The Comparative Effect of Using Original Short Stories and Local ‎Short Stories as Two Types of Cultural Sources on Indonesian ‎EFL Learners’ Reading Comprehension

Abstract

This research intended to compare the impacts of using original and local short stories as two types of cultural sources on enhancing Indonesian EFL learners’ reading comprehension. To achieve this goal, 50 intermediate Indonesian participants were chosen by the administration of the Oxford Quick Placement Test. Then, they were assigned to the local group and the original groups. After that, the participants of the two groups took the reading pre-test. After the pre-testing process, one group was trained by the original short storybooks, and the other group was instructed by the local short storybooks. In five sessions, five reading passages were taught to each group. After teaching the passages, a reading post-test was administered to the groups to measure the impacts of the original and the local short storybooks on their reading development. The results indicated that both groups had an improvement on their reading post-tests, but the original group outflanked the local group on the reading post-test. The results can have some implications for English teachers and learners.

Keywords

• original short stories
• local short stories
• indonesian efl learners
• reading comprehension
• cultural sources