The use of English has increased greatly in the higher education system with universities across the world including English as part of their education programs. One of many consequences of this is that many students have to read and study in a second or foreign language, which has shown to be of difficulty for many students according to previous research. The purpose of this present study is to investigate the academic reading habits of students and explore their perceptions and attitudes towards reading academic English, and what experiences they have in relation to that. A total of 68 participants took part in this study, all recruited at Stockholm University. All participants responded to a questionnaire and interviews were conducted with four of the students. A relatively high degree of commitment was reported towards the assigned reading and a majority of the students did not perceive reading academic English as difficult and reported mostly positive attitudes about it. The results suggest that the personal interest and perception of the assigned reading is crucial and matter more for students than the target language.

This quantitative study used eye-tracking technology to compare the attentional focus of 32 native English speakers and 26 native Korean speakers at the university level as they read idiomatic and literal phrases within well-formed sentences. Results revealed that native Korean speakers read both literal and idiomatic sentences slower than native English speakers. Additionally, native Korean speakers read idiomatic sentences slower than literal sentences, whereas native English speakers did not show a significant difference. Variables relating to language socialization, language development and idiom knowledge were also investigated to find which variables were correlated with reading measures. Of the variables tested, idiom knowledge was the only one that had significant effect on reading measures. These findings suggest that Korean speakers take longer to process English idioms as lexical units, though idiom familiarity seems to mitigate this effect.

ABSTRACTThis study is an investigation of Japanese university students’ use of metacognitive knowledge for reading an English narrative text for general comprehension and their inference generation while reading. Research in second language (L2) reading and reading comprehension has advanced over the past three and half decades (Grabe & Stoller, 2020). Many studies focusing on L2 reading comprehension have shed light on the strong correlation of linguistic knowledge such as vocabulary and syntax with reading comprehension (e.g., Jeon & Yamashita, 2014). In addition, the literature on L2 reading has shown a strong interest in the role of higher-order processing and metacognition. However, there is a paucity of research on higher-order processing and metacognitive knowledge in L2 reading in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts. With these gaps in mind, this study draws on Flavell’s (1979) model of cognitive monitoring and Nelson and Narens’ (1990) model of metacognition. It also draws on Kintsch’s (1988) Construction-Integration (CI) Model that elaborately describes the process of reading comprehension. Ten intermediate- and advanced-proficiency Japanese EFL learners voluntarily participated in this multiple case study, read a narrative text for general comprehension, and reported on their reading. The data collected from the participants’ course assignments, class oral presentation, class discussion, semi-structured interviews, and the think aloud and stimulated recall protocols were transcribed and coded for analysis. The transcribed data together with the written data were analyzed thematically clustering the data into categories manually using Flavell’s (1979) framework of metacognitive knowledge, person, task, and strategy, and by the types of inferences made. This study provides a descriptive account of the participants and contributes to the literature on EFL learners’ strategy use, metacognition, and inference-making in L2 reading. The findings reveal that intermediate- and advanced-proficiency Japanese EFL learners used strategies in combination to solve the difficulties they encountered, and metacognitive strategies to monitor and evaluate their strategy use while reading. Accordingly, this study supports the conclusion that metacognitive strategies are essential to self-regulated reading to achieve comprehension. In addition, the participants’ positive beliefs about themselves as EFL learners appeared to positively contribute to their motivation to read. In particular, their beliefs about good L2 readers helped them set goals with regards to the areas that they problematized. For example, the participants aspired to read faster because they recognized that their present L2 reading speed was slow. The findings also provide a detailed account of how readers constructed situation models for their reader comprehension. In particular, re-reading helped enhance participants’ ability to draw inferences, identify causal relationships, remove irrelevant or contradictory elements, and integrate relevant background knowledge to the textbase in the interest of updating their situation models. The rich description of the multiple cases in this study contributes to our understanding of difficulties intermediate- and advanced-proficiency Japanese EFL learners encounter while reading, how they use strategies to address them, how they draw inferences to connect information, and how they evaluate their comprehension on an ongoing basis. / Teaching & Learning

This essay aims to investigate Swedish upper secondary school students’ extramural reading (ER) habits as well as if and how these habits affect students’ attitudes toward and motivation for reading in the L2 English classroom. The research questions addressed are: “What are Swedish upper secondary school students’ extramural reading habits?” and “Do students’ extramural reading habits affect their a) attitudes toward, and b) motivation for reading in the L2 English classroom? If yes, in what way?” As engagement in extramural English is suggested to both motivate and demotivate students to read in school, this essay can provide insights into how students’ extramural reading habits affect the reading they do in school. A questionnaire is used to collect data from 99 Swedish upper secondary school students from all three English courses. The questionnaire consists of closed-ended and open-ended questions about the students’ extramural reading habits, attitudes toward and motivation for reading in the L2 English classroom. Quantitative content analysis is used to analyse the data. The findings of this essay reveal that the reading habits of the participating students are varied. While some students read extramurally in English frequently and in a large quantity, others never read extramurally in English. The most commonly read text types are web texts and subtitles. Furthermore, the results show that some aspects of students’ attitudes toward reading in the L2 classroom are significantly affected by the students’ ER and that 77% of the students agree to some extent that their extramural reading provides them with more motivation to read in school. To conclude, pedagogical implications in relation to the findings of this essay are discussed.

This essay aims to investigate Swedish upper secondary school students' perceptions about their attitudes and motivation towards extensive reading in English. Further, this essay also aims to investigate students' attitudes towards self-selected reading as a potentially more motivational classroom strategy in comparison to teacher-selected reading. The main research questions addressed are 'What are Swedish upper secondary school students' attitudes to extensive reading in English?' and 'Do the students perceive self-selected reading to be more motivational than teacher-selected reading?'. The hypothesis is that students recognize learner autonomy to have a positive effect upon their reading attitudes and therefore prefer self-selected reading materials. Through collecting data using mixed methods consisting of 40 questionnaires and seven interviews, and further analyzing this data using qualitative content analysis and descriptive statistics, this study presents several findings. The results show that students’ attitudes are mixed: students are both more positive and negative towards extensive reading in English than for reading in general. Through further comparing the students' attitudes regarding the two reading selection practices—self-selected or teacher-selected reading—this study shows that 90% of students believe that self-selected reading would positively impact their reading enjoyment. Additionally, the results also imply that it is not necessarily learner autonomy that students perceive as likely to improve their reading attitudes, but that they rather just want their reading materials to align with their personal interests. This degree project essay concludes that many of the students are not feeling intrinsically motivated to read in their English class, and are thus relying on extrinsic factors for motivation instead, such as grades, which leaves them with negative reading experiences and attitudes. Finally, some pedagogical implications in relation to this study's findings are discussed.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-22T17:26:52Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 eren.pdf: 4365249 bytes, checksum: 24e897a6b68742ade7b316beaa4732f5 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-11-01 / This study aims at investigating the role of explicit instruction and working memory on the L2 reading skills of undergraduate students of the Systems Analysis and Development Course of a technology college in Pelotas. For that purpose, a study was conducted with 44 informants divided into experimental group and control group. Four research instruments were used to collect data during the ESP classes: a pretest, a posttest, a retention test, and a working memory test. First, the pretest was applied in order to observe the students knowledge about the conjunctions while reading texts in English. Then, explicit instruction was given on that grammar topic only for the experimental group. The posttest, which was taken by both groups, aimed at observing the performance of the participants of the experimental group after instruction and comparing this performance to that of the control group. The third test, applied three months after instruction, aimed at observing the retention of the target forms. Finally, the working memory test was administered to check if there would be correlation between L2 reading competence and working memory, that is, if the participants with higher working memory scores (higher spans) would also be the ones who would correctly answer the greater number of questions in the reading test. The posttest results reveal that explicit instruction has an important role in the acquisition of the target conjunctions; however, no correlation was found in this particular group of participants between the results of the reading test and the working memory test / O presente estudo foi realizado com o objetivo de investigar o papel da instrução explícita e da memória de trabalho na leitura em L2 de alunos do curso de Análise e Desenvolvimento de Sistemas de uma faculdade de tecnologia de Pelotas. Para tanto, um estudo foi desenvolvido com 44 informantes divididos em Grupo Experimental e Grupo Controle. Para a coleta de dados foram utilizados quatro instrumentos de pesquisa durante as aulas de inglês instrumental: pré-teste, pós-teste, teste de retenção e teste de memória de trabalho. Primeiramente, o pré-teste foi realizado com o objetivo de observar o conhecimento dos alunos acerca das conjunções em inglês durante a leitura de textos em L2. Em seguida, houve a instrução explícita sobre o tópico gramatical em questão somente para o grupo experimental. O pós-teste, que foi realizado para ambos os grupos, pretendia observar o desempenho dos informantes do Grupo Experimental após a instrução e comparar esse desempenho com o do Grupo Controle. O terceiro teste, realizado três meses após a instrução, teve o objetivo de observar a retenção das formas-alvo. Finalmente, o teste de memória de trabalho foi aplicado para observar se haveria relação entre a competência de leitura em L2 e a memória de trabalho, ou seja, se os informantes com maior amplitude de memória de trabalho seriam também os que acertariam o maior número de questões no teste de leitura. Os resultados do pós-teste revelam que a instrução explícita desempenha papel importante para a aquisição do conhecimento das conjunções, porém na amostra investigada não foi encontrada correlação entre o desempenho nos testes de leitura e memória de trabalho

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Although studies on L2 learning strategies are a major strand of second language research, recent research has shifted its focus onto language learners’ metacognitive awareness and use of strategies. Previous studies shed important light on the amelioration in L2 educational practices, but research on learners’ metacognition in the reading process in EFL contexts remains insufficient, especially at the university level in terms of the emic view of the participants studied in Taiwan. Based on an interpretive stance, this exploratory case study aimed at probing 12 Taiwanese first year university EFL learners’ metacognitive awareness and use of reading strategies during their strategic reading process, and the relationship with proficiency levels and texts of both the narrative and the expository type. This study relies on the think aloud and immediately retrospective protocols of 6 high proficient and 6 low proficient readers as the principal sources of data. The think aloud protocols and the immediately retrospective interviews were transcribed and subjected to content analysis by means of coding them. Taiwanese first year university EFL readers’ metacognitive awareness and use of reading strategies were then analysed and interpreted from a broad metacognitive perspective within the information processing model in terms of strategy application for reading comprehension problem-solving. The findings revealed that the participants demonstrated an awareness and control of their cognitive activities while reading. The strategies they employed were grouped into the categories of supporting reading strategies (SRSs), cognitive reading strategies (CRSs), and metacognitive reading strategies (MRSs). The study found that these learners’ metacognitive awareness and use of reading strategies in learning to read were closely related to L2 proficiency. The low proficient readers’ unfamiliarity with L2 is a hindrance to their reading comprehension which, in turn, disabled them from using the strategies appropriately and effectively. Furthermore, the high proficient readers outperformed their low proficient counterparts in terms of both the quality and quantity of strategies used. Both groups did not use the same strategy types. The findings also revealed that certain types of reading strategy were used differently due to the texts of the narrative and the expository type across the different ability levels. The existing literature on metacognitive awareness and use of reading strategies in learning to read is discussed and pedagogical implications for teachers of L2 reading are offered. These implications include suggestions made for providing learners with explicit reading and strategy instruction and texts with different structure in relation to strategy use. Finally, the limitations of the current research study and recommendations for further research were stated.

This study investigates the effect of testing mode on lower-level Saudi Arabian test-takers’ performance and cognitive processes when taking an L2 reading test on computer compared to its paper-based counterpart from an interface design perspective. An interface was developed and implemented into the computer-based version of the L2 reading test in this study, which was administered to 102 Saudi Arabian University students for quantitative analyses and to an additional eighteen for qualitative analyses. All participants were assessed on the same L2 reading test in two modes on two separate occasions in a within-subject design. Statistical tests such as correlations, group comparisons, and item analyses were employed to investigate test-mode effect on test-takers’ performance whereas test-takers’ concurrent verbalizations were recorded when taking the reading test to investigate their cognitive processes. Strategies found in both modes were compared through their frequency of occurrence. In addition, a qualitative illustration of test-takers cognitive behavior was given to describe the processes when taking a lower-level L2 reading test. A mixed-method approach was adhered to when collecting data consisting of questionnaires think-aloud protocols, and post-experimental interviews as main data collection instruments. Results on test-takers’ performance showed that there was no significant difference between the two modes of testing on overall reading performance, however, item level analyses discovered significant differences on two of the test’s items. Further qualitative investigation into possible interface design related causes for these differences showed no identifiable relationship between test-takers’ performance and the computer-based testing mode. Results of the cognitive processes analyses showed significant differences in three out of the total number of cognitive processes employed by test-takers indicating that test-takers had more difficulties in processing text in the paper-based test than in the computer-based test. Both product and process analyses carried out further provided convincing supporting evidence for the cognitive validity, content validity, and context validity contributing to the construct validity of the computer-based test used in this study.