L2 Comprehension Research Articles

Raising Bilingual Children in Home Environment of Brunei: A Study on Vocabulary Acquisition

This study aims to contribute to current research on bilingual children's vocabulary studies and the home environment. It explored how home environments affected children's L1 and L2 vocabulary acquisition. The children in this small-scale study (n=40) were exposed to Brunei Malay (L1) alongside English (L2) from a young age, classifying the children as bilingual first-language learners (BFL). This study examines the children’s L1 and L2 language development and it used vocabulary knowledge as a measuring tool for data analysis. It also considers the home environment and parental role as factors contributing to the children’s language progress. As a result, this study found positive correlations between children's L1 and L2 receptive and active vocabulary knowledge. It also found the children’s L1 and L2 interaction at home with family members. Conversely, the findings shown that there was no significant difference between the responses of 5 and 6 year old children in their L1 and L2 comprehension as well as production tests. This study also found that children who performed well in L1 and L2 vocabulary tests come from households that were open to bilingualism. In addition, parents were open to bilingualism for their children with the condition that the children prioritised their L1 more than L2. The main motive for bilingualism for their children was to enhance their communication skills and increase their chances of future employment. Hence, parents' perception of L1 and L2 is crucial because it shapes the language usages that were exposed to the children at home.

Textbook-based L2 Oral Reading Fluency of Lower-level 8th Grade EFL Students and Its Association with L2 Reading Comprehension

The present investigation endeavors to assess the L2 oral reading fluency and comprehension abilities of Korean EFL middle school students in the context of the Korean national curriculum. Sixty-one eighth-grade students participated in the study, which involved oral reading and comprehension tests using second-year middle school English materials. Informal reading assessments were also conducted to evaluate the students' English word reading accuracy, automaticity, and prosody, and L2 oral reading fluency was determined from these measures. The results showed that only 30% of the students were capable of reading independently, while the remaining students encountered difficulties. A significant correlation was found between L2 oral reading fluency and L2 reading comprehension. The findings of this study provide valuable contributions to the field of Korean English education and hold implications for both L2 reading instruction and research.

The role of manual gestures in second language comprehension: a simultaneous interpreting experiment.

Manual gestures and speech form a single integrated system during native language comprehension. However, it remains unclear whether this hold for second language (L2) comprehension, more specifically for simultaneous interpreting (SI), which involves comprehension in one language and simultaneous production in another. In a combined mismatch and priming paradigm, we presented Swedish speakers fluent in L2 English with multimodal stimuli in which speech was congruent or incongruent with a gesture. A picture prime was displayed before the stimuli. Participants had to decide whether the video was related to the prime, focusing either on the auditory or the visual information. Participants performed the task either during passive viewing or during SI into their L1 Swedish (order counterbalanced). Incongruent stimuli yielded longer reaction times than congruent stimuli, during both viewing and interpreting. Visual and audio targets were processed equally easily in both activities. However, in both activities incongruent speech was more disruptive for gesture processing than incongruent gesture was for speech processing. Thus, the data only partly supports the expected mutual and obligatory interaction of gesture and speech in L2 comprehension. Interestingly, there were no differences between activities suggesting that the language comprehension component in SI shares features with other (L2) comprehension tasks.

Audio-visual speech perception of plosive consonants by CG learners of English

Second language (L2) speech perception can be a challenging process, as listeners have to cope with imperfect auditory signals and imperfect L2 knowledge. However, the aim of L2 speech perception is to extract linguistic meaning and enable communication between interlocutors in the language of input. Normal-hearing listeners can effortlessly perceive and understand the auditory message(s) conveyed, regardless of distortions and background noise, as they can endure a dramatic decrease in the amount of spectral and temporal information present in the auditory signal. In their attempt to recognise speech, listeners can be substantially assisted by looking at the face of the speaker. Visual perception is important even in the case of intelligible speech sounds, indicating that auditory and visual information should be combined. The present study examines how audio-visual integration affects Cypriot-Greek (CG) listeners’ recognition performance of plosive consonants on word-level in L2 English. The participants were 14 first language (L1) CG users, who were non-native speakers of English. They completed a perceptual minimal-set task requiring the extraction of speech information from unimodal auditory stimuli, unimodal visual stimuli, bimodal audio-visual congruent stimuli, and incongruent stimuli. The findings indicated that overall performance was better in the bimodal congruent task. The results point to the multisensory speech-specific mode of perception, which plays an important role in alleviating the majority of moderate to severe L2 comprehension difficulties. CG listeners’ success seems to depend upon the ability to relate what they see to what they hear.

Strategic reading comprehension in L2 and L3: assuming relative interdependence within Cummins’ linguistic interdependence hypothesis

Abstract This experimental study attempts to put to the test Cummins’ (1978) Linguistic Interdependence Hypothesis (LIH) in reading between English (L2) and Arabic (L3). Two groups of comparison and experimental attended this study. The experimental group received reading strategy instruction while the comparison group received the traditional form of reading instruction in L2. Both groups received reading comprehension tests in L2 and L3 before and after the instructions. An interview was finally conducted for a more in-depth investigation. Analysis of quantitative data evinced overall reading comprehension ability significantly improved only in the experimental group in both languages, supporting Cummins’ LIH. Componentially, only the inferential component improved significantly for the experimental group, showing different components contribute differently to the interdependence between languages. Qualitative findings showed miscellaneous results in linguistic, cognitive, and affective domains which were evidence of both interdependence and non-interdependence between L2 and L3. The pedagogical implication is further discussed.

Lexically Independent Structural Priming in Second Language Online Sentence Comprehension

AbstractThis study examined structural priming during online second language (L2) comprehension. In two self‐paced reading experiments, 64 intermediate to advanced Chinese learners of English as a foreign language read coordinated noun phrases where the conjuncts had either the same structure or different structures. Experiment 1 showed that the second conjunct was read faster when it had the same structure as the first. This effect occurred for the structurally marked adjective phrases (e.g., a simple to grasp problem) but only showed a numerical trend for the less marked relative clauses (e.g., a problem that was simple to grasp). Experiment 2 compared unmarked adjective phrases and relative clauses (e.g., a simple problem vs. a problem that was simple) and found significant priming for both. Together, the two experiments showed that L2 comprehension priming could occur without repetition of the lexical head. Moreover, this priming was susceptible to inverse frequency effects, with the less frequent structure exhibiting greater priming.

A Review of Studies on the Selective Attention Strategy During Language Comprehension: The Present and the Future

Selective attention (SA) is an important strategy for language comprehension both in L1 and L2. Much of the existing research on L2 listening and reading has identified SA as a distinctive ability of effective and skilled L2 listeners and readers. However, extensive and intensive research on this specific strategy is relatively sparse. Therefore, this article provides an in-depth review of previous research involving the SA mechanism in both L1 and L2 language comprehension. As a result, this article identifies that there are two-levels of SA existing in previous academic research: the word level and sentence level SA. They may represent different cognitive processes as well as different SA strategies in real practice. However, this kind of classification on SA has not been fully recognized and specifically pinpointed by previous literature, since previous studies focused on only one type of SA while ignoring the other. Therefore, this article proposes to classify these two kinds of SA and then reviews previous literature according to this novel classification. In addition, this article summarizes the most frequently investigated modulators of SA as well as commonly used research methods for SA-related research. Some possible research gaps are pinpointed accordingly. Finally, this article illustrates several concepts and models that could explain the SA mechanism from psychological and linguistic perspectives, which could serve as a theoretical framework in future study. This article may offer some inspirations for future academic research in this field and listening or reading practices in the real world.

Quantifying vocabulary learning belief and strategy - A validation study of the Vietnamese version of Gu's (2018) vocabulary learning questionnaire

BackgroundThe field of language teaching and learning has long recognized the role of vocabulary knowledge in all aspects of language proficiency and indicated that vocabulary beliefs and learning strategies play a pivotal role in learners' vocabulary development. As a result, understanding learners’ beliefs and strategies in vocabulary learning is of paramount importance to language teachers. The Vocabulary Learning Questionnaire (VLQ) developed by Peter Gu in 2018 could be considered the most recent, validated instrument for the measurement of vocabulary learning beliefs and strategies. However, the VLQ contains too many items and is only available in English. The objectives of the study, therefore, are (1) to develop and validate a Vietnamese version of the VLQ which can exclude construct-irrelevant noises related to L2 comprehension, and (2) to reduce the number of items while retaining the key factors in the instruments. Methods722 Vietnamese university students took part in the study. Exploratory factor analyses (EFA) and confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) were examined with the free software Jamovi 2.3.13. Both Cronbach's alpha and McDonald's omega were employed to evaluate the factors' internal consistency. ResultsSeparate EFAs confirmed the two dimensions of vocabulary beliefs, explaining 62.6% of the total variance, and seven factors of vocabulary strategies, predicting 72.1% of the total variance. CFAs confirmed the hypothesized 9-dimensional structures of different vocabulary learning beliefs and strategies and offer cross-validation evidence for the Vietnamese VLQ. Reliability metrics demonstrated acceptable internal reliability for vocabulary belief and strategy sub-scales. ConclusionThe Vietnamese VLQ provides a validated measure of vocabulary beliefs and strategies. The 30-item version of the Vietnamese VLQ serves as a starting point for future research in the field of vocabulary learning and teaching in Vietnam.

Integrating Morphosyntactic and Visual Cues in L1 and L2 Comprehension

This study investigates the relative weighting of morphosyntactic and visual cues in spoken-language comprehension, and whether this varies systematically within and between first (L1) and second language (L2) speakers of German. In two experiments, 45 L1 and 39 L2 speakers answered probe questions targeting the action direction of subject- and object-extracted relative clauses, which were presented either in isolation (Experiment 1) or alongside scene depictions either matching or mismatching the action direction expressed in the sentence (Experiment 2). We hypothesized that visual cues contribute to shaping meaning representations in sentence comprehension, and that sensitivity to morphosyntactic cues during interpretation may predict reliance on visual cues in both L1 and L2 comprehension. We found reliable effects of visual cues in both groups, and in response to both relative-clause types. Further, proxies of morphosyntactic sensitivity were associated with higher agent-identification accuracy, especially in response to object-extracted relative clauses presented with mismatching visual cues. Lastly, morphosyntactic sensitivity was a better predictor of accuracy rates than L1–L2 grouping in our dataset. The results extend the generalizability of models of visuo-linguistic integration across populations and experimental settings. Further, the observed sentence-comprehension differences can be explained in terms of individual cue-weighting patterns, and thus point to the crucial role of sensitivity to distinct cue types in accounting for thematic-role assignment success in L1 and L2 speakers alike.

Compiled by AILA ReN coordinator

Compiled by AILA ReN coordinator

Detangling experiential, cognitive, and sociopsychological individual differences in second language speech learning: Cross-sectional and longitudinal investigations

AbstractIn this two-part study, we conducted both cross-sectional and longitudinal investigations on the relative weights of experiential, cognitive, and sociopsychological factors in adult L2 speech learning. In the cross-sectional phase (Study 1), speech was elicited from 73 Japanese speakers of English via a picture description task, and rated for accentedness and comprehensibility. These scores were linked to scores on a range of tests designed to measure aptitude, motivation, and anxiety. The results showed that comprehensibility was exclusively linked to experiential variables (e.g., the amount of L2 use outside classrooms), while accentedness was linked to phonemic coding ability and anxiety. In the longitudinal phase (Study 2), we tracked the same participants' L2 comprehensibility and accentedness development when they received four weeks of explicit pronunciation instruction. According to the results of pre- and post-tests, participants significantly improved the comprehensibility and accentedness of their speech regardless of cognitive and sociopsychological differences.

Possessive Processing in Bilingual Comprehension

AbstractSecond language (L2) learners make gender errors with possessive pronouns. In production, these errors are modulated by the gender match between the possessor and possessee noun. We examined whether this so‐called match effect extends to L2 comprehension by attempting to replicate a recent study on gender predictions in first language (L1) German speakers (Stone, Veríssimo, et al., 2021). By comparing Spanish and English learners of L2 German whose languages have different possessive constraints, we were able to examine whether the match effect was modulated by the participants’ L1. A first experiment suggested that predictions and match effects were absent in setups with complex visual displays. A second experiment with simpler displays successfully elicited predictions and match effects, but their size was comparable in Spanish and English speakers, inconsistent with crosslinguistic influence. We interpret our results as evidence that processing difficulties with possessives result from memory interference that impacts both L1 and L2 comprehenders.

Graphic Organizers: Mind Maps as a tool to enhance Reading Comprehension skills

Reading comprehension in L2 is perhaps the skill whose requirements have changed most and most rapidly due to the demand of the information society. Readers not only need to interpret words and sentences in articles or books: sometimes they have to make a meaning out of disconnected pieces of information in pouring messages on websites, and social networks. The purpose of the present study is to explore the possibilities of mind-mapping techniques in order to foster the reading comprehension abilities in students of English as L2 by working under the assumption that the latter can be improved when apparently loose pieces of written information are connected by means of images and lines. The experiment in the project involved a total of 84 participants of two consecutive academic levels: first and second year of post-compulsory secondary education. Different sessions and two parallel procedures were scheduled in order to provide us with contrasting data that could be systematized numerically. Even though the sessions that could be scheduled were limited in number, the analysis of the data suggests some noticeable improvement in the reading comprehension abilities in most participants and some perception of progress in a majority of them. Their positive feedback, suggests that sustained work in this field could improve their reading comprehension skills in a significant way.

Involvement of the sensorimotor system in less advanced L2 processing: Evidence from a semantic category decision task.

There is increasing evidence indicating that the sensorimotor system is involved in advanced L2 processing, which raises the question of what role sensorimotor information plays in the course of less advanced L2 comprehension. In the current study, two experiments were conducted using a lexical decision task (LDT) and semantic category task (SCT). The results showed that, in the LDT, a task more likely to result in participants making judgments based on the physical properties of words (e.g., familiarity, orthography), "up" words (e.g., sun, plane) did not result in faster upward than downward responses, and "down" words (e.g., tunnel, cave) also did not result in faster downward than upward responses. In the SCT, compatibility effects were found; specifically, searching for the up target after "up" words was faster than after "down" words and searching for the bottom target after "down" words was faster than after "upward-pointing" words. Hence, we concluded that L2 sensorimotor association, at least for L2 with low proficiency, not automatic in nature and is dependent upon deeper semantic task demands.

Automatic priming, schema induction and spread of activation in l2 lexical access: Do differences in vocabulary size and depth of priming remain invariant?

This study investigated automatic priming, schema induction, spread of activation and L2 lexical access through vocabulary size and depth. Employing theoretical framework of the distributed memory representation, the underlying assumption was that conceptual knowledge was identified through connection weights linking processing units that were universal rather than local. Using experimental pre-test-post-test design with purposive sampling of estimated one hundred and fifty (150) students from three (3) Senior High Schools, the critical findings in this study were that cognitive differences in automatic priming, schema induction and spread of activation predicted enhanced reading comprehension in L2, especially how fast one could infer from text since these cognitive processes helped to reduce cognitive load involved in reading. The second finding was that ability to use automatic priming, schema induction and spread of activation reduced mental load to facilitate comprehension by the size and level of vocabulary readers possessed in long-term memory. Third finding was that priming, spread of activation and schema induction increased with increasing attentional control. Readers with high attentional control were more likely to be involved in a proactive expectancy strategic use of priming, spread of activation and schema induction to generate possible targets. These cognitive differences remain invariant in readers, unless classroom practices are deliberately designed to help less enhanced readers strategies to promote schema induction, priming and spread of activation.

Structural priming and cross-linguistic influence in L2 comprehension of Dutch relative clauses and PP-attachments: Differences between German and English learners of Dutch

Aims and Objectives/Purpose/Research Questions: This study investigated cross-linguistic influence and structural priming in L2 learners’ comprehension of Dutch relative clauses (RCs) and PP-attachments. While PP-attachments are structurally ambiguous in all three languages, RCs are structurally ambiguous in Dutch and German, but not in English. Design/Methodology/Approach: L1 speakers of German ( n = 18) and English ( n = 19) completed a structural priming task in their L2 Dutch with a pre-test, a priming phase, an immediate post-test, and a delayed post-test 1 day later. Data and Analysis: The data were analysed using t tests and repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA). In the pre-test, L1 speakers of German showed a clear parsing preference for subject RCs and a slight preference for VP-attachment, whereas L1 speakers of English showed a clear parsing preference for object RCs and a slight preference for NP-attachment. The English L1 speakers were sensitive to structural priming, but only when primed with subject RCs and VP-attachments. This priming was still visible 1 day later. The German L1 speakers were not sensitive to the priming manipulation. Findings/Conclusion: The pre-test showed that L1 parsing preferences influence L2 processing; the structural priming effects in the English L1 speakers showed an inverse frequency effect that is based on experiences from both L1 and L2; the delayed post-test showed that structural priming can be seen as a form of implicit learning. Originality: This is the first structural priming study that compared two groups of L2 speakers on two different structures. Significance/Implications: Structural priming can be seen as a form of implicit learning in which experienced frequencies from both L1 and L2 give rise to a developing shared syntax.

중국인 학습자의 모국어와 한국어 읽기 이해능력 관계 연구

This study is aimed to reveal the relationship between L1 (Chinese) and L2 (Korean) reading comprehension of Chinese advanced Korean learners, as well as the influence of L1 comprehension on L2 comprehension. To achieve this purpose, 72 Chinese advanced learners were recruited to take test on their capability of L1 and L2 reading comprehension. According to the research results, there is not only a close correlation between L1 and L2 reading comprehension, but also a significant association between literal and Inferential comprehension ability, which are identified as the sub-factors of L1 and L2. Besides, a regression analysis was conducted to further examine the effect of L1 reading comprehension on L2 reading comprehension. As confirmed by the analytical results, L1 comprehension ability exerts a positive (+) effect on L2 comprehension ability. That is to say, the improvement of L1 comprehension ability is accompanied by the improvement of L2 comprehension ability in the process of acquisition. These results play a significant role in verifying the relationship between L1 and L2 reading comprehension against the empirical research results in relation to Korean education, thus providing inspiration for the development of Korean education. (Yonsei University·Kyung Hee University)

Using Statistical Transformation Methods to Explore Speech Perception Scale Lengths

The practice of second language (L2) speech perception has traditionally relied on equal-interval perceptual scales and novice listeners’ (NLs) impressionistic judgments of constructs such as accentedness and comprehensibility (Munro & Derwing, 2011). However, issues have surfaced with respect to how well NLs can use these scales, whether they use the entire scale, and how valid/reliable their ratings are. This study draws inspiration from the work of Glenn Fulcher in the area of L2 speech assessment, specifically on construct validity and scale design (1993; 2003). The current study explores similar issues from the lens of the speech perception practice, relying on scale transformation methods and multi-faceted Rasch measurement to examine the overall question of an ideal equal-interval scale length. Speech ratings of L2 accentedness and comprehensibility were originally collected from 56 NLs on 9-point bipolar Likert scales. Statistical transformations from 9-point to 7- and 5-point scales were compared through several indices (i.e., listener consistency, listener severity, scalar point discrimination, and scale usage) across four common speech tasks (i.e., read-aloud, spontaneous speech, elicited imitation, and picture description) (see Thomson & Derwing, 2015). With every statistical scale length reduction across four tasks, listeners’ consistency improved, their levels of severity slightly decreased, and their scalar usage became more precise. Implications for L2 speech perception research suggest that the shorter 5-point perceptual scale shows potential in increasing the reliability and validity of scoring, while more appropriately distinguishing among speaker ability levels.

Developing Reading Comprehension in L2 with respect to Text Genre and Form

Self-development in terms of reading comprehension in a second foreign language is often practiced to a small extent in foreign language education. In the L2 (German language) educational process, the teacher focuses mainly on teaching basic grammatical phenomena and vocabulary. The development of reading comprehension in L2, as to text genres and forms, provides a new dimension in terms of self-development, as it mainly supports metacognitive processes and thus self-efficacy and success in a foreign language text understanding. The goal of the presented research was to find out connections between students success in reading comprehension with regard to different categories of text genres (adventure books, historical novels, fairy tales, poems, legends, and science fiction, and others) and text forms (either printed - magazines, newspapers, books, textbooks or electronic - e-books, websites, e-textbooks, and others). We were interested in whether a particular (concrete) genre or form of text does (or does not) contribute to the success in L2 reading comprehension or whether reading of any genre or form of text does (or does not) contribute to the success in L2 reading comprehension. The research was carried out in secondary vocational and grammar schools in Slovakia on a sample of 126 respondents. Statistically significant correlations were found between specific (concrete) genres and forms of texts and success in reading comprehension. It turns out that short stories, legends and books about nature predict better understanding of texts in the German language, and reading of printed books and magazines promotes success in L2 reading comprehension.

Simple view of second language reading: A meta-analytic structural equation modeling approach

ABSTRACT Purpose The present study aimed to systemically summarize the structural relationships among correlated components of second language (L2) reading comprehension to investigate the extent to which the two major components – language comprehension abilities and decoding skills – could account for reading comprehension in L2 contexts in accordance with the model of Simple View of Reading. Method We used a meta-analytic structural equation modeling. This study included 81 samples (from 67 studies) including 10,526 participants, and the collected dataset successfully fitted the proposed model of Simple View of L2 Reading. Results L2 comprehension abilities and L2 decoding skills accounted for over 60% of the variation in L2 reading comprehension, with the former having a larger contribution. Considering age and L2 proficiency as moderator variables, it was revealed that L2 decoding skills played less important roles for more proficient and older learners, whereas L2 comprehension abilities maintained their importance across different ages and L2 proficiency levels. The moderators related to language differences between learners’ first language and L2 did not show significant moderating effects. Conclusion The study presented acceptable model fit indices for its models. Future studies can incorporate more pooled correlation coefficients and variables to investigate an effective instruction for L2 reading.