Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) on ELT Students’ Reading Comprehension - A Pre-experimental Study

Sep 15, 2026

Reading is often treated as passive, yet effective comprehension requires active interpretation by connecting new text with learners’ prior knowledge. This pre-experimental study evaluates the effectiveness of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) on ELT students’ reading comprehension. A TOEFL Reading Comprehension test measured pre-test and post-test scores. Wilcoxon non-parametric analysis indicated no significant improvement (p-value > 0.05). Factors may include learners’ readiness and instructional approaches emphasizing accuracy over fluency.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages9

Reading Time23 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Reading Comprehension and CLT

JOEY 4 (2) pp. 34-42 August 2025 Journal homepage : [https://journal.ibrahimy.ac.id/index.php/JOEY](https://journal.ibrahimy.ac.id/index.php/JOEY) ISSN : 2828-2388 e-ISSN : 2828-2078 | Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) on ELT Students’Reading comprehension: A Pre-experimental Study
1)Annisa Kurnia Asri
1Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris, Fakultas Ilmu Sosial dan Humaniora, Universitas Ibrahimy [Email Correspondence :](Email Correspondence : annisakurniaasri@gmail.com@gmail.com)[ ](Email Correspondence : annisakurniaasri@gmail.com@gmail.com)[annisakurniaasri@gmail.com@gmail.com](Email Correspondence : annisakurniaasri@gmail.com@gmail.com) | | | --- | --- | | A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T RA C T | | | Keywords: [Communicative Language Teaching (CLT),
Reading comprehension, TOEFL
Reading test]
Article History:
Received : xx Month Year
Revised : xx Month Year
Accepted : xx Month Year
Published : xx Month Year | Reading was often considered as a passive skill, while in fact, reading requires the learners to actively read and understand the text by relating to their former knowledge. This pre-experimental study aimed to measure how effective Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) on students’ reading comprehension of of ELT department. TOEFL Reading Comprehension test was used as the instrument to collect the data from the pre-test and post-test score. The resulted of thenon-parametric test of Wilcoxon test showed that there was no improvement after the CLT approach was implemented (the p-value is higher than 0.05 indicating that there was no significant effect) . Some factors might determine the effectiveness include the student’s readiness in understanding English, and the inappropriate approach to teach reading skill that requires more on accuracy rather than fluency. | 1. Introduction Reading has a special place in the English Language Teaching (ELT) department. Reading skill is taught for four semesters and is introduced simultaneously. One of the reading courses is Reading Comprehension. Reading is a complex activity that incorporates both sense and intellect. Its goal is to help readers understand written materials. Comprehension can be explained as the process of interpreting related text, which is known as comprehension. It requires not just thinking and reasoning but also vocabulary, or word knowledge Reading skill is also called receptive skill, yet in the process of understanding the written text, the readers actively interpret the meaning by connecting the new knowledge with their prior knowledge. Reading is a complex cognitive process that involves decoding characters in order to comprehend the text (Nazarov & Ismatulleva, 2022) . In this study, the ELT department students who have a good comprehension of English reading skills have the benefit of gaining more vocabulary as well as new knowledge derived from the targeted language (English) . Reading can be boring when students are asked to read and answer the questions repetitively. Meanwhile, reading is essential for academic achievement, the emergence of extracurricular interests, leisure time enjoyment, and social and personal growth (Dechant; Emerald, 1991) . [https://doi.org/10.35316/JOEY.2025.v4i2.-xx](https://doi.org/10.35316/JOEY.2025.v4i2.-xx) Copyright (c) 2022 JOEY: Journal of English Ibrahimy This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-SA license Annisa Kurnia Asri JOEY vol.4 (no.2) pp. 34-42 Teaching reading needs to be engaging and interactive to make the students active in the class. To make the students love and enjoy Reading Comprehension course, teacher needs to apply a varied method in the classroom. One of the method that promotes the variations in the reading class is Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) . The goals of language instruction, the ways in which students acquire a language, the types of learning activities that take place in the classroom, and the responsibilities that both teachers

FAQs

What is the main purpose of this pre-experimental study?

To measure how effective Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is for ELT students’ reading comprehension.

How were the data and test scores collected?

A TOEFL Reading Comprehension test was used to collect pre-test and post-test scores.

What did the Wilcoxon test show about the effect of CLT?

There was no significant improvement after CLT was implemented because the p-value was higher than 0.05.

Sep 15, 2026

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