The three-semester service English courses offered by the Department of ForeignrnLanguages and Literature, Institute of Language Studies, are meant to help all AddisrnAbaba University students develop their linguistic abilities so that they could successfullyrncope with the academic requirements of the university. The first two courses are offeredrnin the first year and the third course in the first or second semester of the second year.rnResearch indicates the first year courses in particular have not succeeded in helping thernsocial science students develop their background knowledge to a significant degree to readrnin English for academic purposes.rnBased on the current view that reading is an interactive process and that this may bernfacilitated if learners can develop the critical mass of knowledge which embodiesrnknowledge of the content (or of the world), knowledge of the reading process andrnknowledge of English and the capacity to effectively use this competence, the currentrnstudy explores the feasibility of a possible approach for reading instruction in English forrnacademic purposes to enable students to acquire the essential mass of knowledge so thatrnthey could become fluent readers in English. The approach maintains that effectivernlearning for attain ing the essential background knowledge for developing the learner'srnability to read fluently can occur when learning is individualised (to cater for learnerrndifferences in cognitive style and strategies, learning strategies, moti vation and purposernof learning , and prior knowledge) and when learners get the training on learning how tornlearn and to take the responsibility for their learning.rnAccordingly, an independent learning mode was designed in order to encourage learnersrnto take most of the learning decisions by themselves: two sessions per week ofrnindividualised reading whereby learners selected appropriate reading materials from thernELSIP and SRA collections and were encouraged to read and focus on what eachrnindividual learner felt was his/her needs , lacks and wants; and one session per week ofrngroup discussion whereby learners shared experiences and discussed the structure andrnusage exercises in the Freshman English course books and were provided with somernxiiirn.~ ..rntraining on learning how to learn. The study was undertaken in two phases: the pilotrnplanned to last for a semester and the corpus for two semesters. While the pilot studyrninvolved about 120 social science first year students (or four sections: two sections werernstudy and two sections were control), the main study incl uded about 420 social sciencernfirst year students (or thirteen sections: six sections consisting of 210 students assignedrnto the study group, and the remaining 210 students assigned to the control group). Thernmode of study continued for one semester, or about five months . At the beginning andrnend of the study, a test package and a questionnaire on the reading process and readingrnstrategies were administered. The test package consisted of reading comprehension testsrndrawn from the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate, First Certificaternin English (to assess the reading comprehension improvement of the study group), clozernreadability tests set from the social science first year course books (to test whetherrnstudents at the end of the study, due to the approach variable, have found their coursernbooks easier to read than before), and English language tests taken from the FreshmanrnEnglish lOlA and Freshman English 10lB examinations (to find out whether students inrnthe study groups have improved in their linguistic ability). At the end of the study, thernattitudes and opinions of the instructors involved were also solicited.rnDespite the planned arrangement, unforseen circumstances limited the corpus study to onernsemester. Consequently, the pilot study was found to be essential for two fundamentalrnreasons: firstly , the corpus study was limited to only a semester and, thus, thisrnnecessitated the use of the information compiled from the pilot study to validate the testrnresults of the corpus study; and secondly, the pilot study indicated that most studentsrnpreferred structured learning materials like the SRA reading cards to unstructured ones,rnsuch as the ELSIP materials, at the initial stages. Based on this, the corpus study startedrnwith the SRA and would have moved into the ELSIP if the study had not beenrndiscontinued at the beginning of the second semester of the 1990/91 academic year.rnIt was found out that the students during the pilot study and the main study appreciatedrnthe mode of learning and they liked the materials they used. They reported that they hadrnbenefitted substantially and the approach pursued helped them not only in studyingrnEnglish but also their other courses. The instructors corroborated the students' reactionsrnxivrnand recommended the adoption of this approach in the service English courses.rnHowever, during the pilot study, the results of the tests did not indicate any markedrnimprovement in the reading abi lity of the students in the study group. During the mainrnstudy, the cloze test results were inconclusive. The study group of the main study,rnhowever, performed significantly better than the control group in the readingrncomprehension post test. They also indicated a marked improvement in their readingrncomprehension ability at the end of the study. Moreover, it was statistically proved thatrnthe study group improved significantly in their linguistic ability at the end of the study ,rnhowever, it was not possible to conclude whether they did better than the control group.rnSignificant changes in reading habits and styles were not observed. However, it wasrnfound out that the study group performed significantly better than the control group inrnthe 1990/91 academic year first semester Freshman English lOlA final examination.rnIt was recommended that such explicit changes could have been found to be more markedrnthan indicated by the test results (a) if the study had continued for more than a semester,rnand (b) if the study had given more prominence to assessing the process than the productrnof language learning.