The Effects of the Extended Time on Jordanian Students' Comprehension of English Texts

The purpose of the study is to investigate the effects of the extended time on Jordanian students' comprehension of English texts. The population of this study represented (1000) tenth-grade male and female students at public schools in Ma'an Directorate of Education. The sample consisted of (100) students chosen randomly from six public schools in Ma'an Directorate of Education. Fifty of them were female and fifty were male students. The subjects' reading comprehension was measured using four reading texts that were selected for this purpose. Two of the texts reflected the subjects' native culture and religion (Islamic religion and Arabic culture), while the other two texts reflected a foreign culture and a different religion (Christian religion and American culture). The researcher conducted interviews with eight English teachers to talk about the difficulties of reading comprehension. T-Test of Independent Samples was used to analyze the data statistically. The findings of the study showed that students, performance on reading comprehension tests was significantly affected at level (? < 0.05) due to the extended time of the test. The researcher recommended that teachers should help the students activate their prior knowledge about the reading topic before reading. Moreover, the researcher encouraged students to enrich their knowledge through the internet. More studies are recommended to investigate the effect of the extended time and other variables such as courses of English language which include ready answers on reading comprehension using more texts.