The Effect of Jigsaw Technique on Reading Comprehension and Anxiety of
EFL Learners: The Case of Intermediate Iranian Learners
Abstract
1.
1.1.1. The processes of instruction in the
control group (CG)
The researchers started with 40 intermediate students from both adults,
adolescents, males and females. Then, a text from Oxford Intermediate
Reading Comprehension textbook was selected. Afterwards, the researchers
distributed the reading text, so that each person had all the parts of
reading. The instructor asked the students to read the text individually
and translate the text sentence by sentence. At the end of the
instruction, the students responded to the reading comprehension
questions individually.
1.1.2. The processes of instruction in the
experimental group (EG)
At the first step, the researchers focused on 60 intermediate students
and divided them into small cooperative jigsaw groups (i.e., 3-6 persons
in each group). The instructor asked the students to make circles with
their chairs. Then, a reading text from the same source was assigned for
the experimental group. Afterwards, the pieces of reading texts were cut
out into separate paragraphs and were distributed among the students so
that each person had a different part of reading paragraph. The
instructor asked each member of the cooperative jigsaw group to silently
read the assigned text. The time allocated for this stage was 5-10
minutes.
In the second step, the instructor created new small (2-3) persons
“Expert” groups with the individuals who had read the same material.
The students were given time to discuss what they had read and how they
might treat this when they return to their cooperative groups. This
time, the allocated time was 5-10 minutes.
In the third step, the instructor recreated the original cooperative
jigsaw groups. Then, she had each person explain the content of the
reading text to the rest of the group. In other words, the students
shared knowledge, ideas, and information in terms of pieces of the text
which they had in their hands. In this part, each member of the “expert
group” took responsibility and shared their information with the
members of the other group, so that they could have access to the whole
text, sentence by sentence, and were able to reorganize it. Each member
of the group then cooperated with the rest of the group regarding the
content and the subject matter. Each person in the group was also
responsible to learn from the others inside the group. Five minutes was
allocated to this activity.
In the fourth and the last step, the instructor concluded with several
key questions for students to discuss implications of the points with
people either within the groups or with the entire class. A number of
oral questions based on the reading text were asked to ensure that
individuals had grasped the overall content. During this step, each
person had all of the pieces of the whole text in his/her hand.