چکیده:
This study attempted to determine the effect of background music while silentreading on Iranian EFL learners’ reading comprehension. The participants were 57Iranian EFL learners between the ages of 14 and 16 in two 3rd grade high schoolclasses at pre-intermediate proficiency level. Before treatment,both experimental and control groups took a reading comprehension pretest. In the experimental group, the researchers played Mozart sonatas as background music and asked them to read the passage silently and then answer the reading comprehension questions. In the control group, the procedure was the same, but no music was played while silent reading by the students. After ten sessions, the students of both groups were asked to answer another independent but parallel form of reading section of PET as their post-test. The independent samples t- testresultsindicated that the experimental group outperformed the control group in reading comprehension posttest, and listening to background music while silent reading had a significantly positive effect on Iranian EFL learners’ reading comprehension. The results of the present study have implications for EFL students, teachers, and teacher educators as well as syllabus designers and materials developers.
خلاصه ماشینی:
"He believed that Mozart: • Improves test scores • Cuts learning time • Calms hyperactive children and adults • Reduces errors • Improves creativity and clarity • Heals the body faster • Integrates both sides of the brain for more efficient learning • Raises IQ scores 9 points (research done at University of California, Irvine) The concept was generally accepted by the public since people are always interested in easy ways to boost their own and their children’s IQs, but the results of some studies done by psychologists (such as Steele, 2000; Thompson, Schellenberg, & Husain, 2001) refuted the original findings and presented competing theories for the Mozart effect.
A growing number of researchers were interested in investigating the effects of background music on language learning and reading comprehension (Hall, 1952; Etaugh&Michals 1975; Etaugh&Ptasnik, 1982; Tucker & Bushman, 1991; Bowman, 2007; Southgate&Roscino, 2009; Rashidi&Faham, 2011).
The treatment period took 10 sessions for both experimental and control groups, and during the class sessions, students studied 10 texts from Read and Understand, book One (2005, Hirkapatrick&Mok) and wrote their answers to the follow-up comprehension activities.
2- Testing the Research Hypothesis In order to examine the probable improvement of Iranian EFL learners’ reading comprehension while silent reading with background music, the researcher ran an independent samples t-test to test the research hypothesis and compare the mean scores of the experimental group and control group after treatment."