Audiobooks and the reading comprehension

Abstract

Audiobooks are electronic books format or recording books which are listened instead of being only read as printed books. Audiobooks has been seen as a supporting tool for people with reading disabilities. However nowadays it is seen as a media for developing high listening and reading competencies. The objective of this research is to analyze how audiobooks improve reading comprehension. This was a quasiexperimental study with a group of 29 participants that belonged to seventh semester of Carrera de Pedagogía de Los Idiomas Nacionales y Extranjeros at Universidad Técnica de Ambato. The investigation lasted 2 weeks with eight interventions in total. At the beginning of the experiment students were given a pre-test based on CAE reading and use of English. After that, students read and listened to five different audiobooks written by Oscar Wilde. By the end of each session students were given a questionnaire with ten multiple choice questions. After the period of treatment students were given the post-test. The hypothesis was proved by using Saphiro and Wilcoxon tests. The results showed that using audiobooks in class improved reading comprehension on students