Reading as a social process: a study about the effects of cooperative learning activities on the reading skill development of the Iranian EFL learners

This study investigates the effects of cooperative learning activities on the reading skill development of the Iranian EFL learners. Participants were 48 intermediate learners from an institute in Mashhad that were randomly assigned to two groups of 24 learners. The study was done according to the pre-test post-test control group model. The experimental group was taught with Jigsaw and different cooperative activities. The control group was taught according to traditional teaching model. Results revealed that there is a significant difference between the mean score of experimental group and control group. The experimental group had a better performance in post-test, especially in the vocabulary part of the test but there was no significant difference in performance of the control group in the pre-test and post-test. So it can be concluded that cooperative learning activities have a positive effect on the reading skill development of the Iranian EFL learners.