Using Dynamic Intervention for Promoting Reading Fluency of Quranic Learners in Qum: A Comparative Study of Old and New Approaches

The ability to read fluently is a critical skill for language learners in foreign language contexts. Learning to read Arabic texts for Persian language learners is not an exception. The importance of this reading is more recognized when these learners are faced with religious texts including the holy Quran. Iranian readers of the Quran have many difficulties in uttering and pronouncing Arabic words and letters which blocks their fluency. Traditional approaches toward reading fluency such as teacher model have not been very successful. Therefore, the current research has investigated the effect of dynamic assessment on promoting learning fluency of Iranian learners of Arabic. Deeply rooted in mediated interaction and learning in zone of proximal development (ZPD), dynamic intervention is a new instructional strategy toward language learning. The current research has adopted an inventory of mediational strategies (Aljaafreh and Lantolf, ۱۹۹۴) of interventionist dynamic assessment to intervene learning hotspots and promote fluency of intermediate Quranic learners of teacher training centers in Qum. To this aim ۲۰ students were selected through convenience sampling and their scores were compared in a quasi-experimental design. These students were assigned to two experimental groups where one of them underwent dynamic intervention while the other was recruited in a traditional teacher modeling course. Their scores in the post-test were analyzed through t-test. The findings showed that dynamic intervention promoted reading fluency of Iranian Quranic readers more than traditional approaches. Dynamic intervention can be replaced with traditional instructional methods by Iranian Quranic teachers and promote reading fluency significantly.