THE EFFECT OF ESP KNOWLEDGE ON READING COMPREHENSION AND RECALL OF IRANIAN COMPUTER SCIENCE STUDENTS

The purpose of carrying out this research was to find out if English for specific purposes knowledge of the students affects their reading comprehension and recall. The study was conducted in two phases. First, about 120 students studying computer science in Islamic Azad University of Sabzevar took a placement test and based on that about 76 students at intermediate level were chosen for this study. All these subjects had already passed a general course in English for a semester. All of them were taught computer texts in an ESP course for about one semester. In the second phase of study which was carried out almost at the end of the ESP course, six reading comprehension texts –two general, two computer and two engineering- were given to subjects on separate sessions. They were supposed to read the texts and write their recalls in Persian. Finally, all recall protocols were analyzed. The result of two paired t-tests showed that ESP Knowledge had effects on reading comprehension and recall of the texts. The subjects did remember the computer texts better than general and engineering texts. Overall, the results supported the role of background knowledge in reading comprehension and recall in EFL and ESP situations.