teacher's use of social, discursive and textual practices and efl learners' development of reading comprehension: insights from critical discourse analysis in foreign language pedagogy

The importance of teachers in promoting reading comprehension skills among learners is crucial in the field of english as a foreign language (efl) education. this study aims to explore how teachers utilize social, discursive, and textual methods to enhance the development of reading comprehension skills in efl learners. a total of 160 translation-majoring learners enrolled in a reading comprehension course at applied scientific university (rad) in tehran were purposefully selected and divided into three experimental groups and one control group. the experimental groups received instruction based on critical discourse analysis (cda), which included social, discursive, and textual strategies to enhance their reading comprehension skills in the efl classroom. to evaluate the effectiveness of the cda-based instruction, pre- and post-tests on reading comprehension were conducted using a quasi-experimental design. the data obtained from these tests were analyzed using a one-way analysis of covariance (one-way ancova). the results showed a significant improvement in reading comprehension among learners who were exposed to the cda-based treatments, highlighting its essential role in promoting critical interaction with texts and enhancing overall language proficiency, while no significant improvement was observed in the control group. additionally, social practice was found to be more effective than discursive and textual practices; however, no significant differences were observed between discursive and textual practices. the findings have implications for efl teachers, learners, and curriculum planners, which can ultimately help make reading comprehension easier in efl contexts.