Describes an extensive reading program conducted in three rural secondary or middle schools in Malaysia aimed at motivating the students to read extensively in English and helping them overcome their problems in understanding English texts as a means towards increasing their proficiency in the language. (Author/VWL)

Presents a multimedia software package for teaching Indonesian listening comprehension and culture and reports the findings of an evaluative study of learner use of the software package. Asserts that there was a clear increase in comfort and confidence levels among learners using technology and high proficiency learners showed higher awareness of…

Examined the effects of readers' gender and passage content on second language (L2) reading comprehension. Participants--who were intermediate Spanish learners--read two different authentic passages. Two measures were used to assess comprehension: A written recall and multiple-choice questions. Findings reveal significant interactions between…

Explores the types of annotations intermediate and advanced English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) learners preferred to use while they were engaged in reading a hypermedia text. Also investigated learners' attitudes towards reading in a hypermedia environment. Participants were 84 adult ESL learners. Participants indicated the hypermedia environment…

Examination of the effects of transferred vocabulary knowledge on college students' (N=24) acquisition of Japanese linguistic knowledge, verbal processing skills, and reading comprehension indicated that vocabulary knowledge was most highly correlated with reading comprehension. This initial advantage magnified its effects over time as task…

The introduction of computer technologies into the regular school system has not been very successful, probably because of the lack of sound curricular integration. Proposals are offered for courseware development that will better fit into the modern languages curriculum. (Contains three references.) (Author/LB)

An earlier study of the sources of native speakers' perception of incoherence in English text produced by nonnative speakers was extended. Eighty subjects were tested using microcomputers rather than paper-and-pencil and again showed a strong effect for miscues and less significant effect for order of ideas. (Contains 32 references.) (Author/LB)

Compared the way in which learners of French as a Second Language (L2) and English as a First Language (L1) established the coherence of a specific text. Results indicated that when L2 learners approached a text, criteria of familiarity, expectation of meaning, and the teaching context were important. (12 references) (MDM)

This study looked at whether prior learning of a lecture topic enhanced performance on the lecture subtests of a content-based listening test. Data was analyzed from 11 lecture subtests from the Test of Listening for Academic Purposes. (JL)

Examined strategies that students reported using in the comprehension and learning of new information while listening to two radio broadcasts in Spanish. The findings have implications for both the use of authentic listening materials in instruction and for listening strategy research. (51 references) (LB)

Investigates hypothesis that topic familiarity and assessed difficulty of a text correlate positively with performance on reading comprehension tests. A study of 177 advanced students of English for Specific Purposes indicates that students' subjective evaluation of the relative difficulty of a reading text is not always a reliable index of their…

This article discusses case studies of subjects labeled as learning disabled (LD) who have gained a degree of proficiency in a second language. The subjects' performance on written dictations, oral readings, and comprehension after oral and silent reading are compared qualitatively between their first and second language. (60 references) (JL)

Investigated how English-as-a-Second-Language (L2) readers used structural properties of a text to "fill in the gaps" in their mental representations and compared these with native English readers' recall protocols. L2 readers' structure-preserving recalls were higher than their meaning-preserving protocols. Results suggest that L2 readers used…

Investigates whether reading instruction for adult English-as-a-Second-Language students should focus on fostering linguistic ability or on increasing background knowledge. Demonstrates that both linguistic knowledge and prior knowledge contribute significantly to reading comprehension. Argues that an integrative approach to reading instruction is…

Reviews current developments in second-language reading research and its implications for the classroom, particularly the English-as-a-Second-Language classroom. It is argued that the last 10 years have yielded insights that challenge previous views of first- and second-language reading and imply future avenues of research. (67 references) (VWL)