Syntax Surgery Strategy for Enhancing Syntactic Parsing and Reading Comprehension Among Iraqi EFL Learners: An Applied Linguistics Perspective

Abstract

There is a serious problem with the ability of Iraqi EFL university students to read and understand the texts, especially in the case of the meaning construction when syntactically complex structure is involved. From the applied linguistics perspective this study has attempted to explore the role of the Syntax Surgery Strategy in enhancing syntactic parsing and reading comprehension of Iraqi EFL university students. Quasi experimental pre-test and post-test control group design was adopted, 150 undergraduate students of the Department of English, Faculty of Education for Women, University of Kufa, was used. The students were equalized into the experimental (N = 75) and control (N = 75) group. The experimental group was systematically instructed using sentence segmentation, sentence structure analysis, sentence manipulation and sentence reconstruction (Syntax Surgery), while the conventional instruction was provided in the control group. These syntactic parsing and reading comprehension measures were used in pre- and post-testing to gather data. Within-group and between-group comparisons were made using independent samples t-test, paired samples t-test, and effect size measures. This study investigates if explicit syntactic manipulation enhances learners' processing of grammatical relationship and building textual meaning. The results are hoped to offer an empirical basis on the interface between syntactic processing and reading comprehension and to integrate syntax informed instruction in the Iraqi university EFL pedagogy.