the comparative effect of summarizing and concept mapping on esp learners’ reading comprehension of eap texts

the purpose of the present study was to discover which of the two reading strategies, concept mapping or summarizing, is more effective on esp learners’ reading comprehension of eap texts. to fulfill the purpose of the study, a sample of 94 undergraduate students of accountancy sat for a standardized sample of key english testing (ket). sixty-two students whose scores fell one standard deviation above and below the sample mean were ed and randomly divided into two equal groups. one group practiced concept mapping and the other group summarizing. a researcher-made reading posttest was finally administered to the students in both groups and the mean rank scores were compared by a mann-whitney test. the results led to the rejection of the null hypothesis, indicating that concept mapping had a significantly higher effect on the reading comprehension of eap texts. the implications of the study for eap readers and teachers as well as eap textbook writers are discussed.