The Effect of Hedging Instruction on Reading Comprehension for Iranian University Students

This study examined the effect of explicit instruction of hedging on English forSpecific Academic Purposes (ESAP) reading comprehension performance ofEnglish Language Learning (ELL) university students. A reading comprehensiontest was developed and validated as the pretest and the posttest. The test, includingitems for assessing the comprehension of the students in their area of specialization,was administered to 180 undergraduates (B.S.), of whom 100 students were selectedand randomly assigned to experimental and control conditions. Then, all theparticipants attended 10 sessions of awareness-raising treatment. During the first 3sessions, the participants in the experimental condition were instructed on theessential meaning of a hedge, as well as the types and functions of hedging devices.The next sessions focused on the practical use of these markers as they appear inacademic texts. After the treatment, the test was again given to the same students asthe post-test. The results of two t tests and a two-way ANOVA provided empiricalsupport for the facilitative effect of explicit instruction in recognizing hedgingdevices that improved their language proficiency and therefore improved theirreading comprehension scores.