Background/purpose: This study aims to examine the implementation of structured reading strategies through the Reader Response Approach (RRA) in an online EFL reading class to enhance students' reading comprehension and critical engagement with literary texts. Responding to a text allows readers to deepen their understanding, articulate personal…

The present study scrutinized Iranian EFL learners' mode of learning (distance vs. conventional) as a probable source of bias in employing cognitive and metacognitive reading comprehension strategies. To this end, a total of 514 Iranian distance and conventional EFL learners were asked to take a 30-item multiple-choice reading comprehension test…

Research has shown that classroom-based reading strategy training does not necessarily result in effective, self-regulated reading behaviours when students engage with authentic academic reading in their own study contexts. In light of this problem, our study examines the effects of an instructional scaffold combined with teacher feedback,…

Reading involves both cognitive and psychological activities of combining both pre-existing cultural and linguistic knowledge. The reader has the ability to view the world in the light of his/her own cultural experiences which are constructed consciously or unconsciously, and may seem to be fruitful in text analysis and exploring the uncovered…

Universidad Tecnológica de Santiago (UTESA) is a university considered as one of the highest ranking universities in the Dominican Republic, it is one of the few to be recognized by the Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology as an autonomous university for its constant research and updating. This university offers to college students…

Studies examining decontextualized associative vocabulary learning have shown that long spacing between encounters with an item facilitates learning more than short or no spacing, a phenomenon known as distributed practice effect. However, the effect of spacing on learning words in context is less researched and the results, so far, are…

The study investigated L2 learners' perceptions of narrow reading. Thirty-two students finished four sets of graded readers organized by the same author with the same genre and same title, or random texts. After finishing each set of three graded readers, the students answered an eight-item questionnaire and wrote their reading feedback. Linear…

This study investigated the relative effectiveness of two instructional interventions (implicit and explicit feedback) as a function of implicit sequence-learning ability. Second language (L2) attainment was measured by means of a self-paced reading task, which shows online sensitivity to language errors. Implicit sequence-learning ability was…

Most research on peer observation as a professional development intervention in EFL contexts focuses either on teachers' perceptions about its usefulness or the methodical frameworks. There are a few studies which report realtime incidence of a peer observed lesson. To fill this gap, the present study arranged a peer observation for a reading…

Self-perception, which mediates between knowledge and behavior, increasingly plays an important role in the determination of the ability to comprehend and respond to information on the Internet. Teachers need to gain insights about how EFL readers feel about themselves as readers in the Internet-based learning environment. There is a critical need…

This article focuses on the differential emotional power of languages in the book-reading practices of plurilingual readers. Within a plurilingual perspective, it aims at adding nuance to the "emotional contexts of learning hypothesis" and the "theory of language embodiment". This qualitative study is based on semi-structured…

Alderson, Brunfaut and Harding (2014) recently investigated how diagnosis is practised across a range of professions in order to develop a tentative framework for a theory of diagnosis in second or foreign language (SFL) assessment. In articulating this framework, a set of five broad principles were proposed, encompassing the entire enterprise of…

This article describes a model used to explore cultural understanding in English as a foreign language reading in a developing country, namely Argentina. The model is designed to investigate, analyse and describe EFL readers' processes of cultural understanding in a specific context. Cultural understanding in reading is typically investigated…

Among foreign language educators interest in extensive reading is growing along with questions about learner motivation to read. Maintaining learner motivation over long periods of time is influenced by many variables suggesting that multiple means of stimulating motivation is needed. The psychological theory of flow has been suggested to…

Despite the frequency with which verbal reports are used in SLA to gather data on learners' cognitive processes (e.g., Bowles, 2003, 2004; Mackey, Gass, & McDonough, 2000; Rosa & Leow, 2004a, 2004b), only two studies (Bowles & Leow, 2005; Leow & Morgan-Short, 2004) have investigated verbal reports' reactivity (i.e., whether they alter cognitive…