Improving Iranian ESP Students' Reading Comprehension through Flipped Classroom

Background and Objective: With the advances in online learning, flipped classroom model (FCM) has increased in popularity as innovative learning practices for supporting higher education. In a flipped model, instructional lectures outside of the classroom can be provided through technology, such as lecture videos, allowing classroom time to be focused on an active and meaningful learning. In this paper, there was an attempt to investigate the effect of flipped classroom on Iranian ESP students' reading comprehension. Materials and Methods: For this purpose, a group of ۴۶ male and female students majoring in nursing in Islamic Azad University of Semnan, who were divided into ۲ equal groups with ۲۳ students each. Participants' language proficiency was checked through a language proficiency test. The participants of experimental group received ESP texts instruction through flipped classroom techniques, with ۸ videos. The control group received traditional ESP texts instruction. Both groups will have pre and posttest ESP reading comprehension. Findings: By comparing the results of the two groups, the effectiveness of flipped teaching / learning model will be examined. The quantitative analysis of the data showed that flipped classroom had a significant effect on improving Iranian ESP students’ reading comprehension.Conclusions: This study suggests that flipped classroom model can be a solution for both teaching and evaluating. It can also be used for similar educational contexts and subject areas applying proper learning strategies.

کلیدواژه ها:

flipped classroom ، Iranian ESP students ، reading comprehension