A Strategic Approach to Comprehending English Scientific and Technical Texts

A Strategic Approach to Comprehending English Scientific and Technical Texts

The purpose of this paper is to explore effective teaching and learning strategies for better reading comprehension of English scientific and technical (EST) texts. This paper evaluates the efficacy of two domains of strategies that can be learned to improve better reading comprehension of EST texts. One is conventional strategies, general strategies that should be used regardless of a genre; the other is rhetorical strategies, genre-specific strategies that should be applied to the genre of EST. To determine whether reading comprehension of EST texts is improved through the use of genre-specific strategies, an experiment was conducted with a treatment group who were systematically instructed in two strategies, and a control group who were taught on a traditional grammar-translation basis. The findings show that there is a significant difference in reading comprehension scores of EST texts between the two groups. The results undoubtedly demonstrate the advantage of a strategic approach for reading EST texts.