The Use of L1 Cognitive Resources in L2 Reading by Chinese EFL Learners

Wu, Shiyu

doi:10.4324/9781315727035

Cited by 5 publications

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“…This provides the most probable account for the performance of the native English speakers. The fact that the English majors performed on a par with the native English speakers suggests that such L1 strategies were transferred to L2 reading ( Wu, 2016 ). However, for the non-English majors, such transfer seemed incomplete given the fact that the singular they elicited a significantly longer reading time than the singular pronoun she , regardless of the antecedent type.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Acceptance and Online Interpretation of “Gender-Neutral Pronouns”: Performance Asymmetry by Chinese English as a Foreign Language Learners

2022

Front. Psychol.

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The present study (N = 109) set out to examine the role of cross-linguistic differences as a source of potential difficulty in the acceptance and online interpretation of the English singular they by Chinese English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners across two levels of second-language proficiency. Experiment 1 operationalized performance through an untimed acceptability judgment test and Experiment 2 through a self-paced reading task. Statistical analyses yielded an asymmetric pattern of results. Experiment 1 indicated that unlike native English speakers who generally accepted the singular they with all antecedent types, two Chinese EFL groups consisting of English majors (higher level) and non-English majors (lower level) both rated it as the least acceptable pronoun regardless of their proficiency level. In contrast, Experiment 2 demonstrated that like native English speakers, both Chinese EFL groups were not disrupted in their reading by the use of the singular they most of the time, although its online interpretation was modulated by L2 proficiency levels of the participants. While the English majors were not affected by the use of the singular they, the non-English majors spent a significantly longer time reading the latter region of the sentences where the singular they was used. In short, the results of the two experiments seem to indicate that under no time constraint, L2 speakers showed a heightened degree of grammar sensitivity, whereas when there was a time constraint, their grammatical sensitivity was reduced by a greater need to focus on meaning. The difficulty for Chinese EFL learners to acquire the singular they may be located at the restructuring of their existing knowledge of the plural feature of they [−PLURAL] in their mental lexicon and the adaptation to the sociocultural norms of the target language. The pedagogical implications of the findings are discussed.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Acceptance and Online Interpretation of “Gender-Neutral Pronouns”: Performance Asymmetry by Chinese English as a Foreign Language Learners

2022

Front. Psychol.

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“…In the aspect of EEJA reading strategy, the existed literature so far focused on how reading strategy impacted students' reading comprehension along with the importance of reading strategy training they needed (Ahmadi, Ismail, & Abdullah, 2013;Kern, 1989;Kung, 2019;Muhid, Amalia, Hilaliyah, Budiana, & Wajdi, 2020;Par, 2020;Shih & Reynolds, 2018;Taylor, Stevens, & Asher, 2006). Until recently, the advent of information technologies helped researchers to see the importance of online reading and shifted the research direction to online reading strategy (Hsieh & Dwyer, 2009;Huang, 2013;Jose, 2021;Li, 2020;Marboot, Roohani, & Mirzaei, 2020;Taki, 2016;Wu, 2019;Zenotz, 2012). Online reading strategy was then developed to enhancing readers' comprehension ability when reading electronic materials (Huang, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Correlation of EFL Graduate Students’ Strategies and Attitude Toward Reading English E-Journal Articles

Chen¹

2023

INT J INSTRUCTION

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This study aimed at determining English as a foreign language (EFL) graduate students' searching and reading strategies they actually use when reading English electronic journal articles (EEJAs) and their attitude toward reading EEJAs. A questionnaire survey was designed and administered to 342 Taiwanese graduate students from various majors across 15 universities. The results indicated that students have a medium usage of EEJA searching strategies (ESS), high usage of EEJA reading strategies (ERS), and a moderate to high level of EEJA reading attitude (ERA). MANOVA results showed significant interaction of reading ability and time spent online for academic purposes on both ESS and ERS. In addition, students' belief was mostly correlated positively with their use of ESS and ERS, but students' feeling was mostly negative correlated. Finally, the results of the structural equation modelling (SEM) validated that the structure of the three major variables and the connections with them were reasonable.

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“…Other L2 language effects are indirect. The effortful word-and sentence-level processing of L2 text, due to less familiarity with the L2 linguistic system, imposes an excessive load on the readers' already limited working memory (Ercetin & Alptekin, 2013;Frey, 2005;Walter, 2000) so that it becomes unavailable or only partially available for building text comprehension (Baghaei & Ravand, 2015;Gernsbacher, 1993;Gernsbacher & Robertson, 1995;Horiba, 1990;Kim, 2015;Wu, 2016). In other words, the cumbersome processes of L2 word recognition and syntactic parsing handicap the construction of textual meaning.…”

Section: Surface-textual Understandingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…L2 deeper-level comprehension is restricted by L2 language features mainly through the learners' working memory being overloaded by their processing. The less developed their text information extraction skills are because of their limited L2 language proficiency, the more their working memory is consumed, leaving little room for global coherence construction (Horiba, van den Broek, & Fletcher, 1993;Loschky, 2014;Wu, 2016) and elaborative inference generation (Garcia, Jimenez, & Person, 1998;Hammadou, 1991;Kim, 2015;Rai, Loschky, Harris, Peck, & Cook, 2011;Zwaan & Brown, 1996). Sometimes the constraints are so strong that they impede the formation of deeper-level, interpretative meaning in L2 reading (Ercetin & Alptekin, 2013;Jenkins, Prior, Richard, Wainright-Sharp, & Bialystock, 1993), with comprehension staying at the textual level.…”

Section: Deeper-level Comprehension Buildingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Reading is essential for human beings to gain information about the world and thus it is a primary goal of education (Wu, 2016). At the same time, reading is a complex cognitive process requiring a vast array of intricately interacting sub-processes (Grabe, 2009;Hudson, 1996), supported by multiple forms of knowledge, abilities, skills, and mechanisms (Koda, 2007).…”

Section: Chapter Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Constructing informal diagnostic reading assessment instruments for lower-level Chinese as second language readers

Yang¹

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Assessment is important for second language (L2) reading instruction. Compared to standardized tests, informal assessment tools reveal richer information about learners' reading processes and problems, so they provide more helpful information for teachers. To date, few informal diagnostic tools have been developed for L2 reading, and none that is practical and reliable exists for Chinese L2 reading. This study aims to fill this gap by investigating how performance of oral word reading, word segmentation, and oral passage reading relate to comprehension. It also seeks to determine how well the three tasks detect reading problems and evaluate the difficulty levels of instructional materials. A total of 70 beginning English-speaking learners of Chinese participated in this study. The results showed that all three tasks assess comprehension as effectively as the standardized test, and oral passage reading is the most robust assessment tool. The three diagnostic instruments can also be used to evaluate instructional material difficulty. Two of the three textbook-equivalent texts examined in this study fit learners' reading level, although most learners felt one of the texts was too difficult to read. L2 readers develop their componential skills in different ways, although the crucial role of word-level processing remains stable across reader patterns. The quantity and quality of the learners' errors in completing the three tasks provide useful insights into their reading processes and problems. The study's findings suggested that the three tasks are effective diagnostic tools for Chinese L2 reading and indicated the importance of developing reading fluency and training word-level processing skills. v

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The Use of L1 Cognitive Resources in L2 Reading by Chinese EFL Learners

Cited by 5 publications

References 0 publications

Acceptance and Online Interpretation of “Gender-Neutral Pronouns”: Performance Asymmetry by Chinese English as a Foreign Language Learners

Acceptance and Online Interpretation of “Gender-Neutral Pronouns”: Performance Asymmetry by Chinese English as a Foreign Language Learners

The Correlation of EFL Graduate Students’ Strategies and Attitude Toward Reading English E-Journal Articles

Constructing informal diagnostic reading assessment instruments for lower-level Chinese as second language readers

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