The Role of Morphological Awareness in Reading Comprehension in Chinese EFL Adult Learners

Abstract

Phonological awareness seems to be paid more attention to in the past few years. Morphological awareness also has a unique impact after controlling for phonological awareness in Chinese and English acquisition, especially for Chinese EFL adult learners. Morphological awareness has its unique position in the cultivation of English reading ability, and it is also the key and foundation of Chinese reading development. Morphological awareness may be more suitable for Chinese EFL adult learners because it is similar to the learning method of their mother tongue. This review discusses the relationship between morphological awareness and reading comprehension in native speakers and then argues the relationship between morphological awareness and English reading comprehension of Chinese EFL adult learners. It also focuses on how to more effectively train morphological awareness to improve reading comprehension in the following parts. Indeed, the impact of morphological awareness on reading development includes direct and indirect influences. Due to the understanding of the relationship between morphological awareness and Chinese EFL adult learners' reading comprehension plays an important role in Chinese EFL adult learners' reading comprehension, so effectively intervening in morphological awareness to improve reading ability is also very significant. The existing reading theories are mainly concerned with reading models and reading development, but the research on morphological awareness is limited. For example, few theoretical studies on morphological awareness have paid attention to Chinese EFL adult learners. The systematic investigations about Chinese learners morphological awareness training are also lack and most of the studies use cross-sectional research. That makes the research unable to discover and understand the development of morphological awareness and the dynamic changes between morphological awareness and reading comprehension.