Reading Comprehension Course Research Articles

The Effect of Inferencing the Meaning of New Words from Context on Vocabulary Retention by Iranian EFL Learners

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of inferencing the meaning of new words from context on vocabulary retention by Iranian EFL learners. The participants were 67 Iranian university students of Tehran Islamic Azad University. They were sophomore English translation students who had enrolled in reading comprehension course in two different classes. To assign homogeneity, all students took language proficiency test. One group was assigned randomly as the control group (CG) & the other as experimental (EG). A pretest was administered to ensure that the new words were unfamiliar to them. During the 6 sessions of treatment, 48 selected items were exposed to the control group in the conventional way. (The vocabularies were taught through giving explanation, definition, synonyms or antonyms). But in the experimental group, the students inferred the meanings from the context and wrote down their inferences. Then, the surprised post-test was administered to both groups to evaluate their vocabulary retention. After applying t-test, the results showed that the experimental group did much better on the final test.

Motivation and English language learning in a multicultural university context

Israeli university students who have difficulty reading academic texts in English are required to take reading comprehension courses in English for academic purposes (EAP) in order to complete their BA degree. Whereas most students pass the courses, some repeatedly fail. Since Israel is a multilingual country, there is also a question about whether speakers of minority languages feel disadvantaged in comparison to speakers of the majority language (Hebrew). While research has been carried out on university students taking EAP courses, little is known about the connections between students' motivations and their attitudes toward university studies and language learning in a multicultural university context. A questionnaire was administered to 194 students with English as a foreign language (144 women and 50 men) born in Israel and abroad. Native languages (spoken until age 6) included Hebrew (62), Arabic (113), English (3), Russian (10), and Amharic/Tigrit (5), with a good deal of overlap. Results indicated the importance of motivational issues in language learning. Links were found among EAP course grades, attitudes toward university studies, and attitudes toward language learning and English. The differences of EAP course grades across native language did not appear to affect students' attitudes toward university or language study.

Motivation Conditions in a Foreign Language Reading Comprehension Course Offering Both a Web-Based Modality and a Face-to-Face Modality

La motivacion juega un papel importante en la educacion. Basados en las diez macro-estrategias propuestas por Dornyei y Csizer, este articulo analiza las condiciones de motivacion en un curso de comprension de lectura en lengua extranjera ofrecido en las modalidades a distancia en la web y presencial. Se implemento un estudio de caso como metodo de investigacion y se utilizaron cinco instrumentos para recoger la informacion: observaciones, diario del profesor, grupos focales, cuestionarios y entrevistas a profundidad. El uso de ayudas de ensenanza, la mejora en la lectura, la presentacion adecuada de las actividades y la carencia de humor son algunas de las similitudes encontradas en estos dos cursos. En contraste, una motivacion mas individual y positiva, la interaccion entre los estudiantes, la ansiedad y la cantidad de ejercicios se constituyen en algunas diferencias entre las dos modalidades.

Exploring the practices and cognitions of Iranian ELT instructors and subject teachers in teaching EAP reading comprehension

In spite of extensive research on reading comprehension in EAP, the literature on how it is conceptualized and taught by teachers is still scanty. Moreover, in some contexts, EAP reading comprehension courses are taught by two groups of teachers with different specializations, that is, ELT instructors and subject teachers, which, in turn, may render the gap in teachers’ understanding of EAP reading comprehension instruction wider. In this study, we explored the actual classroom practices and cognitions within and across these two groups of teachers teaching EAP reading comprehension in Iran. Three ELT instructors and three subject teachers teaching discipline-based EAP courses at a university of medical sciences were observed for eight sessions. In addition to carrying out observations and taking field-notes, we conducted semi-structured interviews with the teachers in order to probe their underlying cognitions. The findings indicated considerable inconsistencies among the subject teachers compared with the ELT instructors as well as noticeable discrepancies across the two groups of teachers with respect to their practices and cognitions in EAP reading comprehension instruction. The findings point to some new ideas, issues, and options for reflection in EAP reading comprehension instruction and promise implications for EAP teacher education programs.

Ayudas en línea para lectura multimodal en lengua extranjera

This article describes a study using a mixed approach, in which EFL university students used online aids such as translators, dictionaries, summaries, among other resources, as strategies in order to help other EFL beginner level students to better read and understand multimedia texts in this language. Quantitative and qualitative data wwereas collected for the project through the Interfax software, as well as semi-structured questionnaires and interviews. The results indicate that the translator and online dictionary were the most commonly used aids which helped students to better read and understand multimedia texts. Finally, more than half of the students from both groups preferred to combine multimedia with print texts, and most of the students suggested that multimedia text should be used regularly for reading comprehension courses in English.

The Relationship between Iranian EFL Instructors’ Understanding of Learning Styles and Their Students’ Success in Reading Comprehension

Many variables reasonably influence teachers’ education. One of these considering variables is being aware of the students’ learning styles. Dörnyei (2005) maintains that individual differences correlate strongly with L2 achievements. Keefe (1979) believes that learning styles might be thought of as cognitive, affective, and physiological traits that are relatively stable indicators of how learners perceive, interact with, and respond to the learning environment. The present study investigated the relationship between Iranian EFL instructors’ understanding of learning styles and their students’ success in reading comprehension tests. To achieve this goal, the researchers randomly selected 240 Iranian EFL instructors at tertiary level with more than three years of experience in teaching reading comprehension courses. The Teacher’s View over Students’ Learning Preferences Inventory (TVSLPI) as well as a test of language proficiency (MELAB) was employed as the study’s instruments. The findings revealed a significant relationship (p?0.05) between the Iranian EFL instructors’ recognition of learning styles and their students’ success in reading comprehension test. Besides, the results of interviews showed that Iranian instructors have approximately similar attitudes toward teaching reading comprehension in Iranian contexts.

Critical Thinking Skills through Literary and Non-Literary Texts in English Classes

The urge behind the current study was to argue for the development of critical thinking in language learners as an important element in EFL classes. A host of ways such as explicit teaching of critical thinking skills and using special programs have been hypothesized to improve learners' critical thinking ability. As a contribution to the current attempts to implant critical thinking in teaching and learning processes, the present study proposed employing literary texts in reading comprehension classes. To attain this goal, firstly, 34 learners were targeted as the participants of the study. Next, the pre-test of the study including a critical thinking test and a reading comprehension test was administered. Based on the results of the pretest, the participants were assigned into two homogeneous groups- experimental group and control group. Subsequently, both groups went through a 15-session reading comprehension course. The materials for the experimental group were literary texts extracted from different literary books and short stories. On the other hand, the materials for the control group were non-literary texts in the reading comprehension sections of books such as Interchange, Topnotch and Spectrum series. The same teaching method emphasizing critical thinking skills was used for teaching both groups. At the end of the course, a post-test including a critical thinking test and a reading comprehension test was administered to assess learners' critical thinking and reading comprehension. The findings of the study revealed that literary texts, as they require imaginative and creative thinking and are rich in reasoning and inference, can serve teachers tremendously to improve learners’ critical thinking ability. The results of the study have significant implications for teachers, researchers and material developers.

Teacher-Student Interaction in EFL Reading Comprehension Contexts at University Level: A Critical Thinking Perspective

1. M. Reza Talebinejad[1][1] 2. Zahra Matou[1][1] 1. 1Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran 1. M. Reza Talebinejad, Shahreza Branch, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran Email: rtalebinezhad{at}yahoo.com In line with previous studies in English as a Foreign Language/English as a Second Language (EFL/ESL) contexts confirming the positive correlation between critical thinking and reading comprehension, this study was conducted to determine how frequently critical thinking is used in EFL reading comprehension contexts at the tertiary level in one Iranian university. To this end, all question types associated with general and Critical Reading Questions (CRQs), Vocabulary in Context (VIC), Literal Comprehension (LC), and Extended Reasoning (ER) were identified. The principal focus of the study was on ER questions leading to critical thinking. To classify the questions formulated by teachers and students for CRQs, Peterson’s model was used. To specify critical thinking question types, a framework proposed by Academic Skills Unit was used as another model. To collect the data, the researchers observed all reading comprehension courses in one of the universities in Isfahan Province. They recorded 30% of the total number of sessions using two mini-size MP4 wireless recorders during the second semester of the 2010-2011 academic year. The findings seem to suggest that teachers’ focus on each CRQ type strongly influences students’ attention when reading different passages. It was noted that students had serious problems with textually implicit information included in reading passages. Given this finding and the fact that the observations illustrated most teachers devote the bulk of their attention to other CRQs, this study highlights the need for raising teachers’ awareness of ER-based reading comprehension questions. Moreover, the findings have implications for researchers and teachers in EFL settings. [1]: #aff-1

Alleviating Test Anxiety for Students of Advanced Reading Comprehension

Test anxiety often interferes with a reliable evaluation of language learning, frustrating teachers and students alike. Most researchers have found a significant inverse relation between anxiety and written test performance. Although this situation leads to a distortion of test scores, suggestions for treating and coping with test anxiety have been sparse. Focusing on advanced reading comprehension in a foreign language, the present review summarizes the literature on anxiety connected with the language learning classroom, and offers recommendations for its alleviation. This paper examines students’ suggestions for improving their feelings about tests. A nine-item questionnaire was administered to 265 students at the University of Haifa who were participating in three intermediate to advanced level reading comprehension courses in English as a Foreign Language (EFL). Students reported that they would like teachers to make two additions to the course: adding bonus exercises for extra points and giving more practice tests. A Remedial Class of advanced reading comprehension in English as a Foreign Language is presented as an example of one way to apply these theories and recommendations.

Analysis of the Real Situation of Teaching Reading Comprehension to First Year Students at the Department of English Language and Literature at Al-Zaytoonah Private University of Jordan

There is a trend in teaching foreign languages that advocates the prime importance of teaching reading as a receptive skill before the other productive skills (listening, speaking, and writing).There is also an increasing feeling among teachers and educators that reading should receive a considerable amount of attention in teaching a foreign language. Reading is an essential skill for students not only because it is a source of pleasure and getting information but also because it helps them widen and deepen their knowledge of language. Reading in this sense is not the mere mouthing of words and decoding of every word in every sentence. It is rather the activity that enables the students to go deeper and deeper to get the meaning which is intended by the author. It is the activity that depends largely on comprehension. Accordingly, developing reading comprehension is one of the great aims of teaching English. It is reading comprehension that enables students to pursue their studies and to meet their interests in all fields of knowledge. Thus, reading comprehension should receive more emphasis throughout the teaching process. The importance of this study is to help students realize that they are literary readers and their attempts to go beyond the literal meaning are very limited. Moreover, this study attempts to make students aware of the fact that reading comprehension is a process of thinking, evaluating, judging, imagining, and problem solving. The study yields that: 1) First year students lack many important reading comprehension skills which they should have in order to understand fully a piece of writing. 2) The textbook adopted in teaching reading comprehension is mainly designed to help create readers to whom the absorbing of the literal meaning of a piece of writing is the ultimate aim of reading comprehension courses. 3) Little attention is given to teaching other important reading comprehension skills like the inferential and critical ones.

Reading Comprehension in Face-to-Face and Web-Based Modalities: Graduate Students’ Use of Reading and Language Learning Strategies in EFL1

Few studies in Colombia have explored and compared students’ reading comprehension processes in EFL, in different modalities ofinstruction. This article reports on some findings of a larger study in which two groups of graduate Law students took a reading comprehensioncourse in English, delivered in two different modalities of instruction: face-to-face and web-based. Both courses were served by an English teacherfrom the School of Languages at Universidad de Antioquia. The data gathered from class observations, in-depth interviews, questionnaires, tests,the teacher’s journal and data records in the platform provided insights about the students’ use of reading and language learning strategies inboth modalities. Findings suggest that students applied the reading strategies explicitly taught during the courses and some language learningstrategies for which they did not receive any instruction.

Reading Comprehension: Interpretation and Translation of Metaphors in Academic English

Translating is regarded here as interpreting a message and re-wording its meaning using linguistic as well as encyclopaedic knowledge, taking into account the elements in the text and its context. Within this frame, in this paper we try to show how culture and encyclopedic knowledge influence metaphor interpretation, on the basis of translation procedures involving an interactive view of reading. Metaphors found in the texts used in the reading comprehension courses at the university were analyzed. Different mapping conditions and meaning problems with metaphors in different cultures were also studied. The results provide teachers with strategies to guide novel readers in metaphor interpretation.

Linking Task-based Language Teaching and Sociocultural Theory: Private Speech and Scaffolding in Reading Comprehension

In Sociocultural Theory, mediations in second language learning include (1) mediation by others (2) mediation by self (3) and mediation by artifacts, which incorporates brilliant insights for EFL contexts (Lantolf, 2000). Putting these ideas in a task-based method, the present study aimed at examining the contribution of scaffolding and private speech in improving EFL learners’ skills and seeking how learners performance might link to social or interpersonal activities they engage in. Screened through an Oxford Placement Test, 54 EFL freshmen taking a reading comprehension course participated in this study and formed two randomly divided groups and pretested using a 30-item TOEFL test of reading comprehension. The control group benefited from a teacher, who paraphrased, summarized and provided the meaning of the new words and expressions. The experimental group was asked to do the same tasks through collaboration, private speech and artifacts. Students' performances were video-taped to be used for discourse analyses and provide measures of fluency, accuracy and complexity (Iwashita, Elder, & McNamara, 2001). Two types of measurements were used: 1) a final test of reading comprehension, 2) an oral presentation of a text whose readability matched that of the texts used during the experiment. The students' performances on presenting the text orally were rated based on the idea units recalled (Johnson, 1970). The data analysis revealed no difference between the two groups in the final test, but in oral presentation, the experimental group outperformed the control group.

Reading preferences and expectations of multilingual Israeli university students

Israeli students need to be multilingually literate to read academic texts, mainly in Hebrew, Arabic, Russian and English. In fact, little is known about students’ reading habits despite a variety of university reading comprehension courses in different languages. The present study examines students’ reading preferences and textual expectations, comparing reading in L1 with L2/L3/Ln. Two questionnaires on reading habits and expectations were administered to 226 students during the academic year 2005–2006. Reading preferences were found to be multilingual, linked to the reader's interests, as well as to text genre and availability. Students reported reading the Internet, textbooks, literature and poetry mostly in L1 (Hebrew, Arabic or Russian), newspapers mostly in L1/L2 (Hebrew, Arabic), academic articles mostly in L2/L3 (Hebrew, English) and sacred texts mostly in L1 (Arabic, Hebrew). In addition, English texts were read regardless of native language, indicating a situation of multilingualism with English. Most reading was reported for social purposes, followed by academic purposes, with personal reading least frequent. English was read more for social and academic purposes than for personal reading, which occurred mostly in L1. Most of the students expected to read for information (indicating social and academic) rather than imagination or fantasy (personal).

Caravaggio: a design for an interdisciplinary content-based EAP/ESP unit

This paper presents a detailed design for a content-based unit, the focus of which is the film Caravaggio (1986) by British director Derek Jarman. The unit also includes readings in art history and film and is part of a specialized EAP /ESP reading comprehension course for first-year students majoring in art history and in a multi-disciplinary arts program at Tel Aviv University, Israel. The paper includes the practical and theoretical rationale for selecting and sequencing the materials and the tasks which require students to integrate and synthesize the various texts. The paper addresses various theoretical and pedagogical concerns faced by course designers and classroom instructors in an EFL context.

From needs analysis to criterion-referenced testing

The aim of the present study was to develop a model for a criterion-referenced mastery reading comprehension test for university EFL courses. The subjects of the study were 68 first year university students enrolled in EFL reading comprehension courses. The research confirmed the hypothesized relationship between learners' needs, reading tasks and course content and their cumulative contribution to the formulation of the criteria (domain specifications) of a mastery reading comprehension test. Analysis of the results showed that in the interactive process of reading, enabling reading skills are subsumed within the scope of the skills required for overall (mastery) reading comprehension and, thus, need not be specified in the objectives of the mastery reading comprehension test.

Helping the poor to help themselves: A quantitative re-evaluation of the outcomes of an advanced reading comprehension program in english as a foreign language

In view of doubts raised about the efficacy of a reading comprehension course in the case of weak students, a study was carried out in which students were grouped separately. A comparison was also made of the relative benefits of a year-long course compared with an intensive summer course. The findings showed that students derived approximately equal benefit from both types of course.

Reports on Computer Assisted Instruction in Israel

This project is a modular CAI system intended to produce better learning in elempntary mathematics, seeking real solutions to real problems. The central computer hottses a model of knowledge which is the changeable component of the structure. After the initial experience with mathematics a reading comprehension course and an ‘English as a second language’ course will be prepared. The system includes pedagogic strategies as a teacher model.

An experiment in teaching reading comprehension with written answers in the mother tongue

Abstract Comprehension of a text in a Reading Comprehension course is often checked by means of written answers in English. However, such writing, which is uncontrolled and mostly uncorrected, is often frustrating for both the student and the teacher, and its value has been felt to be doubtful. The experiment described in the paper aims at finding out whether students writing in their mother tongue (Hebrew) and thus deprived of the opportunity to be exposed to English through writing, could achieve the same reading comprehension level as their peers who write English throughout the course. Results showed twice (the experiment was conducted two consecutive years) that writing in Hebrew did not hinder the progress in English comprehension and that uncontrolled writing in English in the control group did not contribute to it. The final comprehension level of the two groups was found to be almost similar. The average progress of students writing in Hebrew was somewhat better. Moreover, writing in Hebrew contributed to a better learning situation consisting of additional time left for individual practice, removal of students' frustration in not being able to say what they want, and the feeling on the parts of both student and teacher that comprehension has been assessed fairly.

An approach to teaching grammar for comprehension purposes

The paper presents an approach to teaching gramar to university students in a reading comprehension course in EFL. It is argued that the material and the method of teaching should be determined by the special aim of the course. Thus, the student ought to become familiar with structures interfering with understanding — the ‘semantic trouble-makers’. A structure defined as a semantic troublemaker may cause comprehension problems due to: a) its ambiguity or the existence of a similar structure with different meaning, b) arousing a false pattern analogy, c) the rarity or non-existence of a parallel construction in the mother tongue. To develop proficiency in decoding the meaning of such problematic utterances, several types of exercises have been suggested: distinction between similar sentences, multiple choice, ‘rewrite’ exercise and translation. Comprehension problems of Hebrew speakers are an example of difficulties that speakers of any foreign language may face. Therefore a comprehension grammar can be constructed for speakers of any language. A writer of such a grammar should take into consideration the similar form/ different meaning problem; he should find out where exactly the student's pre-college learning may have led him to false pattern analogies; and finally he must identify the semantic troublemakers resulting from the structural differences between English and the student's mother tongue.