The Effect of Task - Based Language Teaching on Reading Comprehension in Farsi for Specific Purposes

Reading comprehension in Persian for Specific purposes is one of the skills of second language teaching which has received much attention nowadays. In this method, the needs of learners in the target language is the main point in educational planning. The educational goal and content are designed according to educational or professional majors of the learners to enable them to read scientific sources in the target language. Task-based method is one of the meaning-oriented methods in the second language learning, which includes some tasks purposing learners’ involvement, more language process and deep understanding. The present research is an experimental study aiming to the effectiveness of task-based teaching on enhancing the reading comprehension in Persian for specific purposes. to do so, 22 Persian learners at Persian Center in Imam Khomeini International University were selected. The applicants were of Arab background and intended to proceed their studies at engineering for higher education in Iran. Afterwards, they took a pre-test as a placement test and then the experimental group took a course based on task-based method for 12 hours While the control group received traditional syllabus. Having done the treatment, both groups participated in a post-test. The results showed that task-based method had a significant effect on improving the reading comprehension of Persian learners in the experimental group.