Volume 34, No. 1
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ItemTeaching ESL/EFL Reading and Writing by I.S.P. Nation & John Macalister(University of Hawaii National Foreign Language Resource Center, 2022-04-15)
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ItemReview of L2 reading websites(University of Hawaii National Foreign Language Resource Center, 2022-04-15)
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ItemEncouraging schools to adopt extensive reading: How do we get there?(University of Hawaii National Foreign Language Resource Center, 2022-04-15)
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ItemThe case for combining lexical and morphological text profiling: A response to Cobb(University of Hawaii National Foreign Language Resource Center, 2022-04-15)
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ItemCounting affixes with morpholex: A response to McLean and Stoeckel (2021)(University of Hawaii National Foreign Language Resource Center, 2022-04-15)
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ItemChinese Text Presentations and Reading Efficiency(University of Hawaii National Foreign Language Resource Center, 2022-04-15)Unlike alphabetic languages, Chinese text marks no word demarcation. Previous research inserted word-demarcating spaces into Chinese text but found inconsistent effects on reading efficiency. To address the potential trade-off effects of the additional length caused by inserted spaces, this study introduces color-and-font formatting as a word demarcation. A total of 41 first-language (L1) and English-speaking second-language (L2) Chinese speakers read Chinese text presented in conventional, interword spaced, nonword spaced, interword formatted, and nonword formatted conditions. Participants further answered comprehension questions and shared retrospective perceptions. The results suggest altered text presentations can facilitate reading for L2 Chinese learners in accordance with proficiency levels and learning objectives. Interword spaced text facilitated reading speed, especially for higher-level Chinese learners. Interword formatted text facilitated accuracy for all L2 Chinese learners. Nonword formatted text facilitated accuracy for lower-level Chinese learners. In addition, altered text presentations were generally acknowledged and welcomed by L2 Chinese learners.
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ItemPre-modified Noun Phrases in a Comprehension-Based Approach to EFL at University Level(University of Hawaii National Foreign Language Resource Center, 2022-04-15)This study examines the difficulty shown by Spanish-speaking university students in decoding pre-modified noun phrases (NPs) in English. NPs carry a heavy lexical and conceptual load and foreign language (L2) readers may be challenged by first language (L1) crosslinguistic influence triggered by cognate NPs. Therefore, this study also attempts to determine whether the presence of cognates activates L1 syntactic patterns. A cross-sectional design was implemented using a sample of 160 undergraduates. Data was collected from intact groups at four levels of instruction. Results suggest that cognate words may hinder comprehension of longer pre-modified NPs because of L1 language transfer. They also indicate that these NPs are amenable to the instruction delivered through a comprehension-based approach. Learners with limited English proficiency benefit especially from such instruction.
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ItemCausal and Semantic Relations in L2 Text Processing: An Eye-Tracking Study(University of Hawaii National Foreign Language Resource Center, 2022-04-15)This study is an extension of Nahatame’s (2018) research that demonstrated the effects of causal and semantic relations between sentences on second language (L2) text processing. Employing eye tracking, this study aimed to examine whether these effects appear during more natural, uninterrupted reading processes and to identify the time course of the effects. In the experiment, Japanese learners of English read two-sentence texts that varied in their causal and semantic relatedness, as evaluated by crowdsourced human judgments and via a computational approach (latent semantic analysis), respectively. Two eye-movement measures were collected and analyzed: first-pass reading times for the second sentence and lookbacks from the second to the first sentence. The results indicated that causal relatedness had a robust impact on both reading times and lookbacks. However, semantic relatedness impacted only reading times, and its effects were modulated by causal relatedness. Theoretical, pedagogical, and methodological implications of this finding were discussed.
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ItemA Multilingual Perspective on Reading—Investigating Strategies of Irish Students Learning French(University of Hawaii National Foreign Language Resource Center, 2022-04-15)Our aim here is to investigate reading in a foreign language from a multilingual perspective. Much research has focused on first- and second-language reading, especially the important role played by strategy deployment in helping readers to make meaning from texts in different languages. Less emphasis has been placed, however, on how bilinguals approach reading in a new language and how they harness their bilingual experience when reading in this new language. We thus investigate strategy deployment by pupils from English- and Irish-medium schools in Ireland who learn French. We compare patterns of strategy deployment in reading in Irish and French and put forward examples where experience with reading in Irish potentially benefits foreign language reading. Findings point towards the need to foster use of previous language experience through strategy instruction as part of a move towards greater recognition of the role of multilingual language experience at different levels of education.
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ItemText Processing and Memory in EFL Reading: The Role of Relevance Instructions(University of Hawaii National Foreign Language Resource Center, 2022-04-15)This study examined the effects of relevance instructions on English as a foreign language (EFL) readers’ text processing and memories. The participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: the experimental condition, where they read texts to identify a specific category of information, and the control condition, where they read texts just for general comprehension. They read two expository texts that differed in difficulty, and the sentence-by-sentence reading times were recorded. The results demonstrated that relevance instructions induced readers to pay additional attention to relevant information, leading to better text recall. However, it was suggested that the size of relevance effects in the easy text was larger than those in the difficult text. The study discussed why the impact of relevance instructions depends on text factors and demonstrated that certain effects of relevance instructions are specific to EFL readers.