چكيده
Shadowing is a teaching strategy in which a learner immediately repeats a part or all of an interlocutor's words while reading a text. The aim of the present study was twofold. The main goal was to find out whether shadow reading can lead to improved knowledge of grammar or not. More specifically, the current study attempted to discover whether shadow reading improved the grammatical knowledge of Iranian male and female EFL learners. At first, 120 EFL learners took part in the study, and two weeks before the onset of the study, a sample of Nelson proficiency test, was administrated to ensure the homogeneity of the participants. Based on the results of the proficiency test, 96 pre-intermediate EFL learners were selected as the final participants. Then they were assigned to four groups, two experimental groups and two control groups for each gender (each consisting of 24 participants). The learners in male/female treatment groups were exposed to shadow reading while the learners in the control groups were taught grammar through conventional method of teaching. The results of the study indicated that shadow reading is a helpful strategy in improving grammatical knowledge of pre-intermediate EFL learners. Furthermore, the results showed that there is a significant difference between male and female learners' grammatical knowledge as a result of shadow reading. Hence, both the first and second null hypotheses were rejected. It means shadowing had a positive effect on improving grammatical knowledge of Iranian EFL learners, since male learners outperformed female learners as a result of shadow reading, there was a difference between male and female learners’ grammar learning through shadow reading. The findings of this study have implications for EFL instruction, syllabus design, and materials development.
