This paper reports on an action-research study aimed at identifying the problems and needs of a specific group of tenth graders at a school in Colombia in relation to their reading comprehension in English in order to design, partially implement, and evaluate a genre-oriented syllabus. Findings show that the explicit instruction of metacognitive…

This study sought to compare how three different gloss types (text-picture, text-audio and text-picture-audio) affected English as a foreign language (EFL) learners' reading comprehension and vocabulary acquisition. The study also compared how results on comprehension and vocabulary acquisition differed across three learning conditions (i.e.,…

The purpose of this study was to determine the possible effect of the implementation of reading strategy instruction on Thai EFL adult learners' reading strategy awareness. A total of 113 postgraduate students taking a remedial reading course responded to the pre- and post-adapted version of Survey of Reading Strategies (SORS) (Mokhtari &…

Despite increasing attention on literacy-based approaches to foreign language instruction (e.g. Allen & Dupuy, 2013; Barrette, Paesani, & Vinall, 2010; Byrnes, 2005; Kern, 2004; Magnan, Murphy, & Sahakyan, 2014) the communicative approach's emphasis on oral proficiency continues to shadow reading practices. Although research findings…

This article reports on the extensive reading (ER) component of a reading intervention programme to improve first-year students' reading proficiency. To make the intervention more practical and to accelerate improvement, an ER component was included in the programme. Two groups of first-year students (high-risk and low-risk) were required to read…

The purpose of this study is to explore how Korean university students develop their readership in integrated reading classes that address both conventional and critical reading instructions. The two researchers taught university students in Busan and Seoul, alternatively, to read texts in English critically. Fifty-nine students (thirty-two from…

Dynamic Assessment (DA) derives from Vygotsky's (1987) insight that the use of mediation, attuned to learner needs, enables learners to perform beyond their current level of functioning, thereby providing insights into emerging capabilities. The instructional quality of mediation means that this process simultaneously creates possibilities for…

The current study focused on the problems which students encounter while listening to the English language, the mental processes they activate in listening comprehension, and the strategies they use in different phases of comprehension. Also, it aimed to find out whether there were any differences between advanced and intermediate students in…

In this paper, first language (L1) and second language (L2) oral language and word reading skills were used as predictors to devise a model of reading comprehension in young Cantonese-speaking English language learners (ELLs) in the United States. L1 and L2 language and literacy measures were collected from a total of 101 Cantonese-speaking ELLs…

This study used an alternating treatment design to examine the use of a listening reading comprehension intervention package. This package was implemented in English as well as bilingually (on alternating days). This package was applied to four participants who were English Language Learners, were diagnosed with a severe intellectual delay, and…

Translation and language teaching techniques which take language learners' first language (L1) as point of reference for teaching the second language (L2) have been long discouraged on the ground that these teaching techniques would end in the fossilization of L2 structure forms in the learner's Interlanguage system. However, in recent years, the…

The present study explored listening strategy use among a group of Egyptian EFL college sophomores (N = 84). More specifically, it aimed to identify 1) the strategies used more often by participants, 2) the relationship between listening strategy use, and listening comprehension and self-efficacy, and 3) differences in listening comprehension and…

This paper describes shadow-reading, a pedagogical technique aimed at fostering reading comprehension and retention in second (L2) or foreign language (FL) classrooms. The technique is an adaptation of "conversational shadowing," a procedure which requires listeners to repeat what their interlocutors say in an attempt to remember the…

With todays' students spending increasing amounts of time involved in online activities, there is a growing need to study their online reading habits. Indeed, it is not only students' out-of-class engagement with electronic media that calls for increased attention to the reading skill, in general, and online reading, in particular, but it is also…

There is a lack of research which examines the effects of online pop-up dictionaries in the context of less commonly taught languages including Japanese as a second and foreign language (JSL and JFL), despite the growing popularity of such tools. This qualitatively-oriented study is an attempt to fill this void. The study investigates differences…