Journal of Tikrit University for Humanities

The current study aims to investigate the effect of using spaced learning repetition method on Iraqi Islamic school students' achievement in English language. The aim of the study is supposed to be achieved through verifying its hypothesis. The sample of the study consists of twenty EFL Islamic school students who are spread into both groups, the experimental groups and control .The experimental group has been taught the English reading comprehension(The Prophet of Allah unit seven and eight) by using spaced learning repetition


A B S T R A C T
The current study aims to investigate the effect of using spaced learning repetition method on Iraqi Islamic school students' achievement in English language. The aim of the study is supposed to be achieved through verifying its hypothesis. The sample of the study consists of twenty EFL Islamic school students who are spread into both groups, the experimental groups and control .The experimental group has been taught the English reading comprehension(The Prophet of Allah unit seven and eight) by using spaced learning repetition method ,while the control group has been taught the same material by using their current method. A posttest has been applied and conducted to the both groups. The required data are collected and analysed statistically. The gained findings show that the mean scores of students' achievement of the experimental group in the posttest are better than that of the control group. This means that the investigated method has an efficient effect on Iraqi Islamic school learners' achievement language of English.

Statement of the Problem
The concept of teaching methods has had a long history in language teaching, as is witnessed by the rise and fall of a variety of methods during the last years of language teaching .Many teachers have found the notion of methods attractive over the last one hundred or so years, since they show obviously safe systems for classroom instruction and are hence sometimes include essentially as panacea for the language teaching problem (Richards and Renandya ,2002 : 5).
Spaced learning repetition (SLR ,for a short) is a substitute to common forcing and has been demonstrated to assist workers hold knowledge for the "longterm " with fewer homework and larger holding evaluating . ( Kang ,2016 :15) Furthermore , learners sometimes sense uninterested and have undesirable reaction in EFL class room , specifically after instructors practice the similar activities of reading that do not encounter learners to read after a text understanding . The tasks such as: dictionary work, silent reading ,true-false sentences ,comprehension questions , vocabulary, and fill in the gaps exercises. However the reading tasks do not demand learners to read openly in order to response to the inquires presented by the learners themselves .On the opposite side, Students only should notice the right responses and they grow into useless readers (Richards and Renandya ,2002 : 7) .
The current study is limited to using spaced learning repetition method for teaching English reading comprehension ( The Prophet of Allah unit seven and eight) to sixth year Islamic School students (Al-Nu'man bin Thabit and Imam AL-Ghazily) during the year of 2020-2021 .

Plan of the Study
In order to achieve the aim of the study these steps can be applied : 1.Slecting two groups of sixth year secondary students from the Islamic schools at Kirkuk(Al-Nu'man bin Thabit and Imam AL-Ghazily) .
2-Teaching the same English reading comprehension ( The Prophet of Allah unit seven and eight) by the researcher ,himself, by using the spaced learning repetition method with the experimental group and using the traditional approach with control group by the teacher of that material .

3-Consructing an achievement test.
4. Gaining the result and some conclusions ,recommendations , and suggestion for more works

Section Two 2.1 The Idea of Spaced Teaching Repetition
This study for spacing effects on memory initiated in the 1880s with Hermann Ebbinghaus. He verified his own ability to recall arbitrary sequences of syllables, defining that as the number of repetitions of looking at a sequence of syllables increased, his ability to later recall the sequence increased (Cepda et al ,2006:354).
Moreover, Ebbinghaus presented that the retention of information was very short-term. Only eighteen minutes after first memorizing a sequence of syllables, he had already forgotten 56% of what he had just learned. From this point, Ebbinghaus repeatedly relearned the sequences each day. By the time, the amount of repetitions needed each day to stimulate recall of the information minimized, showing that continued support would almost entirely remove losses in retention (Ebbinghaus,1964:656). Jost (1897:472) developed on the idea of time lags in memory with the improvement of his law of forgetting which statuses that if two relations are of equal power but of different age a new repetition has a superior value for the older one. This law shows the essential advantage of repeated practice. With each following repetition of study, the amount of information retained growths.

‫المجلد‬ ‫االنسانية‬ ‫للعلوم‬ ‫تكريت‬ ‫جامعة‬ ‫مجلة‬
There is development which is the Leitner System which tried to perfect the frequency of repetition. The Leitner system depends on a sequences of five decks, with all cards beginning at the first deck. If a user can correctly identify a card, it is then moved to second Deck, while if they cannot correctly identify a card it remains in Deck one. This pattern continues, with cards correctly identified moving forward one deck, and any card incorrectly identified staying in Deck one. The key constituent of the Leitner System is that Deck one, the flashcards that are greatest repeatedly identified incorrectly are the ones that are studied the most. As the deck number increases, the frequency of study decreases. This operates the principles of distributed repetition to support hard-to-remember flashcards while also giving the chance for occasionally refreshing memory of easy-toremember cards. Numerous variations off of the Leitner system have been developed, with slight differences in variables such as the amount of decks, the time which is spent on each deck, and the procedure for which deck an incorrect response would be moved into(Bench,2016:3).
Cepeda et al are made additional efforts to optimize disseminated practice observed at the gap time among an early knowledge acquisition and the moment of recall. They verified that a lengthier gap between study sessions improved retention of knowledge. This important outcome applies to anybody attempting to study over a lengthier period of time and obviously validates the benefits of studying and then later returning to the same data to increase long subject retention(2009:354).

The Structure of Spaced Learning Repetition (SLR)
Spaced learning repetition (SLR) works because it permits for coupling of three psychological phases that support learning and memory.

Phase 1: The Forgetting Curve
Memories with a long time is vanished. From this points ,academics of memory call the probable failure in the likelihood demanding a s the for getting curve . (Teninbaum ,2017:279) .

Phase 2: The Spacing Effect
It is a result of the forgetting curve . This phase proven that spacing g repetition have the slow rate in the memory , greatly in the agreement the hill of the forgetting curve. The Spacing impact grows by the days the growing breaks among revision meetings have gone obvious. (Cepda et al ,2006:380).

Phase 3: The Testing Effect
Lastly, when students study SLR, the y advantage from the effect of testing , that grips students attain presented material that are learned more eagerly after they have measured on it by themselves . Testing has verified a successful procedure to support in teaching in numerous parts. While the students of SLR make revision of the content , they are aiding from the effect of testing by continually obliging themselves to measure what have studied. Accepting fundamental devices of SLR is n 't demand to take benefit of this impact. Nonetheless, distinguishing knowledge after the teaching possibly emotion to learners (Roediger and Karpicke,2006:191).

The Study Population and Sample
The population of the current study contain 48 sixth grade Islamic School learners (Al-Nu'man bin Thabit and Imam AL-Ghazily) during the year of 2020-2021.The learners are divided into two classes : "A" and "B " . "A" includes twenty-two students therefore "B " includes twenty-six students . Twelve students are taken from "A" and sixteen are taken from "B" Thus , the whole number of sample is twenty learners who represent 40.66 % from their original population , as shown in table (1) : Both groups were equalized in terms of age , level of achievement in English language for previous year (2019-2020), and the academic level of students' parents .

Students' Instruction
In the current study the two texts (The Prophet of Allah unit seven and eight) Makka' for unit seven and eight ) have been taught to the control and experimental group. The instruction of both groups of students began on twenty-one of March 2021,and continued for four weeks .It ended on the twenty-one of April 2021. The experimental group the texts and the control group by the teacher of that material, for three lectures a week, as the lesson plan shown in Appendix (D) .

Construction of the Posttest
The achievement test can show how to construct in the followed table and their scores are also obvious.

Test Validity
Validity can be defined as the essential description of measuring instrument that denotes to the measuring what is supposed to be measured . (Ary and eta l , 1979 :196) In order to gain the face validity of the test ,it exposed to jury members by the researcher as shown in appendix (G)

3.6The Pilot Administration of the Posttest
There are a variety of aims that are intended by the applying the pilot study which are : ❖ Discovering the test reliability ❖ Discovering the obvious of the items of the test .
The objectives of the test to be achieved , 25 students randomly from sixth grade Islamic (Al-Nu'man bin Thabit and Imam AL-Ghazily) during the year of 2020-2021 at Kirkuk .the finding has shown that the test items are obvious and they demand (27-37) to be responded by the students, so that the average of the time demanding for answering the test is (31) minutes .

The Reliability of the test
According to Bachman and Palmer(2002 : 19) , reliability can be defined as an essential principles of the measurement that refers to the space to what measurement device is fixed in rating whatever is measuring .
An achievement test has been constructed , validated , its reliability gained , its items analysed the applied to the both groups of the study .

The differences by the Mean Scores of Control Group and the Experimental One in the post test
The obtained means of scores of the control group is (32.90) while in the experimental one is (39.80) . According to the T-test formula for the two in dependent samples .The tabulated Tvalu e is (2.10) while the computed Tvalue is (2.21) at the degree of (0.05 ) ,it is shown in table (3).That means there is obvious differences among the performance of both groups and in better of the experimental one .

Discussion of the Results
The gained findings refer that the learners of the experimental side is obviously prefer than of the control one in their achievement in reading comprehension . That means spaced learning method has positive impact in the teaching of reading comprehension .
The improvement of students' achievement in English reading comprehension by using the SLR may be due to the following reasons : 1.The EFL school students find that SLR is enjoyable because they could choose their own activities . 2.Participation in the SLR encourage the students to familiarize themselves with the presented reading comprehension , collaboratively .
3.Students enjoyed SLR because it allows them to express their own opinions freely , and thus stimulate their critical thinking .
4.Spaced learning repetition presents an immediate feedback for the students when their instructor encourages the peer evaluation within the lesson discussion .

Conclusions
In the light of the findings of the study , the following points are concluded : 1.Challenging and difficult assignments in the context of SLR allow students to increase their motivation , skill ,confidence , and to perform better than they imagined they could .
2.SLR is not only useful for teaching course content but also for practising problemsolving skills and communication skills .
3.Learners can effectively acquire course material outside of class and be seized responsible for that acquisition through the forgetting curve . 4. Exercises in class have helped the students to develop methods for positive discovering main idea, identifying inferences, understanding vocabulary ,generating and answering Questions in testing effect.
5. The use of SLR is useful to increase the social interaction among learners. The learners share information ,participate in the exercises and answer the questions in free mood .

Recommendations
1. In teaching English reading comprehension, teachers are advised to base on the procedures of SLR rather than using the traditional methods.
2. Teachers of English reading comprehension should direct their learners' directions to many skills of reading comprehension such as , vocabulary , spelling , grammar skills and written skills.
3.Teachers of English reading comprehension should employ many instructional devices such as , data show , charts and film inside the classroom ,in order to simplify the gifted texts and storm their learner's brains.

The steps followed:
Aim: Achieve a deep understanding(the four skills of the reading comprehension).

First
Step :Students of SLR learn inside the classroom situation as alone equipping with the vocabularies and inferences sentences that match with course aims and essential concepts Third step : During the first reminding of (The Prophet of Allah paragraph one and two) there are a lot of noisy , discussion and negotiations of the answers among students with deep understanding .
Fourth step : During the second reminding ,the learners had permission to base rereading of the assigned information "open book process" to discuss the teacher about their answers on the given question that appear during the lesson .
Fifth step : During the third reminding ,the text is read for two or more times and any difficulties students faced during the discussion with them of The Prophet of Allah (paragraph one and two). The required charts , data show, gestures, posters and facial expressions are also used.

Sixth step :
The teacher asks them to read the texts again and discuss the events orally. Then The teacher asks them to do the exercises next lecture.
Topic : The Prophet of Allah (from paragraph one to paragraph three) Organization of Seats : learners' seats are saved as they are in their conventional sets.

The Steps of the lesson:
Aim: Achieve a deep understanding (the four skills of the reading comprehension).

First step:
The teacher reads the texts from the reading comprehension (The Prophet of Allah, paragraph one and two) more than one time. Third step : The teacher asks some of the students to read the texts from the reading comprehension in a loud voice.
Fourth step : Discuss with the students the main events of the passage and asks them to prepare the other paragraphs for the next lecture.

Appendix (E)
The percentage that the test questions formulate in terms of the