Reading is a complex cognitive process of decoding symbols in order to construct or derive meaning (reading comprehension). It is a means of language acquisition, of communication, and of sharing information and ideas. Like all language, it is a complex interaction between the text and the reader which is shaped by the reader’s prior knowledge, experiences, attitude, and language community which is culturally and socially situated.

The reading process requires continuous practice, development, and refinement. In addition, reading requires creativity and critical analysis. Consumers of literature make ventures with each piece, innately deviating from literal words to create images that make sense to them in the unfamiliar places the texts describe. Because reading is such a complex process, it cannot be controlled or restricted to one or two interpretations. There are no concrete laws in reading, but rather allows readers an escape to produce their own products introspectively. This promotes deep exploration of texts during interpretation.[1] Readers use a variety of reading strategies to assist with decoding (to translate symbols into sounds or visual representations of speech) and comprehension. Readers may use context clues to identify the meaning of unknown words. Readers integrate the words they have read into their existing framework of knowledge or schema (schemata theory).

How Do Chinese ESL Learners Recognize English Words During a Reading Test? A Comparison With Romance-Language Speaking ESL Learners

RQ:

This study examines how Chinese ESL learners recognize English words while responding to a multiple-choice reading test as compared to Romance-language-speaking ESL learners.

Subjects: Four adult Chinese ESL learners and three adult Romance-language-speaking ESL learners participated in a think-aloud study with the Michigan English Language

Assessment Battery (MELAB) reading test. Results:

As indicated by the think-aloud verbal reports, the Chinese ESL learners generally had more difficulty with English vocabulary, probably due to the vast difference between the writing system of Chinese and that of English. Rather, they were found to compensate for their deficiencies in vocabulary knowledge by extensively relying on test-taking strategies.

The findings of this study are well supported by the cross-linguistic transfer theory and the compensatory nature of reading comprehension. The implications for teaching English vocabulary skills to Chinese ESL learners are also discussed.

With think-aloud protocols, a task is presented to a sample of participants who are probed about their thinking processes while responding to the task

Predictors of English reading comprehension: Cantonese-speaking English language learners in the U.S.RQ:

The first aim of the present study was to examine whether the same variables that predict English reading comprehension for Spanish-speaking ELLs and monolingual English-speaking children also predict English reading comprehension for Cantonese-speaking ELLs living an English-speaking country using variables measured in both L1 Cantonese and L2 English. The second aim of the study was to propose a model conceptualizing the interrelationships among oral proficiency, word reading, and English reading comprehension in Cantonese-speaking ELLs living in an English-speaking country. Subjects:

Second grade 101 Cantonese-speaking ELLs Six schools in two major urban school districts in northern California. Schools with a high percentage of Cantonese-speaking children were selected and participants were recruited through the classrooms. All children identified as native Cantonese-speakersThe sample consisted of 101 Cantonese-speaking second graders—63 girls and 38 boys. The sample mean age was 7.64 years old and there were no significant difference in age between the two school districts. Cantonese was the children’s firstMethod

Based on the SVR model, both decoding and oral proficiency skills were included in this model. Decoding included real-word and pseudo word reading in English and phonological awareness skills in both English and Cantonese. Oral proficiency included vocabulary knowledge, both expressive and receptive, in English and Cantonese and listening comprehension in English. This study used a two-step approach to structural equation modeling. First, confirmatory factor analysis was used to determine whether the observed variables served as adequate indicators of the latent variables. Following confirmation of an adequate measurement model, structural models were tested to examine relationships among vocabulary, phonological awareness, English listening comprehension, English word reading, and English reading comprehension.

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 during the early spring of second grade. ResultsEnglish vocabulary and English word decoding, as measured with real and nonsense words, played significant roles in English reading comprehension. In particular, results highlight the crucial role of English vocabulary in the development of

L2 English literacy skills. English listening comprehension did not predict English reading comprehension. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Literature Review about correlation between oral and reading skills

Positive Correlation between learners’ oral proficiency and English decoding skills and English reading comprehension (Gottardo & Mueller, 2009; Hoover & Gough, 1990; Proctor et al., 2005).

Findings similar to those with monolingual English speaking children (Gough & Tunmer, 1986; Juel, Griffith, & Gough, 1986; Tunmer & Hoover, 1992) and Spanish-speaking children (Gottardo & Mueller, 2009; Hoover & Gough, 1990; Proctor, Carlo, August, & Snow, 2005).

Research on reading comprehension among children whose two languages do not share cognates and a common writing system, such as Cantonese and English, is sparse.

Oral language competence (e.g. Biemiller, 2003; Snow et al., 1998) and word reading (e.g., National Reading Panel, 2000) are the primary components involved in English reading comprehension for both monolingual and Spanish-speaking ELL children.

The simple view of reading (SVR) model, both decoding skills and oral language skills, as represented by listening

comprehension are necessary for reading comprehension (Gough& Tunmer, 1986 ;Jueletal., 1986; Tunmer&Hoover,1992).

SVR proposes that R=D9C , where R is reading comprehension, D is decoding, and C is listening comprehension as a proxy for general oral language skills (Tunmer & Hoover, 1992).

Reading problems can thus arise from poor decoding skills, poor oral language skills, or both . Listening comprehension

has been shown to be an important component of oral language skills for Spanish-speaking ELLs as well (Hoover & Gough, 1990; Royer & Carlo, 1991; Proctor et al., 2005).

However, in the modification of the SVR model to understand the reading processes of Spanish-speaking ELLs, Proctor et al. showed that

both English listening comprehension skills and English vocabulary were independently and significantly related to English reading comprehension performance for a sample of 135 Spanish-speaking fourth-grade ELLs. Their research showed that

listening comprehension had a proximal effect on reading comprehension, while

vocabulary had both a proximal and distal (through listening comprehension) relationship with reading comprehension.

Other past models of reading also consider vocabulary knowledge to be a proxy for general oral language skills and an

important source of variation in reading comprehension for both monolingual English speakers (Beck et al., 1982; Freebody & Anderson, 1983; Hemphill & Tivnan, 2008; Snow et al., 1998) and Spanish speaking ELLs (August, Carlo, Dressler, & Snow, 2005; Mancilla-Martinez & Lesaux, 2010).

Oral vocabulary has been shown to be the most significant predictor of reading comprehension , even after controlling

for early word recognition, phoneme awareness, and letter knowledge (Muter, Hulme, Snowling, & Stevenson, 2004), and intervention studies have repeatedly shown the importance of vocabulary knowledge for reading comprehension (e.g., Beck, McKeown, & Kucan, 2002; Biemiller & Boote, 2006).

Comprehension is disrupted when the proportion of unknown words is too high (Carver, 1994 ). Moreover, young

ELLs already have, on average, fewer English vocabulary words than their middle-class English-speaking peers who know about 10,000 English words at school entry (Anglin, 1993).

The impact of English vocabulary on reading comprehension has been shown to be long term; initial status (at age 4.5 years) and rate of growth (from age 4.5–11 years) in English vocabulary predicted reading comprehension outcomes at 11 years of age with a sample of 173 low-achieving Spanish-speaking ELLs (Mancilla-Martinez & Lesaux, 2010).

Decoding words is the other well-established component of the SVR model and has also been shown to

contribute to the reading process for monolingual English speaking children and Spanish-speaking ELLs (National Reading Panel, 2000).

Children must be able to decode words not only accurately but also fluently (Roberts, Good, & Corcoran, 2005; Roehrig, Petscher, Nettles, Hudson, & Torgesen, 2008). Efficient and automatic word reading allows students to use cognitive resources for understanding meaning in text rather than identifying and decoding words (Perfetti, 1998). Phonological awareness (i.e., the ability to attend explicitly to the sound structure of spoken words rather than just to their meanings and syntactic roles) has been identified as

a crucial component of decoding for children in the lower primary grades (Carlisle, Beeman, Davis, & Spharim, 1999; Gottardo & Mueller, 2009; Manis, Lindsey, & Bailey, 2004). For most English-speaking children, phonological sensitivity gradually develops over the preschool years (Chaney, 1992) and their performance on kindergarten phonological sensitivity tasks is a strong predictor of future reading achievement (Juel, 1991; Scarborough, 1989). This is also evident in Spanish-speaking ELLs. Gottardo and Mueller (2009) found that English phonological awareness predicted English word reading, which in turn predicted English reading comprehension with a group of second-grade Spanish-speaking ELL children.

Chinese-English bilingualsCantonese differs from English in many aspects, but particularly in terms of phonological structures and orthography. Most notably, Cantonese and English do not share a writing system. Cantonese has a morpho-syllabic writing system (Shu & Anderson, 1997), which contains both

semantic radicals associated with meaning and phonetic radicals associated with the sound of the character (Ho & Bryant, 1997). Cheng (1992) suggested that phonological awareness also plays an important role in Chinese character identification. More than 80 % of Chinese characters are semantic-phonetic compounds, which have a semantic radical to indicate the word meaning and a phonetic radical to provide clues to the pronunciation of the character, ranging from exact homophones to analogy cues at the level of syllable or rhyme (Leong, 1986). However, for Cantonese-speaking children and for other ELL children whose home language does not use a shallow orthography, their L1 abilities may not facilitate L2 English reading. Chinese is a tonal language; Cantonese has six tones. Tone awareness is necessary in learning to speak and read Chinese, because tones carry meaning. Many words in Chinese are homophonous except for their tonal differences, the source of information regarding their meaning. For example, the word “ma” in Cantonese could be either 媽 (maa1), meaning mother, or 馬 (maa5), meaning horse and if a child does not use the correct tone, some unexpected confusion may arise. However, a literature search revealed only two studies that examined Chinese-English bilinguals’ English reading comprehension (Cheung et al., 2007; Wang et al., 2006). Wang et al. (2006) show that English vocabulary, English compound morphology, and age were associated with English reading comprehension for a group of 64 Chinese immigrant children who had no reported problems with English proficiency and were literate in Chinese. The children were in the second and fourth grades in the Washington, DC area and attended Chinese school on the weekends.Chinese vocabulary did not correlate with English reading comprehension and was not included in the authors’ regression models.

Role of L1 and L2 factorsTheoretical models (Cummins, 1984; Geva & Siegel, 2000; Ziegler & Goswami, 2005) and various research studies (Gottardo & Mueller, 2009; Oller & Pearson, 2002; Proctor, Carlo, August, & Snow, 2006) have provided evidence for the importance of including both L1 and L2 measures in determining predictors of L2 reading for bilinguals. There is considerable evidence of the interdependence of linguistic skills across languages, suggesting that L1 and L2 abilities are manifestations of a common underlying proficiency (Cummins, 1991). More recently, when studying the development of reading skills in bilinguals with two different orthographies, results have shown that the process may vary as a function of both a common underlying process and orthographic transparency (Geva & Siegel, 2000). It has been suggested that phonological awareness is a language-general knowledge; skills learned in one language can be transferred to another language that either does share the writing system, as with Spanish and English (Durgunoglu, Nagy, & Hancin-Bhatt, 1993) or that does not, as with Chinese and English (Bialystok, McBride-Chang, & Luk, 2005; Chien et al., 2008; Gottardo et al., 2001, 2006; Keung & Ho, 2009; Marinova-Todd, Zhao, & Bernhardt, 2010; Wang, Yang, & Cheng, 2009). In fact, phonological awareness measured in L1 Cantonese was correlated with L2 English with a group of Cantonese-speaking ELLs in Canada (Gottardo et al., 2006). This suggests that phonological awareness may need to be acquired only once. However, studies have also shown that L1 and L2 variables were best characterized as separate constructs for phonological awareness with Spanish-speaking ELL children (Branum-Martin, et al., 2006; Gottardo & Mueller, 2009; Nakamoto, Lindsey, & Manis, 2008). More research is needed to determine if this is the case for bilingual children whose two languages do not share a writing system. Vocabulary appears to be language-specific and best represented as separate constructs (Durgunoglu, 2002; Gottardo & Mueller,

2009; Nakamoto et al., 2008). Yet, studies with Spanish–English bilinguals show that, while scores in each language fell below the monolingual means when examined separately, they fell within the monolingual average range when the two languages were evaluated together (Umbel, Pearson, Fernandez, & Oller, 1992). More research is needed, especially with bilinguals whose two languages do not share a writing system. ELLs need to be assessed in both of their languages in order to get a complete picture of their language and literacy abilities. Moreover, as past research has been conducted with ELLs whose languages share a writing system (i.e., English and Spanish), more research is needed to examine whether, for ELLs whose two languages do not share a writing system (e.g., English and Chinese), variables such as phonological awareness and vocabulary should be represented as single crosslanguage constructs or as separate constructs in relation to reading comprehension. Studies conducted with Spanish-speaking ELLs in the United States have shown that, once parallel English skills were accounted for, L1 skills were no longer significant predictors of English reading comprehension (Gottardo & Mueller, 2009; Mancilla-Martinez & Lesaux, 2010; Nakamoto et al., 2008). This is not surprising, given the emphasis of the school curriculum on acquiring English and the fact that these studies took place in the United States. One study revealed a significant main effect, albeit small, for Spanish vocabulary knowledge and an interaction between Spanish vocabulary and English fluency with 135 Spanish-speaking fourth-grade ELLs who leaned toward Spanish dominance (Proctor et al., 2006). The role of L1 skills for ELL children whose two languages do not share a writing system and who live in an English-dominant environment needs to be examined.Present study

The first aim of the present study was to examine whether the same variables that predict English reading comprehension for Spanish-speaking ELLs and monolingual English-speaking children also predict English reading comprehension for Cantonese-speaking ELLs using variables measured in both L1 Cantonese and L2 English. The second aim of the study was to propose a model conceptualizing the interrelationships among oral proficiency, word reading, and English reading comprehension in Cantonese-speaking ELLs living in an English-speaking country. Based on the SVR model, both decoding and oral proficiency skills were included in this model. Decoding included real-word and pseudo word reading in English and phonological awareness skills in both English and Cantonese. Oral proficiency included vocabulary knowledge, both expressive and receptive, in English and Cantonese and listening comprehension in English. This study used a two-step approach to structural equation modeling. First, confirmatory factor analysis was used to determine whether the observed variables served as adequate indicators of the latent variables. Following confirmation of an adequate measurement model, structural models were tested to examine relationships among vocabulary, phonological awareness, English listening comprehension, English word reading, and English reading comprehension.

MethodParticipants

Data was collected from six schools in two major urban school districts in northern California. Schools with a high percentage of Cantonese-speaking children were selected and participants were recruited through the classrooms. All children identified as native Cantonese-speakers by the school home-language survey or by their homeroom teachers were given parental consent forms to take home. The return rate of the consent forms

averaged 73 %; the classroom return rate ranged from 60 to 98 %. According to the teachers, there appeared to be no pattern to the lack of return of the consentforms.Districtdemographicsandschooldataindicatedthat75%ormoreofthe participating students qualified for free or reduced lunch. All classrooms used the same state-adopted reading textbook and addressed the state standards in their instruction. Teachers in each grade level at each school met weekly to discuss curriculum and other issues to make sure similar content was being taught in all classrooms. Three of the schools offered Cantonese-English transitional bilingual programs. The sample consisted of 101 Cantonese-speaking second graders—63 girls and 38 boys. The sample mean age was 7.64 years old and there were no significant difference in age between the two school districts. Cantonese was the children’s first language. The parents’ primary language was Cantonese. The majority of the children were American-born, but the majority of the parents had been born in the Cantonese-speaking area of China. At the time of data collection, 40 children were enrolled in transitional Cantonese-English bilingual programs, while the remaining 61 were enrolled in mainstream classrooms. However, as the bilingual classrooms were transitional early-exit bilingual programs, the bilingual teachers noted that, in second grade, approximately 90 % of class time was in English. There was formal L1 instruction in the bilingual classrooms. In fact, a Chinese word reading task (Gottardo et al., 2001, 2006) revealed that children in the bilingual program were able to read 11 highly frequent characters out of 20 on average, while the children in the mainstream class were only able to read 2 highly frequent characters on average. All the children were individually tested, on two separate days, in both their home and school languages by trained research assistants who were native speakers of English or Cantonese. Most of the children were assessed between January and March of second grade. Each testing session lasted approximately 30 minutes. When there were no standardized Cantonese assessment instruments available for research, experimental measures developed and used by Gottardo et al. (2001, 2006) were used in this study. The reliability of the experimental measures was estimated by the internal consistency of the items (Cronbach’s alpha).

English measuresOral proficiency

Oral proficiency was measured with expressive vocabulary, receptive vocabulary, and listening comprehension.

Vocabulary English receptive vocabulary was measured with the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-3rd Edition (PPVT-3; Dunn & Dunn, 1997). The child was asked to select the picture from an array of four that best matched the spoken word presented by the assessor. There was a total of 204 items on this test. Reported splithalf reliability from the norms for children at age 6 is .92 (Dunn & Dunn, 1997). English productive vocabulary was measured with the picture vocabulary subtest of the Woodcock Language Proficiency Battery-Revised (WLPB; Woodcock, 1991). This measure required the child to name both familiar and unfamiliar pictures, ordered by increasing difficulty, with each response scored by the assessor as correct or incorrect. There was a total of 58 items on this test. Reported split-half reliability from the norms for native English-speaking children at age 6 is .77 (Woodcock, 1991).Listening comprehension English listening comprehension was measured with the listening comprehension subtest of the WLPB. This is a cloze-type assessment where the child listened to passages in order of increasing difficulty and produced an oral response to an unfinished sentence. There was a total of 38 items on this test. Reported split-half reliability from the norms for children at age 6 is .83 (Woodcock, 1991).Word reading

The children were tested with the letter-word identification and word attack subtests of the WLPB in English. The letter-word identification task measures the child’s reading identification skills with isolated letters and words. The items become more difficult as less frequently used words are tested. There was a total of 57 items on this test. The word attack subtest measures the child’s skill in applying phonic and structural analysis skills to the pronunciation of nonsense words that are linguistically logical in English. There was a total of 30 items on this test. Reported split-half reliability from the norms for children at age 6 is .96 for the letter-word identification subtest and .95 for the word attack subtest (Woodcock, 1991).Phonological awareness

The elision, blending, and segmenting subtests of the Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing (CTOPP; Wagner, Torgesen, & Rashotte, 1999) were used to measure phonological sensitivity in English. Each subtest had a total of 20 items. On the elision task, children heard a word and were asked to repeat the word after deleting parts of the word. On the blending task, children were asked to put sounds or syllables together to form a word. On the segmenting task, children were asked to repeat a word and then say the word in phonemes, or “one sound at a time.” Reported internal consistency reliability from the norms for children at age 7 is .91 for elision, .86 for blending, and .90 for segmenting (Wagner et al., 1999).Reading comprehension

The children were tested with the reading comprehension subtest of the WLPB in English. On this cloze-type reading comprehension test, the children silently read short passages in order of increasing difficulty and had to orally provide the missing word. There was a total of 43 items on this test. Reported split-half reliability from the norms for children at age 6 is .95 (Woodcock, 1991).Cantonese measures

VocabularyThe Chinese version of the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised (PPVT-R; Lu & Liu, 1998) was used to measure Cantonese receptive vocabulary. There was a total of 125 items on this test. Reported split-half reliability from the norms for native Chinese-speaking children is .95 (Lu & Liu, 1998). The pictures from the English picture vocabulary subtest of the WLPB were also used to measure Cantonese expressive vocabulary. There was a total of 40 items on this test. Cronbach’s alpha for this sample was estimated to be .71.Phonological awareness

Cantonese phonological awareness was measured with the Cantonese phonological awareness tasks used in Gottardo et al. (2001, 2006). The tone discrimination task consisted of 15 experimental trials including all possible contrasts among the six tones in Cantonese. Words in each trial shared the same strings of phonemes and differed only by tones. Therefore, children were required to use tone to distinguish between words. Participants heard three words and were asked to identify the word that had a different tone; for example, “[ma1], [ma4], [ma1]”, which word sounds different, the first, second, or third?” The score was the total number correct out of 15 items. Cronbach’s alpha for this sample was estimated to be .74. The rhyme detection task consisted of 15 experimental trials using real Cantonese words spoken by a native Cantonese speaker. Children listened to three words in each trial and were asked to identify which word did not rhyme. Most exemplars included two of the words that shared the same tone and rime, whereas the other word had a different rime. For example, “[nei4], [tsi6], [pei4],”

which word sounds different, the first, second, or third?” The score was the total number correct out of 15 items. Cronbach’s alpha for this sample was estimated to be .72.Procedure

The order of administration of assessments was random, such that some children were tested in English first while others were tested in Cantonese first. The order of tests in English was: picture vocabulary, letter-word identification, word attack, passage comprehension, listening comprehension, phonological awareness, and PPVT-3. The order of tests in Cantonese was picture vocabulary, Cantonese tone, Cantonese rhyme, and PPVT-R.Statistical analysis

First, all English raw scores were converted to standard scores for the standardized assessments. For Cantonese, only the PPVT-R was converted to standard scores, as the rest of the measures were not normed. Raw scores are reported for the other Cantonese measures. Correlational analysis was conducted to examine the relationships among variables. Initially, the data were screened for missing data, multi collinearity, outliers, and normality assumptions, according to Kline’s (2010) guidelines for data preparation for structural equation modelling. Then, using LISREL, a two-step approach to structural equation modelling was taken. First, the measurement model was tested using a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to determine whether the observed variables served as adequate indicators of the latent variables. Following confirmation of an adequate measurement model, the structural equation model (SEM) was tested to examine the predicative relationships among vocabulary, English listening comprehension, English word reading, phonological awareness, and English reading comprehension. The structural model included the latent constructs of vocabulary, phonological awareness, and word reading. These variables were included in a model to predict English reading comprehension, a single observed variable as measured by the passage comprehension task. As some of the variables were not statistically significant, further modelling was done after deleting the non-significant paths.

Results1. Cantonese-speaking ELL children in this study—as a whole and disaggregated by language of instruction—performed at grade-level or higher on reading measures (English decoding and English reading comprehension). 2. they were below grade-level on oral proficiency measures. These findings are similar to other researchers’ findings with Spanish speaking ELL children’s performance on English vocabulary and English decoding measures (Mancilla-Martinez & Lesaux, 2011; Nakamoto et al., 2008) but differ from past research with Spanish-speaking children that finds English reading comprehension to be below grade-level (Gottardo & Mueller, 2009; Nakamoto et al., 2008). This may be because Nakamoto et al.’s (2008) study was conducted with older children; past research has found that ELLs in upper elementary grades struggle with reading comprehension due to the high demands on academic vocabulary and background knowledge (Garcı ´a, 1991). The present study’s findings also contradict the findings in Gottardo and Mueller’s (2009) study with Spanish– English bilingual second graders. The children in that study were the same age as the children in this study, but scored significantly lower on both English decoding and English vocabulary measures, possibly leading to lower English reading comprehension scores. 3. the children in the bilingual program scored similarly to the children in the mainstream classrooms on all English measures.

4, the former (the children in the bilingual program) scored significantly higher than the latter (children in the mainstream classrooms) on all Cantonese measures. This suggests that bilingual instruction and programs can have positive impacts on ELLs’ academic outcomes. ELL children can learn the home language, without delays in the second language. 5. In fact, in terms of literacy, these bilingual children performed just as well as their monolingual English-speaking counterparts. The implication that stems from this result is that parents and teachers should be encouraged to develop the home language skills of ELL children. High quality bilingual instruction with high quality home-school connections may positively influence the children’s bilingual development (in-depth analysis can be found in Uchikoshi and Maniates (2010) work). 6. Moreover, this study highlights the importance of English vocabulary. The results of the structural model show that English vocabulary was related to English reading comprehension, similar to findings with English monolinguals and Spanish speaking ELLs (e.g., Beck et al., 1982; Mancilla-Martinez & Lesaux, 2010; Proctor et al., 2005). 5. English vocabulary played a significant role in three areas: English word reading, English listening comprehension, and English reading comprehension. Past research with ELLs in upper elementary grades have found that ELLs struggle with reading comprehension, especially due to the high demands on academic vocabulary and background knowledge (Garcı ´a, 1991). Although the children in this sample performed, as a whole, at grade-level on reading measures, their below-grade-level English vocabulary may hinder their English reading comprehension as they get older. 6. In addition, results of the structural model show that English word reading was also related to English reading comprehension, similar to findings with English monolinguals and Spanish-speaking ELLs (e.g., Gottardo & Mueller, 2009; Manis et al., 2004; Proctor et al., 2005; Tannenbaum, Torgesen, & Wagner, 2006). Also similar to young monolingual readers (Catts, Hogan, & Adolf, 2005) and young Spanish-speaking ELLs (Gottardo & Mueller, 2009), English decoding was a better predictor of English reading comprehension than oral proficiency, as measured with vocabulary, for the young Cantonese-speaking ELLs in this study. 7. Furthermore, a measurement model was tested to determine whether vocabulary and phonological awareness in Cantonese and English were single cross-language constructs or separate constructs. Results show that constructs for both vocabulary and phonological awareness were represented by separate constructs for each language, similar to the findings of studies with Spanish-speaking ELLs (BranumMartin et al., 2006; Cobo-Lewis, Pearson, Eilers, & Umbel, 2002; Gottardo & Mueller, 2009). However, more research is needed to examine if this model differs when disaggregated by language of instruction, since the correlational results showed differences in the relationships between L1 and L2 expressive vocabulary depending on language of instruction. In contrast to the findings of past research with Spanish-speaking ELLs (Proctor et al., 2005; Nakamoto et al., 2008) and with monolingual English-speaking children (Gough & Tunmer, 1986; Hoover & Gough, 1990), English listening comprehension did not make a significant contribution to English reading comprehension. In past research, Chinese listening comprehension did not predict Chinese reading comprehension with a group of 290 Cantonese-speaking monolingual

first-graders in Hong Kong (Yeung et al., 2011). The authors speculate that this may be because Cantonese—spoken by the majority of Chinese in Hong Kong —differs in significant ways from written Chinese in both vocabulary and syntax. In fact, other researchers have found that the linkage between oral language and literacy become weaker when the differences between oral language and written language increase (e.g., Burke, Pflaum, & Knafle, 1982). In this study, listening comprehension and reading comprehension were both measured in English, where the oral and written languages are the same, so this explanation may not apply. Another possibility may be that since listening comprehension and vocabulary scores were moderately and positively correlated, one variable subsumed the other. However, in Proctor et al. (2006)’s study, although there was a strong relationship between listening comprehension and vocabulary scores with their Spanish–English bilinguals, the effect of English listening comprehension remained on English reading comprehension. A stronger explanation is the younger age and lower English decoding skills of the Cantonese-speaking ELL children in this study compared to previous studies conducted with older Spanish-speaking ELL children. The children in this sample were younger than the children in Proctor et al.’s study. In fact, the other studies that show L2 listening comprehension skills to be predictive of L2 reading comprehension outcomes have also been with older children (e.g. Hoover & Gough, 1990; Royer & Carlo, 1991). It may be that the children in this sample still need to develop their English decoding skills before an effect of listening comprehension on reading comprehension is seen. Whether the differences seen here on the role of listening comprehension is due to L1 differences or age differences need to be examined further. It should be noted that English reading comprehension was only measured with one assessment. Although it is a widely used measure, there are problems with assessing bilinguals with monolingual-normed assessments (Abedi, Lord, Hostetter, & Baker, 2000) and results may differ with other reading comprehension assessments. Further research is necessary to verify this finding. Additionally, although all the children in this sample were given similar reading instruction using the same textbook, future research should also investigate the role of teacher differences in teaching reading comprehension as well as home literacy practices. The present study’s findings are important theoretically for developing models of reading comprehension for young bilinguals, especially for bilinguals whose two languages use separate writing systems. The findings also have important implications for practice and policy. As both decoding and vocabulary were important in developing Cantonese-speaking ELLs’ English reading comprehension, curricula need to emphasize vocabulary development as well as decoding skills beginning in the early primary grades. As these findings are similar to findings from studies with Spanish-speaking ELL children, this suggest that teachers who have ELL children in their classrooms—regardless of the children’s L1—need to focus on both vocabulary and decoding in the early elementary school years.Furthermore, the findings from this study highlight the crucial role of English vocabulary on English literacy development for Cantonese ELLs. English vocabulary played a significant role in three areas of English literacy: word reading, listening comprehension, and reading comprehension. With young monolingual English readers, reading comprehension is more strongly related to word reading than to oral language proficiency, in part because the passages in most tests of early reading comprehension require only a very basic level of vocabulary that most monolingual English children have already acquired (Keenan, Betjemann, & Olson, 2008). Yet for ELLs, even this basic level of vocabulary may need to be reinforced to aid in reading comprehension. In addition to breadth of vocabulary, depth of vocabulary should also be emphasized. Teachers need to be aware that the content and vocabulary used in textbooks may not be equally familiar to all their students, especially ELLs. Additionally, the benefits of intense early vocabulary

instruction, even as early as preschool, should be emphasized. For many ELL children, preschool or kindergarten is the first formal encounter with the English language. As language exposure impacts vocabulary growth (Hart & Risely, 1995), this indicates that ELL children must acquire English vocabulary at an accelerated rate if they are to catch up with their monolingual English-speaking peers. Research shows that earlier exposure to English has no effect on ELL children’s native vocabulary growth (Uchikoshi, in press), suggesting that parents should be encouraged to expose their ELL children to English by enrolling them in English-speaking or bilingual preschools and Head Start. Additionally, these findings underscore the need for an early-intervention curriculum focusing on oral language instruction. This may be particularly true for Cantonese-speaking ELLs whose two languages do not share any cognates. Moreover, teachers need to consider the similarities as well as differences in the L1 among ELLs with various L1 backgrounds and how that may or may not affect the ELL child’s English acquisition. In a multicultural society such as the United States, having a research-based model of L2 reading comprehension is vital to developing curricula that can address the needs of children from different language backgrounds. Development.

Lexical Inferencing in First and Second Language Listening

HILDE VAN ZEELAND University of Nottingham School of English Room A93 Trent, University Park Nottingham NG7 2RD United Kingdom Email:

hildevanzeeland@outlook.com

Lexical inferencing is an important vocabulary learning strategy. Unfortunately, almost all research on this issue has been carried out in the reading context. This study is the first to directly measure

RQ:Lexical inferencing success in listening, by both native (N¼47) and nonnative (N¼30) speakers of English. It analysed the effects of contextual clue types, background knowledge, and L2 vocabulary knowledge on inferencing success. Exploring the lexical inferencing success of both L1 and L2 listeners and determining the extent to which this success is affected by three variables: contextual clue types, background knowledge, and L2 vocabulary knowledge.

RQ1. What is L1 and L2 listeners’ lexical inferencing success rate?RQ2. Is there a relationship between L1 and L2 listeners’ inferencing success and clue type (i.e., local versus global)?RQ3. Is there a relationship between L1 and L2 listeners’ inferencing success and their background knowledge (i.e., high versus low)?RQ4. Is there a relationship between L2 listeners’ inferencing success and vocabulary size?RQ5. To what extent do L2 listeners notice unknown vocabulary in continuous speech? How does this noticing ability relate to their vocabulary size?Subjects

The study has 77 participants: 47 NSs and 30 NNSs of English. The NS subjects were undergraduate students at a British university who participated in the experiment for course credit. Thirty-twosubjectswerefemaleand15weremale. Ages ranged from 18 to 36, with a mean age of 20.0 years. The NNSs were all postgraduate students at the same university; they received monetary compensation for participating. The participantpoolincludedspeakersof15different L1s. Twenty participants were female and 10 were male. Their ages ranged from 20 to 40 years old, with a mean age of 26.4. Because postgraduate students are required to reach TOEFL iBT 100 or IELTS 6.0 in order to be accepted to the university, all participants should be of intermediatetoadvancedlevelsofL2EnglishproficiencyLiterature Review

LEXICAL INFERENCING IS GENERALLY DEfined as “making informed guesses as to the meaning of an utterance in light of all available linguistic cues in combination with the learner’s general knowledge of the world, her awareness of context and her relevant linguistic knowledge” (Haastrup, 1991, p. 40).Research in the L1 context has found that readers manage to infer approximately one half to three quarters of word meanings correctly. Wesche and Paribakht

(2010) measured the lexical inferencing success of English, Persian, and French speakers reading texts in their native language, and found that they were able to guess the meanings of 89.3%, 79.0%, and 62.8% of the unfamiliar words, respectivelyless successful when they are asked to infer word meanings in their L2

Three factors that have been identified as influential predictors are the availability of contextual clues, learners’ background knowledge, and learners’ vocabulary knowledge.Contextual Clues: Local Versus Global

Several L2 reading studies have explored the relative use and effectiveness of local versus global contextual clues; that is, clues within the target word sentence or in the previous/next sentence (local )versus clues elsewhere in the wider context (global).Learners relied more on the sentence context in inferring the meaning of target items (54.1% of all lexical inferencing cases) than on word level clues (19.5% of the cases).In short, results from previous studies indicate that L2 readers use mainly local clues in lexical inferencing and that this clue type also leads to most success.

Background Knowledge

The effect of background knowledge on success has been explored directly by Pulido (2003, 2004, 2007) in a series of studies.L2 readers’ background knowledge influences their lexical inferencing success, with more knowledge of the text topic enabling better inferencing.L2 Vocabulary Knowledge

L2 readers’ lexical inferencing success has also been found to relate to their vocabulary knowledge.

L2 vocabulary knowledge is an important contributor to learners’ lexical inferencing success in reading.Lexical Inferencing in L2 Listening: What Can We Expect? Listening Versus Reading.

Reading and listening differ in their linguistic characteristics as well as in the comprehension processes involved.In contrast with written language, spoken language is continuous (it does not provide clear boundaries between words), variable (the same words may be pronounced differently depending on the context), and transitory (it requires quick, online processing) (Weber & Scharenborg, 2012).Expected Lexical Inferencing Success in Listening. What could these differences mean for lexical inferencing in the two modes? First, as speech processing is problematic for many L2 listeners, it is likely that more unknown words go by unnoticed in listening than in reading

Expected Effects of the Three Variables in Listening.

What can we expect to be the effects of the three variables in the listening context?

Regarding background knowledge and vocabulary size, it is most likely that both contribute to lexical inferencing in listening, as found in reading.The role of contextual clue types (local vs. global) ismore difficulttopredict.Ifitis truethat listeners use a more global approach to comprehension than readers, as suggested by Lund (1991) and Park (2004), they might benefit more from global clues than from local clues, in contrastwithreaders

(a) linguistic inferencing (using known words in an utterance), (b) voiceinferencing (using tone of voice and/or paralinguistics), (c) extralinguistic inferencing (e.g., using background sounds, understanding of the relationships between speakers), and (d) between-parts inferencing (using information beyond the sentence). Results showed that learners made considerable use of linguistic inferencing (an average of 11.49 times during the listening task), but much less of voice inferencing (2.23 times), extralinguistic inferencing (4.08 times), and between-parts inferencing (1.06 times).

Results

inferencing success rates of 59.6% (natives) and 35.6% (nonnatives), with success being significantly affected by the three variables. The study also measured L2 listeners’ ability to notice unknown vocabulary in speech. This revealed limited noticing ability, indicating that a lack of noticing is likely to limit learners’ inferencing opportunities and success.reading studies have found that learners generally manage to infer about half of the target items’ meanings correctly (Table 1), and that the achieved success rate depends on clue type (local>global clues), background knowledge (high>low degree), and learners’ vocabulary size (larger>smaller size). While the results from this study suggest a lower success rate in listening than in reading, they also indicate that the general effect of the three variables is the same in both modes.

L1 and L2 Lexical Inferencing SuccessThe inferencing success rate achieved was 59.6% by the NSs and 35.6% by the NNSs. The total score achieved by the NSs is rather low. In fact,itisnotmuchhigherthanthescoresfoundin many L2-based reading studies (Table 1). This shows that lexical inferencingin listening leadsto limited success, regardless of language proficiency level. The NNSs’ success rate was significantly lower than that of the NSs, and this was partly due to L2 listeners’ limited linguistic processing skills, as reflected in the relatively large numberof cases in which they failed to identify the target items.The L2 lexical inferencing success found in this study is considerably lower than that found in most of the L2 readingBoth the NSs and NNSs made significantly more correct inferences of items with local than global clues, reminiscent of the reading studies discussed(Bengeleil&Paribakht,2004;Huckin& Bloch, 1993; Paribakht, 2005).Background knowledge also affected the lexical inferencing success of both the NSs and NNSs, with both groups achieving significantly more success in the text that provided them with a higher level of background knowledge. As discussed, several L2 reading studies have found the same effect (e.g., Pulido, 2007). Interestingly, the NNSs failed to notice more target items in the low than in the high background

knowledge text, suggesting that background knowledge also affects L2 listeners’ lexical recognition abilities.The Role of Vocabulary: Size and NoticingResults indicated that L2 participants’ inferencing success related to their vocabulary size. This has also been found in the reading research discussed (Albrechtsen et al., 2008; Wesche & Paribakht, 2010), although the correlations reported in reading studies are generally higher than those found here.Participants with a vocabulary size of roughly 5,000wordfamiliesormoreachievedsignificantly more lexical inferencing success than those with a smaller vocabulary size. This suggests that a certain degree of vocabulary knowledge is required for learners to get to the point of lexical inferencingA larger size did not lead to better guesses per se. Instead, learners with larger vocabulary sizes were generally better at noticing target items, which undoubtedly contributed to their higher inferencing score (as revealed by comparing the number of “incorrect guesses” instead, which showed no effect of vocabulary size).Finally, results of the nonword spotting task indicated that L2 learners often fail to notice unknown vocabulary in continuous listeningLimitations and Suggestions for Future ResearchIn interpreting the results of this study, two factors should be taken into account: First, the study assessed only learners’ ability to infer the meaning of individual words. This reflects their success in establishing the form–meaning link of lexical items, but does not reflect their general comprehensionability.Listeningcomprehension comprises different processes that operate together (Vandergrift & Goh, 2012), and some learners are very well able to compensate for not knowing (or noticing) an unknown word.Several methodological limitations should be mentioned. First, the background knowledge conditions (high vs. low) were established in a pilot process with native English speakers onlyFurthermore, the NNS participant group was rather varied, which may have led to the variation in the L2 resultsOne factor that has undoubtedly influenced the results is the scoring method.

Title: The impact of motivating Iranian EFL learners via visuals on their listening comprehension

Author(s): Masoumeh Karimi and Reza Biria Source: Theory and Practice in Language Studies. 4.11 (Nov. 2014): p2322. From Literature Resource Center. Document Type: Report DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4304/tpls.4.11.2322-2330 Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2014 Academy Publisher http://www.academypublisher.com/tpls/

Abstract: the use of visuals as a motivating factor for improving the students listening comprehension is suggested. A number of 150 elementary students were selected. They were divided into 2 language proficiency homogeneous groups.

To compare the change in the degree of their motivation two sets of questionnaire were given to them. The control group was exposed to the listening material without seeing any visuals and just having a short oral pre listening activity, while the experimental group were shown a picture of the situation in which the conversation was taking place, while some predicting questions were raised. Then a listening comprehension test was given to both groups. By using statistical procedures a correlation was taken for comparing the motivation and listening comprehension scores and a t-test was measured for comparing the listening comprehension scores of the experimental group and the control groups.

The results indicated that the use of visuals improves the listening comprehension of the subjects using visuals also improves their motivation.Index Terms--motivation, listening comprehension visual aidsLiteratureproviding the students with a "presupposition pool" will help them improve their comprehension the importance of activating the learners' schematic information or background knowledge and benefit from their previous information in comprehending the material better; as Brown & Yule (1983) mention, in any context of conversation we will not be able to comprehend people if we do not have a presupposition about what they are going to talk. Therefore,. And this will be done through a pre-listening activity which will not only activate the students' background knowledge, but will also play a motivating role in the students. However, as current studies demonstrate a short pre-listening activity of as short as five minutes will help the listener to construct a " mental model" (Anderson, 1988), and make predictions about what they are going to hear (Ur, 1984) and these all make them motivated and anxious to listen.The importance of motivation in language teaching has been emphasized by many educators (Anderson, 1988; Ur, 1984; Benson, 1989; Sheerin, 1987;Field,Brown,

1993;Mccellanel, 1940; Brown, 2000;Smit, 2002;Cormon,1986; Shelppegell, 1997; Noris, 2001). So the purpose of this study is to determine whether motivating the Iranian EFL learners via visuals has any impact on their listening comprehension.A. MotivationMotivation is a drive, impulse or desire that moves one to a particular action or helps people make different choices in their lives. (Brown, 1993; Beck, 1990; Petri, 1990). During the last 100 years the approach to motivation has changed a lot. Motivational research today may consider three major approaches: behavioral, cognitive, and humanistic. behaviorists consider rewards as intrinsic motivating factor for the enforcement of a behavior (Thorndike, 1913),Hunt (1965) points out that we may often be motivated in a task not because of external rewards which are associated with it but because the behavior itself is rewarding. Hunt has in fact defined intrinsic motivation as the pleasure accompanied with a behavior regardless of the goal toward which it is directed. Humanists are in this belief that individuals need to be successful, to improve and they want to reach the state of selfsatisfaction; this self satisfaction is also gained when the students try to receive the others as well as their own appreciation that's why some times students look for challenging tasks. Vygotsky (1978) mentions that there should be a balance between challenging and easy tasks. He believes that tasks which are beyond the person's Zone of proximal development are too difficult for the person to complete and tasks that are in the zone of the person's current development are easy enough that the person can successfully accomplish them without assistance of any sort. So for the students to maintain their intrinsic interest, academic assignment should be consisted of an appropriate balance between tasks in their zone of current development. B. Teaching Listening Comprehension and the Related Theories

Through reception linguistic information is internalized over production. Nida (1977b) when she proposed "passive (global) listening" and "selective listening" Global listening is actually a very active proves. Nida points out that the mind operates on incoming language input even when we are not making a conscious effort to learn; the mind assimilates, sorts and stores the many features of the input in order to gain total impression of its form and meaning. Asher's (1977) total physical response method is in accordance with Nida's theory. Later in other approaches such as natural approach, the priority was on listening in silence and students did not have to produce anything until they felt comfortable to do so.

Krashen's introduction of comprehensible input (1985) in which he explained the notion of (+1) that is for the input to be converted into intake, the listening material should be just a little above the learner's present ability. Krashen points out that a good language classroom is designed to make input comprehensible through extra linguistic support (use of visuals, gestures, and context)

and by use of textual features (repetition, redundancy, and simplification). At the intermediate level, when students are refining grammatical system listening can be used to promote accuracy. Anderson (1988), to define the factors affecting a successful listening, mentions that there are different ways in which a listener can or cannot process what he or she has heard.1. Listener may not hear adequately

2. Lack of language proficiency

3. The listener is not interested in what is being said: He or she hears and understands but may have switched off consciously or unconsciously.

4. Listener wants to know about what is being said: there are messages that the listener attends to fully and from which he tries to construct a coherent interpretation.

Sometimes to find out if listener comprehended something, we ask the listener to talk about his own interpretation of what he has heard, so in this model listener is active and constructs a mental model. In order to construct an adequate mental model of a message you need to resort to some sources:--General factual knowledge

--Local factual knowledge

--Socio cultural knowledge

The listeners' knowledge of the context of situation and background knowledge of the culture and society are crucial to listening comprehension. Any sentence listeners hear is matched against their mental models of the world as reflected in scripts and schemas. If the model of speaker and listener differ too much, they will have problem understanding each other.Anderson (1988) mentions that background problems are either because of gaps in our knowledge of L2 culture, associations and references available to native speakers or lack of enough background knowledge which leads to misunderstanding even among native speakers.There are different approaches to listening comprehension;1.Information processing model can be considered one of these approaches in which the goal is the activation of students' background knowledge and the use of their schema in predicting what will come next. Teaching schemata use has been found to increase second language comprehension (Loyed & Carrel, 1987; Hudson, 1982). However instruction in schemata use is not enough in itself. Unless students have a strategy for checking the accuracy of their assumptions, schemata use may actually interfere with comprehension. (Block, 1986; Kasper, 1984).2. The second approach we can refer to is making a distinction between product versus process which has become an important one for all language skills, particularly, those labeled "receptive" and it signals an increasing recognition that language is a fixed system, a finished product is just one part of the picture. In recent years it seems as if the language teaching profession has placed a great emphasis on listening

comprehension.According to Brown (2000) it is certainly because the language educators have noticed the importance of reception through which linguistic information is internalized over production. Though it seems as if speaking is the center of attention and it is a person's second language speaking which shows whether he or she knows the language or not, we should not forget that it is comprehension which precedes speaking. The idea of comprehending and listening before speaking was first introduced by Nida (1977b) when she proposed "passive (global) listening" and "selective listening" Global listening is actually a very active proves. Attention is paid to human beings as language processors than was previously the case. It is with the skills of listening that "processing" focus is most crucial. Sheerin (1987) explains that it is not just enough to examine the product that is whether the listener could understand or not. He emphasizes that we should pay a lot of attention to what may have gone wrong in the process of listening. If we do not do so, learners will use the same unsuccessful techniques on and on and they will not experience any improvement. From the process perspective wrong answers can be seen to be of more significance than correct ones. Teachers follow up incorrect responses in order to determine where understanding broke down.Sheerin (1987) talks about teaching listening rather than testing it. She includes teaching effective listening involves adequate support and the provision of adequate task.Morreale (2001) makes a distinction between competent and skillful listening. According to him a skillful listener understands the listening process, processes a set of listening skills, and is able to choose among and use those skills. While a Competent Listener includes the willingness to listen in a variety of different situations. Accordingly a Competent listener is the one who--wants to listen effectively in a variety of situations--Knows what to do to listen effectively in a variety of situations.--Demonstrates the ability to listen effectively in a variety of situations.Morely (1994) and Brown (2000) introduce some principles for designing and performing listening techniques in the classroom1. Increase the amount of listening time in second language classesInput must be interesting, comprehensible, supported by extra linguistic materials and keyed to the language lesson. Teachers sometimes incorrectly assume that the input provided in the classroom will always be converted into intake.2. Use listening before other activities: have the students listen to the material before they acquire to speak, read or write about it.3. Utilize authentic language and contexts.4. Activate top-level skills: Use techniques that are intrinsically motivating5. Let the students do some predicting6. Encourage the development of listening strategies: looking for key words, nonverbal cues to meaning, guessing at meaningsC. Motivating Factors in Teaching Listening Comprehension

According to Galindo (1997) learners learn best when they can see a goal and can progress toward it. In real life when we listen to some one talking, we have a definition on-linguistic reason for doing so. In the classroom the genuine reason for listening is purely linguistic .So a nonlinguistic purpose has to be consciously superimposed in the form of a task.According to Galindo (1997) learners learn best when they sense mastery. Sheerin (1987) mentions that listening exercises are meant to train not to test, and as Ur (1984) mentions the best practice is obtained by having learners do the activity more or less successfully not by having them fail. Sheerin again sites the old saying that: "nothing succeeds like success."Learners also learn best when they see a relevance between the class topic and their lives.(Ur,1984) Listening to familiar text does not demand such intensive exercising of the perception or comprehension skills since the students know the content without being have to listen but it has the value of distinguishing between listening for perception or listening for comprehension.Speaking and listening need to be reacted to immediately. And the learning value of listening exercises is increased if there is immediate teacher feedback on student performance. Sheerin (1987) believes that positive feedback for learners means ensuring that they experience success as often as possible.Task based teaching is crucial in motivating students to listen. We use different visuals which have the function of aids to learning, simply because they attract students attention. It will be much more interesting to respond actively to something.(Ur 1984).Cook (1991) in favor of task based teaching of listening mentions that this approach helps the teacher to check that comprehension is taking place.D. Using Visuals and Other Environmental Clues

Sherwyn (2001) mentions that visual aids assist in illustrating or supporting the content of a speech and add interest and excitement to it. They are useful when you need to clarify a difficult concept, present a complex idea, or demonstrate a process the audience would have difficulty understanding. Some environmental, usually visuals, accompaniment to heard discourse is a characteristic of most listening situations. In the classroom these environmental clues will usually be represented by different kinds of visuals: pictures, sketches on the board or over head projects. Ur (1984) emphasizes that the presence of such materials is of immense value in contextualizing and bringing to life the listening situation as well as in aiding comprehension of language .She strongly believes that some kind of visual clue is essential in any language learning activity based on face to face communication. Visuals have an important function as aids to learning, simply because they are motivating, attract students' attention and help and encourage them to focus on the subject in hand. Ur (1984) mentions that it is relatively difficult to concentrate on spoken material that is heard blind, far easier if there is something relevant to look at.III. METHOD

A. Subjects

The subjects participating in this study were randomly selected among elementary students of English at The Iran Language Institute. Two groups were selected at random.An independent t-test was run to compare the mean scores of the experimental and control groups on the proficiency test. The t-observed value, 1.13, at 115 degrees of freedom was lower than the critical value of t, i.e. 1.96. (Table1). It could be concluded that there was not any significant difference between the two groups mean scores on the

proficiency test. As displayed in Table 2 the mean scores for the experimental and control groups score, 23.65, and 22.77 respectively (Table 2) It could be concluded that the two groups were homogenous in terms of their language proficiency.The F-test was run to investigate the homogeneity of the variances of the two groups (F=2.15) had a probability of .14, indicating that the two groups were homogenous in terms of their variances (Table 1).B. Instrumentation

To conduct this study, there were data collection instruments:First a thirty five-item multiple choice test was developed in order to see if the subjects are homogeneous regarding their language proficiency; The test consisted of questions taken from Nelson's language proficiency tests.The Second instrumentation was a Persian translation of a modified version of the Attitude/ Motivation Test Battery (AMTB; Gardner, 1985) to measure the motivation of the learners. This Test Battery consisted of 36 items in a Likert type scale. Each item scored one to five, making a total from 36 to 180 for each complete questionnaire. This test battery included a variety of subscales and each was meant to measure one aspect of the attitudinal or motivational characteristics of the individuals under study. Dastgheib (1996) has cited a number of researchers who had reported a satisfactory level of reliability and validity of the measures used in this test battery. (e.g. Gilksman, 1976,1981; Lalonde and Gardner, 1984;Gardner, Lalonde and Moorcraft, 1985; Gardner and Lysynk, 1990; Gardner and Maslintyre, 1991).Gardner's adapted version of AMTB had been supplemented by items developed in a pilot study by Dastgheib who conducted the pilot study among learners in two different schools.In order to make the test appropriate for Iranian students, minor changes had been made in some of the items. The questionnaire had been translated into Persian and the accuracy of the translated copy had been checked by back translation method.A pilot study conducted by Dastgheib indicated a satisfactory level of overall internal consistency reliability of .91.Then a totally adapted version of a questionnaire written by Schimidt (1996) was given which aimed to measure the level of motivation generated during class by the materials in use. The questionnaire was also translated into Persian. To test the homogeneity of their listening comprehension a thirty item multiple choice test was developed by the researcher the material of which was taken from some authentic books such as New Interchange series.And the last instrumentation was another teacher made listening test for the purpose of measuring their listening comprehension after the period of performing the treatment.C. Procedure

The experimental group were treated by being shown some visuals related to the topic to which they were going to listen. Some predicting questions were raised as well in order to motivate the students toward finding the answer in the listening, while the control group had the predicting questions without seeing the pictures. To see if the use of visuals before listening would cause any significant difference.D. Data Collection

The questionnaire and a test of proficiency were administered to the students.

The scores were entered into SPSS program. Because the first questionnaire, Gardner's, was in the form of popular 5point Likert type scale, the responses had to be weighted. As Ary, Jacobs and Razavieh (1996) state, for favorable or positively stated items the numerical values 5,4,3,2 and 1, respectively were assigned to the response categories beginning at the favorable end. For example" strongly agree" with a favorable statement received at weight of 5, "agree" 4, "strongly disagree" weight of 1. For unfavorable or negative stated items the weighting was reversed, because disagreement with an unfavorable statement is psychologically equivalent to agreement with a favorable statement. Thus for unfavorable statements strongly agree received a weight of 1 and strongly disagree a weight of 5. The sum of the weights of all the items would present the individual's total scores.A pre test of listening was administered too, to make sure that the subjects were homogeneous in their listening skill. (Table 3)The F-test was also run to investigate the homogeneity of the variances of the two groups. (Table4)At the end of the term in order to investigate the effect of our treatment on the subjects listening comprehension skill another test of listening was administered to the students, the results of which were analyzed through an independent t-test to see whether the treatment improved the subjects' listening skill or not (Table5).Listening Post-test Equal variances assu8.594 .004 7.961 115 .000 3.7647 .47291 2.82800 4.70148 Equal variances not assumed 7.773 96.716 .000 3.7647 .48431 2.80349 4.72599The F-test was also run to investigate the homogeneity of the variances of the two groups.(Table6)And finally Schimidt's test of motivation was administered again as the post test of motivation to see if the treatment had any effect on the motivation of the subjects.The collected data were analyzed to determine whether:Motivating the Iranian EFL learners via visuals has any impact on their listening comprehension. The following tables display the descriptive statistics for the experimental, and control groups, together with the total number subjects statistics.IV. CONCLUSION

The statistical procedures were conducted and applied to the gathered data .the data from the first questionnaire were subjected to a t-test lending support to the claim that using visuals will improve the Iranian EFL learners' motivation; it will also improve Iranian EFL learners' listening comprehension. This small-scaled research demonstrates the value of pre-listening activities in elementary classes, which are most often neglected. The result of the study illustrates that elementary students can also benefit from a higher degree of motivation if they are made curious about what they are going to listen to and this happens when they have some information about what they are going to hear and they have an image of the situation in which the talking is taking place or the thing about which the topic of talking is related to. So pre listening activities are very helpful especially when as happened in this study are aimed at contextualizing the material for the students and they make them curious about what they are going to listen. Therefore, what I am suggesting is that a pre-listening activity which provides some extra information for the students from which they can benefit as some presupposition or provides an image of what they are listening to should

become an inseparable part of all lecture based classes, if the instructor wishes to promote better learning among his students. For example if the lecturer in a biology class is describing the biological system of one's body, his teaching would be more effective if he first tries to provide the students with an illustration of that system.

Reading improvement in English- and Hebrew-speaking children with reading difficulties after reading acceleration training

Tzipi Horowitz-Kraus & Nicole Cicchino & Merav Amiel & Scott K. Holland & Zvia BreznitzReceived: 11 October 2013 /Accepted: 22 May 2014 /Published online: 12 June 2014 # The International Dyslexia Association 2014RQ: A reading acceleration program known to improve reading fluency in Hebrew speaking adults was tested for its effect on children.

Subjects: Eighty-nine Hebrew- and English speaking children with reading difficulties were divided into a waiting list group and two training groups (Hebrew and English) and underwent 4 weeks of reading acceleration training. Results of pre- and post-testing of reading abilities point to a significant main effect of the test, demonstrating improvements in silent contextual reading speed, reading comprehension, and speed of processing in both Hebrew and English training groups as compared to their performance before the intervention. This study indicates that the Reading Acceleration Program might be an effective program for improving reading abilities in children, independent of language.Keywords Dyslexia .Fluency. Oral and silent reading. Reading Acceleration ProgramLiterature Review

Considerable research has converged to document reading deficits, both phonological (Liberman, Shankweiler, Fisher, & Carter, 1974; Morris et al.,1998; Stanovich & Siegel, 1994) and regarding fluency (Bowers, 1993; Bowers & Wolf, 1993; Breznitz, 1987, 2001, 2006), in developmental dyslexia. Fluency, or overall timing and smoothness in reading, can be related to deficits in

working memory (Swanson & Siegel, 2001),

rapid automatic naming (RAN) (Wolf, 2001),

timing (Bowers & Wolf, 1993),

and/or an asynchrony between the auditory-phonological

and the visual-orthographic processing speeds (Breznitz,2006;Breznitz & Misra,2003).

Concurrent with these processing deficits, children with dyslexia may be impaired

in specific reading and writing skills: accuracy and rate of real word reading, pseudo word reading (decoding pronounceable words without meaning), accuracy and fluency of oral passage reading, and spelling (Berninger, Abbott, Thomson, & Raskind, 2001; Lyon, Shaywitz, &

Shaywitz, 2003). Research has shown that explicit phonological awareness and phonological decoding instruction are effective in the primary grades (ages 6 to 9) (National Institute of Child Health & Human Development, 2000), but adding “silent orthographic strategies” (Fayol, Thévenin, Jarousse, & Totereau, 1999) and morphological awareness activities may improve automatic decoding in the upper grades, as determined by behavioral (Berninger et al., 2008; Berninger & Wolf, 2009) and brain measures (Berninger et al., 2003). For students in grades 4 to 9, adding Breznitz’s(2006) accelerated reading training improved phonological decoding rate over and beyond the improvements in phonological awareness and explicit decoding instruction have achieved alone (Horowitz-Kraus & Breznitz, submitted). The Reading Acceleration Program (RAP) is a computerized reading intervention program that focuses on reading fluency (Breznitz et al., 2013). A recent EEG study suggests that the benefit of RAP training arises from a working memory mechanism, also attributed to the frontal lobes (Breznitz & Share, 1992; Horowitz-Kraus & Breznitz, 2013). The authors speculated that during the reading process, units of data were integrated into the working memory system at an increased rate and in more meaningful units for storage in the mental lexicon (also confirmed by Niedo et al., 2013). Niedo et al. also suggested that RAP training enhances orthographic working memory by requiring a reader to hold in his or her mind increasing amounts of text, incremented a letter at a time, as the reader processes the word’s meaning. Methods

ParticipantsEighty-nine children, second to fifth grade, with reading difficulties (RD) participated in the current study (43 females, 45 males, mean age=9.15±1.22). Fifty-four Hebrew-speaking participants with RD (28 females, 26 males ,mean age=8.65±0.72) were recruited from a school in the north of Israel. The participants were native Caucasian Hebrew speakers with average socioeconomic status, as reported by the families. All were right-handed, displayed normal or corrected-to normal vision in both eyes, and were screened for normal hearing. None of the participants had a history of neurological or emotional disorders. Twenty-seven were enrolled in the RAP group (12 females, 15 males, mean age of 8.65±0.72) and 27 were enrolled in the waiting list group (14 females, 13 males, mean age of 8.64±0.55) by a “flip-of-a-coin.” In the training group, 15 children were in the second grade, 8 in the third, and 4 in the fourth grade. In the waiting list group, 12 children were in the second grade, 14 in the third, and 1 in the fourth grade. Thirty-five English-speaking RD participants (15 females, 20 males, mean

age=9.94±1.48) were recruited by posted advertisement in the area of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Cincinnati, OH, USA. All were Caucasian, native English speakers with average socioeconomic status, as reported by the families. All were right-handed, displayed normal or corrected-to-normal vision in both eyes, and were screened for normal hearing. None of the participants had a history of neurological or emotional disorders. Twenty were enrolled in the RAP group (10 females, 5 males, mean age=9.8±1.27) and 15 were enrolled in the waiting list group (5 females, 10 males, mean age=9.99±1.77) by a “flip-of-a-coin.” In the training group, four children were in the second grade, four in the third, four in the fourth grade, and eight were in the fifth grade. In the waiting list group, six children were in the second grade, two in the fourth grade, and seven in the fifth grade. All participants were diagnosed with RD prior to the study. Their diagnosis was verified by a battery of normative reading tests in Hebrew (Aleph-Taph; Shany, Lachman, Shalem, Bahat, & Zeiger, 2006) or in English [The Woodcock and Johnson battery: Woodcock & Johnson, 1989: Gray Oral Reading Test (GORT) IV: Wiederholt & Bryant, 1992]. In the Hebrew-speaking group, participants had to have a standard score of (−1) or below on the 1-min word and pseudo word reading tasks, and on the fluency reading task from the Aleph-Taph battery. In the English-speaking group, participants must have had a standard score of (−1) or below on the “letter-word” and “word attack” subtests from the Woodcock-Johnson III (WJ) (Woodcock & Johnson, 1989) and on the fluency and accuracy subtests from the GORT battery (GORT-IV:Wieder holt & Bryant, 1992) (see Table 1 for the study design). The IQs of the participants were measured by the TONI-3test (Brownetal., 1997).

the Reading Acceleration Program (RAP) training on oral reading

They were instructed to read each sentence silently. While doing so, the sentence disappeared from the computer screen, one letter at a time. After the sentence disappeared, a multiple-choice comprehension question appeared and remained on the screen until the participant responded. They were instructed to choose an answer by clicking on the corresponding number on the numeric keypad of the computer. The disappearance of the question from the computer screen prompted the next sentence.