Two questions regarding text signals' influence on second language (L2) science expository text comprehension were examined. First, the contextual relationship between verbal headings and non-verbal underlining signals (i.e., related or unrelated) was manipulated to investigate how these verbal and nonverbal text signals influence L2 text…

Acquiring L2 Persian vocabulary is the main hurdle for foreign students who wish to pursue academic studies in Iranian universities. This study explored the effect of the cooperative learning approach and semantic mapping strategy on the acquisition of L2 Persian vocabulary. The study had a quasi-experimental design and included a control group…

The purpose of this study is to examine readers' comprehension as they develop their mental representation of reference in four sequential online texts. A total of 92 college students from three reading classes were recruited to complete the following steps in each text: (1) identify references, (2) draw the relationships between references, and…

This study reports on our design of a computer system which supports the understanding of how students construct their mental representation of references and how the construction failures impede their reading comprehension. Three modules, "User interface", "Recording", and "Feedback" were implemented. The…

The major purpose of this study is to assist college students in constructing mental representation of referential resolution in a computer system. Ninety students were asked to draw mental maps indicating the relationships between references, take reading comprehension tests, and fill out open-ended questionnaire. Results showed that the…