Little research has been conducted to investigate the effect of analogy on third language (L3, hereafter) reading comprehension though some experts believe that it has facilitating and debilitating effects on L1 and L2 respectively. This article explores the effect of analogies on reading comprehension of expository texts by students of English as…

This study concerns the effect of letter position on the retention of words by EFL learners. Given the fact that everyone has a mental lexicon, we would suggest that words are possibly organized in alphabetical order, then it would be likely for the learners to retain the words easily when exposed to the first letters of given words. The study…

With 73 students at an Iranian university, the present study investigated teacher's effect in topic familiarization in L2 reading context. The participants--Group B with and Group A without the presence of a teacher--experienced four pre-reading treatments and read four passages of unfamiliar topics, after which they were tested on…

Anxiety is an important personality factor that has been a major concern for foreign language (FL) researchers. Although the influence of anxiety on FL speaking has received considerable attention in research, only a few studies to date have focused on affect and FL reading. Clearly, there is need to use think aloud protocols and learner…

Top-down models of reading emphasize methods and techniques that promote active reading which involves utilizing contextual clues to guess vocabulary meaning. This study aims at analyzing the correlation between EFL students' general reading proficiency and guessing patterns, and identifying the types of contextual clues actually used by EFL…

The objectives of this study are twofold: (1) uncovering the local criteria for evaluating language-teaching performance, and (2) unraveling and conceptualizing language teachers' perception of these criteria. To this end, the study used grounded theory to collect and analyze interview data from twelve experienced language teachers who were…

This study explored the effect of video games as a new tool for Iranian EFL (English as a foreign language) vocabulary learning. To conduct the study, 40 intermediate EFL learners, both male and female, were chosen through a TOEFL proficiency test. The participants were divided into two groups (10 males and 10 females in each): a control group and…

This study investigated the developmental and fossilized prepositional errors in Persian EFL learners' compositions at three levels of proficiency; participants were divided into lower-intermediate, upper-intermediate, and advanced levels. For each participant, four compositions were collected, and after identifying the prepositional errors for…

Although quantitative studies of educational research usually suggest some links between conditions of learning and student learning outcome, behavior and performance, the idea of engaging students in discussions on teaching and learning has not had as much attention in the United Arab Emirates as in some other countries. This paper presents…

This study examined the interrelationships of first language (L1) literacy, second language (L2) proficiency, and L2 reading comprehension with 246 Chinese college students learning English. L1 literacy and L2 proficiency were measured with college admission exams in Chinese and English. L2 reading comprehension was measured with the reading…

This paper describes and evaluates the Higher-Secondary School Certificate (HSC) exam in Pakistan that has been in place in its present form for more than thirty years. The author recounts her experience as a teacher of English in a representative high school in Pakistan and, reflecting on the impact of high school public exam, she argues that the…

Studied the effects of text familiarity, task type, and language proficiency on university students' language for specific purposes test and task performances. Students majoring in electronics took the the Task Based Reading Test. Analyses indicated that text familiarity, task type, and language proficiency resulted in significant differences in…