The effectiveness of English Language Teaching (ELT) materials significantly influences the learning outcomes of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners, positioning these resources as cardinal in the acquisition process. Despite this widely acknowledged significance, there remains a notable gap in research concerning the evaluation of key…

Graded reading is one of the important ways of English learning. How to automatically judge and grade the difficulty of the English reading corpus is of great significance for precision teaching and personalized learning. However, the current rule-based readability assessment methods have some limitations, such as low efficiency and poor accuracy.…

At the end of high school in Chile, it is expected that students achieve a B1 English language proficiency level. In the present article, we measure the level of readability of the texts used in the new EFL Chilean textbook and compare it with the readability level of the texts used in the Cambridge B1 preliminary exam to check its appropriacy.…

Extensive Reading (ER) emerges as a promising approach for acquiring a foreign language, allowing for a large amount of language exposure. However, the influence of supplementary activities within ER programs has yet to be thoroughly investigated, despite previous studies suggesting their potential effectiveness. This research investigated the…

This study examined the relationship of linguistic complexity, captured using a set of lexical richness, syntactic complexity, and discoursal complexity indices, to second language (L2) learners' perception of text difficulty, captured using L2 raters' comparative judgment on text comprehensibility and reading speed. Testing materials were 180…

Textbooks, which have a very important place in educational activities, are also a widely used material in teaching Turkish to foreigners. Therefore, the texts in these textbooks play an effective role in learning. For this reason, it is very important to determine the readability levels of Turkish teaching textbooks for foreigners. The aim of…

This study examined the factors adapted from the Motivation for Reading Questionnaire. We considered eight dimensions (Self-Efficacy, Reading Challenge, Reading Curiosity, Reading Involvement, Importance of Reading, Recognition for Reading, Reading for Grades, and Social Reasons for Reading). In addition, we included some items based on the…

Text classification and text gradation are important for language teachers. Profiling and readability studies examine textual and linguistic features that determine text difficulty. Arabic, as an under-resourced language, suffers from a lack of such studies which results in material developers and textbook writers relying on their intuitions and…

This study investigated what features undergraduate EFL learners perceive as affecting the difficulty of model paragraphs. Four hundred and seventy-five Vietnamese undergraduates participated in a partial least squares structural equation model design. They ranked five paragraphs from easiest to most difficult and responded to a 10-point Likert…

Typical print formatting provides no information regarding the linguistic features of a text, although texts vary considerably with respect to grammatical complexity and readability. Complex texts may be particularly challenging for individuals with weak language knowledge, such as English language learners. This paper investigates the usefulness…

This study aimed to compare the readability levels of the reading passages in the General Aptitude Test (GAT) and those of English textbooks for the Upper Secondary Level in Thailand. The corpus of the General Aptitude Tests (C-GAT) was compiled from 70 reading passages on GAT test papers from 2009-2021, and the corpus of English textbooks (C-ET)…

The aim of this experiment was to investigate how glossing influences second language (L2) reading comprehension in relation to text difficulty and the two local and global meaning representations. Fifty-eight undergraduate students were asked to read three easy, moderate, and difficult texts and, following each passage, answer twenty…

Extensive reading is an approach to language learning that encourages learners to read a large quantity of easy reading material. A substantial body of research confirms the effectiveness of this approach for developing proficiency in both first (L1) and second (L2) languages. This paper explains what extensive reading is, why it is important, and…

Estimating the difficulty of reading tests is critical in second language education and assessment. This study was aimed at examining various text features that might influence the difficulty level of a high-stakes reading comprehension test and predict test takers' scores. To this end, the responses provided by 17,900 test takers on the reading…

English as a Second Language (ESL) students are often expected to read and use English translations of the Bible for academic and worship purposes. The purpose of this study was to explore the writing style of the King James Version and the New International Version in terms of each translation's formality, readability, and sentiment using…