Morphological Intervention in Promoting Higher-Order Reading Abilities among College-Level Second Language Learners

Haomin Zhang,Weicheng Zou

doi:10.3390/su12041465

Abstract

Reading success in a second language (L2) is vital to sustainable language and academic development because reading serves as a tool to absorb and learn new knowledge. Particularly in the context of college English as a foreign language (EFL), students constantly face the challenge to read English material to develop content knowledge. The current study investigated the effect of explicit morphological instruction on L2 students’ higher-order inferencing and comprehension abilities. Sixty-two Chinese collegiate EFL students who were taking an intensive reading course (31 in the treatment class and 31 in the control class) participated in this study. The morphological intervention in the treatment class focused on identifying, decomposing, analyzing, associating, applying word parts in context. The control class received no explicit instruction in morphological awareness. After one semester of instruction, a series of morphology, inferencing and comprehension measures were administered to the participating students. The results showed that the didactic intervention of morphological awareness contributed to morphological knowledge and word-meaning inferencing ability, whereas there was no significant relationship between morphological intervention and text-based inference and comprehension abilities. The findings suggest that the intervention has a direct impact on word learning ability; however, higher-order processing skills may not directly benefit from it in a short period of time. Given that reading comprehension requires fine-tuned understandings of both local meanings and global contextual information, morphological awareness may not have an immediate effect on comprehension. Applied implications are also discussed in relation to effective morphological instruction and reading development in L2 contexts.

Highlights

Sustainable development, to a great extent, highlights broad measurable elements; the core of sustainability is the advancement of human choices and human needs [1,2]
The results indicated that initial language competence and morphological knowledge were similar, which created the basis for post-test comparisons
The major objective of the current study was to substantiate the effectiveness of morphological intervention in L2 inferencing and comprehension abilities

Summary

Introduction

Sustainable development, to a great extent, highlights broad measurable elements (e.g., economic components); the core of sustainability is the advancement of human choices and human needs [1,2]. Through the inspection of those human-related or human-centered aspects of sustainability, it is found that enhanced human learning and communication are key components of sustainable development [2]. Language and literacy development play critical roles in fostering human-centered sustainability. Scholars underscore the role of sustainable reading development in empowering individuals and, at the same time, enhancing societal development [1,2,3]. L2 learners struggle with word learning and reading success, given that a large number of lexical items are needed to comprehend authentic print material. The question remains as to how teachers can help students develop a vocabulary in class settings and incentivize students to use a specific skill to expand word knowledge on their own, contributing to their higher-level reading development

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Discussion

Conclusion