Impact of Newspaper Reading on Performance of English Communication; An Experimental Study Based on ‘Daily News’ Paper

Abstract

The application of reading of newspapers based on selected reading strategies plays a major role in the performance of the students and the research was conducted to identify the relationship between the reading of ‘Daily News’ newspaper with reading strategies and the performance in the Business Communication subject in HNDA course of ATI – Section- Sammanthurai of SLIATE as there were no any previous researches in relation to this section in the academic field in SLIATE. Ninety students from HNDA – class – first year - A were taken for experimental group and ninety students from class - first year - B were taken for controlled group. A pre-test was conducted for both the groups and the mean differences were found to be negligible for both the groups from the pre-test. Later, the experimental group was instructed to read ‘Daily News’ newspaper based on selected reading strategies for three months with thirty hours reading while the controlled group was generally taught without the use of ‘Daily News’ newspaper. After three months a post-test was conducted for both the groups with different content. When the post-test was conducted, the mean was slightly improved for the group - B from the post-test and the mean was considerably improved for the group - A from the post-test. It was found that there is a positive relationship between the reading of ‘Daily News’ newspaper based on selected reading strategies and the performance in the Business Communication subject. Thus, if the students have to show improved performance in the Business Communication subject they need to read ‘Daily News’ newspaper with proper reading strategies consecutively.