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The Positive Effect of Translation on Improving Reading Comprehension among Female Arabic Learners of English as Foreign Language

Translation has been one of the most commonly used strategies in learning an additional language. Although there is not a consensus on the usefulness of translation as a language learning strategy, the relevant literature indicated that it could contribute to the learning process when used purposefully and meaningfully. The present study aimed to explore the role of translation in supporting the language learning process by adopting an experimental design to reveal whether engaging in translation practice could improve participants’ skills in reading comprehension. In this scope, 30 female students at Taif University in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia were randomly assigned to the experimental group and received an intervention by translating reading passages before carrying out comprehension tasks. On the other hand, the 28 female students in the control group practiced reading comprehension without completing a translation task before the comprehension activities. An independent samples t-test was used to measure the extent to which the two groups differed from each other in terms of their reading comprehension skills before and after the intervention. The results of the independent samples t-tests demonstrated that the experimental group scored significantly higher than the control group at the end of the intervention, although there was not a statistically significant difference between the two groups at the outset. The results suggested that translation could be an effective instructional strategy in improving learners’ skills in reading comprehension in an EFL setting.