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Volume 6 Number 4, Winter 2009, Pages 1-296   


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Effect of Reading On-line Local Newspapers Headlines on Developing University Students' Reading Skills in English
    Awatif Abu-Al-Sha


This study investigates the effect of reading on-line English local newspaper headlines (Jordan Times) on university EFL students' reading skills in English. A survey questionnaire was distributed to check whether students are used to reading newspapers in English or not. The sample consists of 47 students of English Language Classroom Teacher major at Al-al-Bayt University enrolled in CALL course during the second semester 2007/2008. This sample is assigned to form two experimental groups and a control group who received training into three internet service labs at the University campus. The first group was trained to read and analyze the grammatical features of on-line local newspapers headlines in English; the second received training on how to read, and translate on-line local newspapers headlines via using the available on-line free machine translation systems; then to compare the output with its equivalent in local Arabic newspapers; whereas the control group followed the syllabus of CALL Course for EFL students. An achievement test was administered as a pre and a post test to measure the students' progress in English. The findings revealed that there are significant differences at (α =0.05) due to the effect of reading on-line English local newspaper headlines on both experimental groups. In the light of this result, reading newspaper headlines via the internet is recommended for use in EFL classes.

Keywords: on-line newspaper headlines, reading skills, on-line machine translation systems