Bilingualism in EFL classrooms : Saudi female beginners’ reading performance and classroom involvement

الملخص EN

This study examines the impact of a bilingual approach on the academic performance and classroom involvement/participation of level 1 English as a foreign language (EFL) reading comprehension students.

Fifty female Saudi EFL students participated in the study.

A reading comprehension test, classroom observation, and interviews served as data collection methods.

The researcher used an independent samples t-test to analyze the test scores, and thematic content analyses to analyze the interviews and observation.

The results show that bilingualism as a teaching strategy positively affects learners' academic performance, classroom participation, and involvement.

The study also indicates that most participants perceived bilingualism as a useful teaching strategy to raise their exam scores.

Recommendations for teaching EFL beginners, as well as for language learning and further research, were presented