibility of the qualitative analysis in this
study, the researcher employed the five criteria proposed by
Lincoln and Guba (1985) which have been considered to the
best-known criteria which qualitative researchers need to
ensure trustworthiness of qualitative research (Anney, 2014;
Shenton, 2004). These criteria are credibility, transferability,
dependability, confirmability and reflexivity (Lincoln & Guba,
1985). The first criterion, credibility, which refers to aspects of
truth-value, was ensured through two strategies triangulation
and member check. The researcher employed triangulation
12
A. H. Albashtawi
through the collection of data from two sources: academic
reading test and interviews. This type of triangulation is
referred to as method triangulation because more than one
method was used for data collection (Korstjens & Moser, 2018).
The other strategy that was used to ensure credibility was member check. The researcher contacted most of those who participated in the interview and requested them to read the findings
of the analysis of the interviews. These participants went
through the findings of the analysis of the interviews, but they
had no comments. The second criterion, transferability, which
refers to applicability, was ensured through the provision of
thick description of the participants and the research process
in order to make readers able to evaluate the findings and
decide whether these findings can be transferable to their contexts (Anney, 2014). In the current study, the researcher gave a
thick description of the EFL students who participated in the
study, the EFL Jordanian context, and CALLA (the instructional program employed in the study). The third and the
fourth criteria that the researcher did her best to ensure are
dependability and confirmability. While dependability refers to
aspects of consistency and stability of data over time and under
different conditions, confirmability concerns the aspect of neutrality (Anney, 2014; Elo et al., 2014; Lincoln & Guba, 1985).
Taking into account the importance of ensuring both dependability and conformability, interpretation of the data in this
study was based on the researcher’s particular preferences and
viewpoints which all were grounded in the data. Korstjens and
Moser (2018) argued that the focus of dependability is on the
interpretation process which should be firmly rooted in the
process of analysis. The researcher interpreted the data based
on the deep analysis of the interviews. Dependability and confirmability can be ensured through audit trail (Shenton, 2004).
They both entail the use of a complete set of notes concerning
decisions made by the researcher in all stages of the research
process, sampling techniques, and instructional program that
was adopted in the study (Korstjens & Moser, 2018).
Furthermore, notes by the researcher included the emergence
of the findings and notes on how the researcher managed data.
Description of these aspects helped the researcher to ensure
Improvement of EFL Students’ Academic Reading Achievement
13
both dependability and confirmability. To ensure the fifth criterion which is reflexivity, the researcher made sure that data
obtained through focus group interviews were supplemented
with her reflexive notes that were embedded in reporting and
discussing the results of the study.
Results
Research Question One
Examining the effect of CALLA on EFL students’ academic
reading achievement was addressed through analyzing students’
scores in academic reading test at pretest and post-test. Table 1
below shows the baseline of students’ scores for academic reading achievement of both control and experimental groups at
pretest stage. As shown in Table 2, the results of Levene’s test
and t-test revealed that there is no significant difference
between the baseline mean scores of the control and the
experimental groups (M (SD) ¼ 11.72 (4.31) and 12.82 (3.80),
respectively, with t-value ¼ 1.50, p-value ¼ 0.56).
As shown in Table 3, ANCOVA test was used in order to investigate the difference between pre and post-tests’ mean scores while
controlling the pretest scores as a covariate. ANCOVA illustrates the
difference between the experimental and control groups’ academic
reading achievement at post-test after adjusting their pretest scores
to be the same. Table 3 below shows that means scores ± SD of students’ academic reading achievement in the experimental group
(24.95 ± 4.04) are higher than that of the control group
(15.73 ± 4.35). This shows that CALLA was effective in the improvement of students’ achievement.
As shown in Table 4, between-subject effects test illustrates that
the difference between the control and the experimental groups.
TABLE 1 Pretest Mean Scores of Respondents in Control and
Experimental Groups
Group
N
Mean
SD
Experimental
Control
62
60
12.82
11.72
3.796
4.314
Sig.
0.557
F
0.348
Levene’s test for equality
of variances
1.504
T
120
Df
0.135
Sig. (2-tailed)
1.106
Mean
difference
0.735
SE
Difference
t-test for equality of means
TABLE 2 Independent Sample T-Test for Scores of Dependent Variables at Pretest
Upper
2.561
Lower
0.350
95% CI of the difference
14
A. H. Albashtawi
15
Improvement of EFL Students’ Academic Reading Achievement
TABLE 3 Mean ± SD of Intervention and Control Groups at Post-Test for
Academic Reading Achievement.
Group
Mean
Std. Deviation
N
Control
Experiment
Total
15.73
24.95
20.42
4.353
4.038
6.235
60
62
122
TABLE 4 Tests of Between-Subjects Effects for Academic Reading
Achievement.
Source
Type III
Sum
of
Squares
Df
Corrected Model
Intercept
Aca_read_perf_pre
Group
Error
Total
Corrected Total
2608.203
4371.498
17.111
2486.678
2095.477
55565.000
4703.680
2
1
1
1
119
122
121
Mean
Square
1304.101
4371.498
17.111
2486.678
17.609
F
Sig.
Partial
Eta
Squared
74.059
248.253
.972
141.216
.000
.000
.326
.000
.555
.676
.008
.543
The post-test mean scores of students’ academic reading achievement after controlling for the pretest scores as a covariate is significant, with F (1,119) ¼ 141.22, p-value < .001. Furthermore, Figure 1
illustrates the substantial increase in students’ post-test scores in the
experimental group compared to the control group. Therefore, the
overall results indicate that the experimental group performed significantly better than the control group at the post-test (academic
reading achievement) mean scores.
Research Question Two
The overall qualitative data which were obtained from the focus
group interviews revealed that the participants perceived the
intervention program positively. The majority of the participants confirmed that CALLA improved their reading achievement. Some of the interviewees emphasized the importance of
practice and more exercises for them to improve their
16
A. H. Albashtawi
FIGURE 1 Academic reading achievement post-test scores.
academic reading achievement. When the participants in the
focus group interviews were asked about their perception of the
effect of CALLA on the improvement of their reading achievement, they highlighted that CALLA was useful for them to
develop their academic reading skills which resulted in a better
achievement in their academic reading test given to them at
the end of the intervention program. Excerpts 1–6 given below
are good representatives of students’ perceptions of the effectiveness of CALLA.
Excerpt 1 [Focus Group One]
Noura: Yes, it is very helpful. The way the instructor uses
the intervention program helped us to improve academic skills and
performance.
Excerpt 2 [Focus Group Two]
Jeena: Yes, of course. It helped a lot.
Excerpt 3 [Focus Group Three]
Batool: Yes, it was effective way of teaching. I could realize
that my marks in academic reading became better at the end of
this semester.
Improvement of EFL Students’ Academic Reading Achievement
17
Excerpt 5 [Focus Group One]
Dina: Yes, but we need more practice and exercise.
Excerpt 6 [Focus Group Four]
Rehab: It is not necessary … I mean there can be some other ways
related to the reading improvement. They, I mean students including
me, read more texts or use strategies like asking questions when they
were reading. So, not only CALLA is good for reading improvement.
The participants were also asked about the usefulness of
CALLA for the Advanced Reading course which was the target of
the current study. As shown in Excerpts 7 and 8, the participants
revealed that CALLA was useful for the Advanced Reading
course because CALLA supported the students to understand
texts even if these texts have unfamiliar vocabulary.
Excerpt 7 [Focus Group One]
Noura: Yes, I can say that it was useful. To me, after CALLA I
do not care if the text is hard or if the text has many unfamiliar words.
Now I can have a self- confidence to be good in any text I can find the
main idea. I can know the meaning of the unfamiliar words that not a
matter of how it is hard like what I was.
Excerpt 8 [Focus Group Three]
Batool: Yes, it was very useful for our reading course because it
made us love the course and understand many things like good strategies for better reading comprehension.
In the focus group interviews, participants were requested to
give a comparison between the conventional reading classes and
the classes in which CALLA was employed. This was done in the
focus group interviews to gain data on students’ evaluation of the
effectiveness of reading classes compared to conventional classes.
Excerpt 9–12 below reflect that CALLA was better than the conventional reading classes because CALLA helped the students to
exploit various effective strategies such guessing and interesting
meaning from the text.
Excerpt 9 [Focus Group One]
Lina: CALLA … The use of strategies gave it a new thing
actually … we did not find in other classes the meanings of these
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A. H. Albashtawi
strategies. CALLA made the lessons easier. New thing we did not find
in other classes.
Excerpt 10 [Focus Group One]
Dina: Conventional class most of the time read the text without
using specific strategies to find the meaning, they directly lecturing,
before we were using only the dictionary. In CALLA classes we do not
use the dictionary directly or we use some specific strategies.
Excerpt 11 [Focus Group Two]
Fatema: For me before CALLA approach, I was a slow reader, I spend
a lot of time on guessing and searching the meaning, I feel lost when I was
reading but now after I exposed to this approach and used it a lot, I feel I
the speed of my reading increased in a way that I feel I am satisfied.
Excerpt 12 [Focus Group Three]
Sanaa: Conventional classes do not use strategies, they are all
depend on the doctor, he explains and we write notes. We did not
receive any practice during the classes, especially in Literature classes.
Analysis of the interviews also revealed students’ evaluation of their
reading abilities after they spent one semester studying academic
reading texts using CALLA. Excerpts 13-15 show that students
found that their reading abilities became better after they received
instruction using CALLA. However, an important finding in this
data is that some of the participants declared that the improvement
of reading abilities was not necessarily due to the instruction in
CALLA because there are some other factors that have contributed
to the improvement in their reading abilities. However, most of students’ responses revealed that CALLA was effective for the
improvement of academic reading achievement.
Excerpt 13 [Focus Group One]
Hidaya: I evaluate my reading abilities as good because I could
improve them this semester with the help of my instructor. I know now
how to use many kinds of important strategies in reading.
Excerpt 14 [Focus Group Four]
Sameerah: CALLA made me better in reading and made me feel
more comfortable even when the text is difficult, I can challenge and try
Improvement of EFL Students’ Academic Reading Achievement
19
myself as I have been trained on the use of many strategies. Reading.
So, not only CALLA is good for reading improvement.
Excerpt 15 [Focus Group Two]
Hind: I cannot simply say that my reading improved because of
the new way of teaching reading … But it is one reasons for my
improvement … I also studied hard this semester.
Discussion
Taking into account that very few studies have considered the
effect of CALLA on academic reading achievement among
learners of English, especially in the EFL contexts, this mixedmethods study was carried out to examine the effect of using
CALLA on Jordanian EFL students’ academic reading achievement. The results obtained through the analysis of the quantitative data showed that CALLA has positively affected students’
academic reading achievement. This was obvious because the
analysis of the ART showed that the scores of the students in
the experimental group were higher than the students in the
control group. These results were also supported by the results
of the analysis of the qualitative data which were obtained from
the analysis of the transcriptions of the focus group interviews.
Similar to Cubukcu (2008), Marimuthu et al. (2011), Takallou
(2011), Ravari (2014), and Nejad and Mahmoodi-Shahrebabaki
(2015), the results of this study confirmed that EFL students’
reading achievement improved after the implementation of
CALLA. All these studies have examined the effect of CALLA
on reading achievement of ESL/EFL students. For example,
similar to O'Malley and Chamot (1990), this current study
revealed that the achievement of the experimental group which
received instruction using CALLA was better than the control group.
Six influential factors have emerged through the implementation of CALLA. Most of these factors reflect the feasibility
of the implementation of CALLA in EFL university contexts for
the development of academic reading. These influential factors
indicate the practicality of using this instructional program in
EFL contexts. One of these factors is the exposure EFL students
20
A. H. Albashtawi
got to various challenging informational activities along with
learning strategies. The combination of these elements could
reinforce teaching approaches which combine the development
of language knowledge, practice in using language, and strategy
training to promote independent learners. The second factor is
the chance given to the students to employ various cognitive
strategies to improve their comprehension of academic reading texts.
The third factor is the explicit instruction of CALLA. In
this study, the improvement in students’ academic reading
achievement can be attributed to the explicit instruction of
CALLA. Some researchers such as O'Malley and Chamot
(1990) and Oxford (1990) have affirmed the importance of the
explicit teaching of learning strategies. In this study, teaching
EFL students the definitions and uses of these strategies explicitly could raise their awareness towards these strategies and
enabled them to overcome difficulties in academic reading
(refer to Aghaie & Zhang, 2012; Ghafoori, Eslami, & Bagheri,
2016; Karizak & Khojasteh, 2016; Rajabi, Rezaei, & Afshari,
2013). The fourth factor is the explicit focus on relevant and
contextually appropriate language forms in order to support
content-learning activities in the classroom. The fifth factor is
the combination of focused language instruction and content
teaching. This combination is a prominent feature of CALLA
when it is adapted according to the EFL needs and level.
The sixth factor is the inclusion of the cognitive strategies
starting with repetition and classifying the words (bottom-up
level) and ending with elaboration (top-down level). These
strategies were explicitly defined and modeled by the instructor
during the intervention time. The instructor in the intervention
group started with defining explicitly each strategy in a separate
class to enable the students to know and understand the strategy. While some of these strategies such as elaboration strategy
were used before the lesson started (pre-reading strategies),
other strategies were used while students were reading the text
(during-reading strategies). Further, after completing the lesson, students were able to classify the words while they were
doing either controlled or free practice exercise, and these can
be described as post-reading strategies. This confirms what has
Improvement of EFL Students’ Academic Reading Achievement
21
been reported by Takallou (2011) who reported that utilizing
pre-, while-, and post-reading strategies would help students to
improve their reading achievement. Gooden (2012) believed
that “strategy instruction encourages students to think about
their mental processes and execute specific strategies to interact with text” (p. 17). Similarly, (Swain and Lantolf, 2000)
viewed that verbalizing the strategies explicitly and relating
them to the tasks at hand would be an effective training on
strategies use. Additionally, presenting coherently information,
in terms of thematically organized material make it easier to
remember and leads to improved learning.
Thus, the adapted CALLA used in this study has improved
students’ overall achievement because it targeted both good
and poor readers and it combined multiple strategies for helping students to improve their reading achievement. This is supported by O'Malley and Chamot (1990) who argued that while
employing one strategy leads to improvement in students’ comprehension, the inclusion of multiple strategies utilized by students can definitely yield significant improvement in their
reading comprehension. The results of the current study supported the findings reported by O'Malley, Chamot, StewnerManzanares, Kupper, & Russo (1985) who affirmed that inference, deduction, elaboration and transfer are among the most
important strategies that can improve students' reading achievement in the EFL context. Student appropriation of learning
tasks are important notions in L2 in addition to learning strategies. Through this, students can have chances to develop ways
of learning from teachers and peers, thereby appropriating
activities, strategies, and content in ongoing cycles of learning.
Conclusions and Practical Implications
Considering the nature of academic reading courses and the
need of various strategies to be employed by students in EFL
contexts to accomplish their goals, CALLA is one of the
approaches that have been employed. CALLA is a program and
an instructional model that was developed to meet the academic needs of ESL/EFL students learning. Further, it has
been found to be suitable for low and intermediate level of
22
A. H. Albashtawi
students who have difficulties in learning and understanding
academic language. In various EFL contexts, CALLA has been
employed and has been very successful. In these contexts,
CALLA has been proven to have a positive effect on students’
reading achievement. Some of these EFL contexts are Iran,
Turkey, Jordan, Malaysia, and Indonesia. For example, studies
that were conducted in Iran have revealed that CALLA
improved students’ reading achievement (e.g., Karbalaei, 2011;
Nejad & Mahmoodi-Shahrebabaki, 2015; Rasekh & Ranjbary,
2003; Ravari, 2014; Taghinezhad, Dehbozorgi, & Esmaili, 2015;
Takallou, 2011).
This current study has shown that CALLA was a promising
approach when it was employed in the Jordanian EFL context
for the improvement of academic reading achievement.
Further, the participants in the focus group interviews in this
study revealed that CALLA was very useful for them to improve
their academic reading. Thus, this study has some practical
implications for teaching academic reading. Teachers of academic reading in the Jordanian EFL context should focus on
teaching the students cognitive strategies that help them to
focus on the content of their materials in a way that can solve
their academic reading problems. Students should be trained
on how to select the appropriate cognitive strategy based on
the demands of the reading task and the nature of academic
material. Academic reading classes should be enriched with
various activities that encourage students to self-regulate their
learning can be one of the practical recommendations of the
current study. Teachers of academic reading courses should
exploit various techniques to demonstrate to students how to
learn and how to read academic materials. Teachers should
also help students to develop to be independent and self-confident learners.
As this study is one of the studies that have focused on the
utilization of CALLA approach in EFL context, future studies
may focus on students in other EFL university contexts. Taking
into account the sample of this study which included a group
of Advanced Reading course students in one public university
in Jordan, future studies may try to increase the number of the
student participants in order to generate further findings that
Improvement of EFL Students’ Academic Reading Achievement
23
can be added to the findings of the current study. Future
researchers willing to examine the effect of CALLA for the
improvement of EFL students’ academic reading achievement
in other Arab countries can find the findings and the design of
this study useful. Taking into account that the sample in this
study included EFL university students in Jordan, future
research may employ CALLA in more than one university and
include teachers in the sample so that teachers’ perceptions
about the employment of CALLA and its usefulness in EFL context can be explored.
Funding
This research received no funding.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
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