EFL Learners Reading Research Articles

Examining the Roles of Self-Efficacy, Attitude and Self-Regulated Learning through Augmented Reality in Reading for EFL Learners

In recent years, higher education institutions have faced challenges in the field of education. The impact of digital technology such as augmented reality increases the possibility of self -regulated learning. Therefore this study analyze the relationship between self-efficacy, attitude and self-regulated learning across cognition, motivation, behaviour, and context through augmented reality in reading for English as foreign language (EFL) learners. Data were collected from 213 undergraduate students in English for Specific Class (ESP) in an academic university in Indonesia. This study was used a non-experimental, analytic survey research design with SmartPLS. The study assessed the measurement model of the factor loadings, composite reliability, and convergent validity, and employed bootstrapping for p-values of the path coefficient. The findings of the study reported that self-efficacy has a statistically significant relationship with cognition, motivation, behaviour and context while attitude has a statistically positive relationship with motivation and context but not with cognition and behavior.

Effectiveness of Audio-visual Materials in Teaching Reading for Young EFL Learners in Bangladesh

This article presents the effectiveness of audio-visual materials on young learners’ reading skills in an EFL context. It aims to see the result of developing their abilities by using audio-visual materials in the classroom. The study was conducted on 35 students of Tutpara Model Government Primary School in Khulna, a southern district of Bangladesh. It was an experimental study where a pre-test and a post-test were given to experiment with the students who were selected randomly. The students were taught with audio-visual materials for 3 months. The results of the research finds that there is a progress of the students’ reading skills after the use of audio-visual materials. The students were able to read out the text with more confidence, could make development in pronunciation and also could increase their vocabulary knowing unfamiliar words and their meanings. As a by-product, the learners were more enthusiastic in learning being entertained in the multimedia classroom and gave full concentration on particular tasks than in their regular class.

The Effects of Sub-syllabic Phonological Awareness on Korean Elementary EFL Students’ Word Reading

This study investigated Phonological Awareness (PA) which is considered an important prerequisite for literacy acquisition. For this purpose, this study explored the contribution of phoneme awareness, rhyme awareness, and letter name knowledge to English word reading. The participants were thirty Korean EFL third-grade elementary students who were initiating their English learning. The results indicated that the EFL elementary students’ overall English PA predicted their English word reading. Also, the students were more accurate with phoneme awareness than rhyme awareness and phoneme awareness played a more important role than rhyme awareness and letter name knowledge in word reading. Phoneme awareness predicted word reading more than rhyme awareness for EFL elementary students. However, the students’ rhyme awareness was not associated with phoneme awareness and lettername knowledge. These results suggest that rhyme awareness is underdeveloped and not yet well established to allow for promoting their word reading and show that native language plays an important role for their English word reading. This is in line with previous findings that have shown a positive relationship between phoneme awareness and English reading for Korean EFL learners. It seems that education about PA at the beginning of English learning would be helpful for students’ learning English.

Extensive Reading for Young EFL Learners in Korea: A Case Study

Extensive Reading for Young EFL Learners in Korea: A Case Study

The Affordances of Digital Social Reading for EFL Learners

The goal of this study is to illustrate the affordances mediated by digital socio-literacy practices of university-level EFL learners engaging in collaborative reading of texts from an ecological perspective. For this purpose, a total of 38 first-year undergraduate students taking a compulsory EFL course in Turkey participated in the research. Data collected from learners' digital annotations on a digital annotation tool (DAT) and reflective papers were qualitatively analyzed. As a result, the construct of affordance was operationalized in an EFL digital social reading context through indicators derived from learners' annotations. The findings based on student-reported data showed that digital collaborative reading practices had contextual, social, and linguistic affordances for EFL learners. Following the discussion of the findings, the study invites future research to examine L2 learners' practices in a DAT-mediated environment in relation to affordances for specific language areas such as grammar and writing.

Washback of the performance-based test of reading for EFL learners

The effect of tests on the teaching and learning, generally known as washback, has been recognized by scholars for a long time. However, studies on washback are usually addressed for high-stakes testing. This study investigates the washback effect of low-stakes test namely performance-based test used in measuring reading skills. Such a test is low stakes because it does not bring about serious consequence on the part of the students. The subjects of the research were 10 English teachers and 50 students of junior high schools in Semarang, Central Java, Indonesia. Data were collected through semi-structured interview and a questionnaire for both the teachers and students. The results showed that performance-based test gives positive effect in reading for the EFL learners in the areas of: students� enthusiasm in reading, reducing boredom in reading, students� curiosity on reading text content, and students� improvement on higher-order thinking skills. To the teachers it affects the areas of teaching methods, teaching materials, and time allotment.

The Influnce of KWL Strategy Use in Teaching Reading for EFL Learners in Class Room

Reading is a process to to get both the information and knowledge from written sources or text. To make it easiers there are some applicable strategies. Based on some related literatures, KWL can be implemented in teaching reading for EFL learners in class room with varied reading skill levels. Hence this strategy assumed is appropriate use in Indonesian school context. This reasearch is intended to investigate how effective the strategy in helping leraners to enhanch their ability in reading. The samples of this study were the second year students of SMAN 07 South Bengkulu in 2019. The research design use is experimental study with expemental and control class. From the result of the study the data showed that the students taught with KWL achieved better reading comprehension than those were not taught with the strategy.

Comparing Reading Comprehension Competence through Reading Aloud and Silent Reading among Indonesian EFL Learners in Senior High School

Reading skill has its own modes; two of them are reading aloud and silent reading. Reading aloud and silent reading modes are interrelated with each other and affecting students' reading comprehension competence. The most EFL students’ common problems in the school is they do not know the appropriate techniques or modes applied in reading comprehension, therefore their reading comprehension results cannot be maximized. The researcher used quantitative research method and comparative study research design in conducting the research process. By using Reading Comprehension Test and interview, researcher collecting all the data in order to find deep information about how Indonesian EFL learners’ reading comprehension are through silent reading and reading aloud, its significance, and the factors that influence students’ reading comprehension score. The researcher took the samples in 34 students who divided into two groups; 17 students for silent group and 17 students for aloud group. The findings of this quantitative research indicated that there is no significance difference between reading aloud and silent reading regarding to Indonesian EFL learners reading comprehension competence and Reading Comprehension Factor (RCF) as the most factor that influence students’ reading comprehension score in silent group, while Reading Factor other than Comprehension (RFOC) as the most factor that influence students’ reading comprehension score in aloud group.

The Use of Schematic-activation Strategy in Teaching Young EFL Learners Reading Comprehension

Reading is one of the important skills that the students have to master. However, many students have difficulties in comprehending the reading text. To solve this condition, the researcher used schema activation strategy to help students understand reading comprehension. The purpose of this research was to investigate whether the use of schema activation strategy is effective or not in teaching reading comprehension at the second-grade students of MTs Tarbiyatul Mustafid in academic year 2017/2018. This study was quasi-experimental design using two classes were VIII B class was taken as an experimental class, and VII-A was taken as control class. The population of this research involved 60 students from the second grade in MTs Tarbiyatul Mustafid Batu Simpang. By using purposive sampling, the researcher took the students as a sample. In collecting the data, this study used pre-test, treatment, and post-test as the data collection procedure then followed by analyzing the data by using the t-test formula. Then the result of statistical analysis of t-test in this research was 2.85. It was higher than critical values for t- table in the degree of freedom (df) of 58 is 2.021(0.05%) and 2.704(0.01%). The researcher concludes that mean score before and after teaching by using schema activation strategy has a difference. It means the alternative hypothesis (ha) was accepted. The use of schema activation strategy in teaching reading comprehension at the second-grade students of MTs Tarbiyatul Mustafid Batu Rimpang is effective.

Chat and Learn: Effectiveness of Using WhatsApp as a Pedagogical Tool to Enhance EFL Learners Reading and Writing Skills

This study has examined the pedagogical role of WhatsApp as one of mobile-assisted language learning applications in developing motivational levels of Yemeni EFL learners to develop reading and writing skills. Twenty EFL undergraduate students of Aden University joined a WhatsApp English-medium chat group where they chatted, shared and commented on news articles in English for two months. Participants also took a pre-test and a post-test and responded to a questionnaire at the end of the study. Findings revealed that WhatsApp was a very effective application in developing students? motivation to improve their reading and writing skills. It helped them develop vocabulary, grammar, reading comprehension and writing. The study also revealed that WhatsApp was positively perceived by students as a pedagogical tool for their learning of English. The study concluded that WhatsApp English-medium groups provide students with opportunities for practising a natural language, especially in written communication, outside the classroom and motivate them to learn mutually. The study therefore recommends EFL teachers to utilize WhatsApp as a pedagogical technique and to encourage their students to create and join WhatsApp English-medium groups for natural interactions and contextualized language use that cannot be easily provided in traditional classrooms.

The Effect of Problem Solving Task on Critical Reading of Intermediate EFL Learners in Iranian Context

The attempt in this study is to investigate the effect of teaching critical thinking through problem solving on reading comprehension performance of EFL intermediate learners. In so doing, forty including twenty male and twenty female intermediate students studying English in an institute in Ardabil, Iran, were selected based on their scores on Preliminary English Test and assigned into control and experimental groups. Afterwards, the sample TOEFL reading comprehension pre-test was administered to both of these groups to ensure homogeneity. The learners in experimental group were taught through problem solving instruction and the learners in control group were taught through traditional method of instructing reading comprehension. After ten sessions of instruction, the same sample TOEFL reading comprehension as post-test was given to the learners to measure the possible differences between pre-test and post-test. The finding revealed teaching problem solving had statistically significant effect on EFL learners reading comprehension performance. Conclusion can be drawn to confirm that teaching critical thinking through problem solving bring better understanding of the text.

The Impact of Tactics Rules on Media Comprehension Challenges Faced by Non-Native English Speakers

EFL learners who loved to read newspapers but have difficulty in comprehending. Present paper is a study on the significance of special styles of newspapers’ writing that may contribute in decreasing reading and comprehension skills for EFL learners and also is primarily concerned with the language and style of newspaper reportage. Skilled readers don’t just read, they interact with the text. The present study aims to probe into this important issue by providing formal instruction of the strategies to a group of Iranian EFL learners and comparing their newspapers’ reading comprehension performance with another group not receiving such an instruction.

A Model of Oral Reading for Japanese EFL Learners

A Model of Oral Reading for Japanese EFL Learners

Integrating Multiple and Focused Strategies for Improving Reading Comprehension and L2 Lexical Development of Iranian Intermediate EFL Learners

Effective reading is essential for success in learning a foreign language. EFL learners, therefore, need to master a number of reading strategies to be able to comprehend text information. Strategic reading research has already evidenced the possibility of teaching comprehension strategies to enhance learner’ comprehension and metacognitive abilities. Further research is needed though to examine the procedures or methodologies through which the approach can be applied. This pretest-posttest quasi-experimental article aimed, firstly, to compare the effects of the two widespread methods of explicit teaching of comprehension strategies (focused vs. multiple) on EFL learner’ reading comprehension and lexical development and, secondly, to explore whether or not integration of fixed and multiple instructional techniques significantly improved intermediate EFL learners reading comprehension ability and lexical knowledge. To this end, four intact classes including 69 intermediate EFL learners in a language center in Isfahan were randomly assigned to one control and three experimental groups. The groups received the same amount of instruction, however differently, three receiving focused, multiple, and integrated strategy interventions respectively and the other receiving conventional reading-based instruction. The results revealed that while receiving focused strategy intervention did not offer a statistically significant advantage over the typical classroom setting, benefiting from multiple strategy intervention significantly improved the learners’ ability in reading comprehension. Moreover, the results asserted the efficacy of integrated strategy instruction in improving both reading comprehension and lexical development among Iranian intermediate EFL learners.Keywords: Focused strategy instruction, Lexical development, Multiple strategy instruction, Reading comprehension

The Role of Metacognitive Activities on University Level Preparatory Class EFL Learners⿿ Reading Comprehension

Abstract The aim of this study is to investigate the role of metacognitive activities on university level preparatory class EFL learners⿿ reading comprehension. The research was conducted in one of the foundation universities in Ankara, Turkey in the fall term of 2015-2016 academic year. It was designed as an action research study to improve the efficiency of reading lessons in the institution, and two existing B level prep classes were taken as experimental (n:19) and control groups (n:14). In both groups, related vocabulary was introduced prior to giving multiple choice reading test consisting of ten questions, but in the experimental group the learners were also exposed to metacognitive strategies (Socratic circle and shape shifting) as pre-reading activities. Then, an interview study was conducted with 3 randomly selected students from the experimental group to learn how they felt during these activities. The data collected from the reading comprehension text was analyzed statistically and the results showed that the experimental group students slightly outperformed the control group students. This research concludes that significant results can be attained if metacognitive strategies as pre-reading activities are integrated more frequently into reading lessons.

Project-Based Learning and Its Positive Effects on Iranian Intermadiate EFL Learners Reading Ability and Vocabulary Achaivement

New challenges are coming in the present globalized world of 21 th century that consequently has required deep changes in educational process, since the 21 th century requires more creativity, critical thinking, problem solving as well as communicative skills. English, as the main international language, is playing an important role in the globalized world's people's life, so the scholars try to use more sophisticated learning methods in EFL scope. The present study was an attempt to investigate the effect of project-based language learning, which is supposed by its proponents as a creativity developer, commonly used method in general science instruction, on some Iranian female intermediate EFL learners' reading ability as well as their vocabulary size improvement in short term, and long term vocabulary recall. The analysis of the collected data through out of this study confirms that, the PBL group's progress in all measured scopes were statistically significant. The researchers believe that using project-based language learning in Iranian EFL courses positively affects the learners' reading ability and accelerates their vocabulary achievement.

On the Effect of Online Formative Assessment on Iranian Lower Intermediate EFL Learners Reading Comprehension

Online Formative Assessment (OFA) improves EFL students' reading comprehension enabling them to have a better performance in reading comprehension tests. To lend support to the above mentioned claim, a quasi-experimental study was conducted in Mashhad, Iran. 48 female lower intermediate EFL students took part in this study. Participants were assigned to control and treatment groups. Participants in both groups received a formative assessment program lasting for 10 sessions. Formative assessment in treatment group was conducted by the site itself, and participants in control group were assessed by the teacher. It was found that participants in treatment group significantly outperformed those in control group. This finding indicated OFA as an effective learning tool in EFL reading comprehension classrooms.

The Effect of Teaching English Textual Patterns (Problem-solution, Hypothetical-real, General-specific) on Iranian EFL Learners’ Reading Ability

One of the most significant purposes in reading English written texts is to understand writer's messages. However, it seems that the Iranian EFL learners have fundamental problems in understanding and interpreting English written texts. One of the factors contributing to the Iranian EFL learners’ disability in understanding and interpreting English written texts, as Namjoo and Marzban (2012) observe, is the fact that most of the Iranian teachers, as for reading lessons, have been applying a bottom-up approach, leading students to decode texts by using knowledge of grammar and vocabulary. The participants in this study were 60 upper-intermediate EFL learners in Khaje-Nasir language institute in Pars-Abad-e-Moghan, Ardebil, Iran. The aim of this study was investigating the effects of teaching English textual patterns (problem-solution, general-detail and hypothetical-real) on the Iranian EFL learners reading ability. In order to make the learners familiar with English textual patterns some instructional activities, including raising awareness of textual patterns, focusing on signaling factors, reformulating and making a frame or a diagram were used. The results of the study revealed that teaching of English textual patterns (problem-solution, general-detail and hypothetical-real) have positive effect on the Iranian EFL learners reading ability.

The Impact of Cognitive and Metacognitive Strategies on Iranian EFL Bilingual versus Monolingual Learners Reading Comprehension ability

This study attempts to measure the effect of the implementation of cognitive and metacognitive reading strategies on reading ability of second year high school students who were bilinguals and monolinguals. In order to address these issues, a quantitative study was conducted on 193 EFL bilingual and monolingual students who were randomly selected from some high schools of Markazi province (Arak and Farahan ) . To meet the mentioned aims, subjects were given English proficiency test, reading comprehension test, cognitive and metacognitive strategies questionnaire By utilizing t-test and ANOVA revealed that there would be statistically significant differences between the above-mentioned subjects as follows:
 1-There wasn't meaningful difference between female bilingual and female monolingual learners in using cognitive and metacognitive strategies .
 2- There was meaningful difference between male bilingual and male monolingual learners in using cognitive and metacognitive strategies .
 3- Gender didn't have significant effect on using cognitive and metacognitive strategies in EFL learners reading comprehension ability.

Extensive Reading for Korean EFL Learners: Motivation as an Investment in Cultural Capital

This study describes the process of implementing an after-school extensive reading program for Korean high school students. During a two-year period, the researcher set up an extensive reading program as an extracurricular activity for a group of Korean high school students who volunteered to participate in the program. In addition, the program operated as a teaching practica for MA TESOL students who were enrolled in the course as partial fulfillment for their MA degree. In order to practice their teaching skills in an authentic learning environment, the MA students took on the role of the teachers of the extensive reading program. The MA students met with the high school students once a week for approximately eight weeks each semester and guided them with extensive reading activities based on the weekly reading assignments. Drawing from the researcher's observations, excerpts from the MA students' online journals along with excerpts from a semi-structured interview with a high school student and his mother, this study concludes with implications to consider for implementing an extensive reading program for Korean high school students.