Abstract

• This study investigates the effectiveness of using tree diagrams and visual presentations of syntax components to understand syntactic rules and develop students' reading skills. It aims to examine whether the targeted syntax teaching enhances students' decoding abilities and comprehending the texts, especially, general linguistics. Syntax stands as an important role in various areas, especially reading comprehension, writing and translation. But most of the students usually focus on vocabulary and other strategies when they read the new texts. They do not realize the importance of syntax in reading comprehension. This research addresses this gap by examining how specific syntax components improve comprehending the texts. In this study, the students from Japanese major were tested with the created design. At the beginning, the teachers from the department of linguistics were interviewed whether they agreed that teaching syntax is needed to understand the complex sentences and then the experimental group, First Year Japanese Specialization students from Yangon University of Foreign Languages, was asked to answer the yes/no questions about the knowledge of syntax and reading comprehension tests. After that they received targeted syntax instruction for six periods. Data were collected through reading comprehension tests and sentence analyzing. Finally, same tasks of the beginning of the experiment were asked again to get the feedback from students. The final findings pointed out the significant improvements of students in reading comprehension, better decoding of complex sentences and analyzing the components of sentences compared with the beginning results. Therefore, it can be seen that using visual aids in teaching syntax appears to be a useful tool for promoting reading skills. Moreover, the results enhance overall reading proficiency. Future research could further discover the effects and application of syntax instruction in translation and writing skills.