This study sought to uncover the reading strategies utilized by Iranian undergraduate English Foreign Language (EFL) learners and their relationship with personality types. To this end, 194 university EFL learners were asked to fill out the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) to identify their personality types and answer a reading strategy…

The present study investigates the effects of multimedia annotation through the discourse scheme and summary writing through the grounding theory (Chang, 1997) on text comprehension. Specifically, the study focuses on examining the influences of multimedia annotation from a special perspective, namely, the use of modified discourse scheme to…

Today there is an increasing amount of research promoting the effectiveness of extensive reading (ER) towards increasing learners' vocabulary, comprehension, reading speed, and motivation towards reading. However, little has been done to measure the effects of ER on learners' reading levels. This quantitative study examined the effects…

This study explores the relative contribution to EFL reading comprehension of the following individual-difference variables: prior knowledge, topic interest, linguistic proficiency, gender, reading motivation, and metacognitive awareness. It also investigates the relationship between the aforementioned individual differences and the role of text…

Mastery of English in China has gathered increased prominence due to the need to foster cultural, political, and economic connections worldwide. Reading is an obvious skill of vital importance for advancing efforts as a player in the world economy. The present article examines research published in academic journals in Chinese and English to…

This descriptive study examines when and how students use Russian-English dictionaries while reading informational texts in Russian and what success they have with word lookup. The study uses introspective verbal protocols (i.e., think-alouds) to follow how readers construct meaning from two texts while reading them for a limited time first…

Learning English as a foreign language (EFL) has long been regarded a challenging task. Said challenge is clearly evident in the many studies attempting to delineate some of the major problems faced by EFL learners while trying to uncover both the sources and the solutions. This paper turns to the Vygotskian approach to language learning, in…

This paper reports a study that explored the overall pattern of metacognitive awareness of reading strategy use and its possible relationship with reading comprehension. Moreover, the study investigated the influence of gender and proficiency level on the use of these strategies. The Survey of Reading Strategies Questionnaire (SORS), the…

The aim of this study was to determine the impact of both IQ and emotional intelligence on reading comprehension in Iran. Forty-five EFL college students from Payame Noor University of Gonbad and Azad University of Gorgan participated in this study. Three independent tests were administrated, including Bar-On's emotional intelligence…

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…

Second language reading comprehension is the most important skill required by students, especially in a foreign language context. One way to help these students improve their reading comprehension is strategy instruction. In the present study, the effect of two strategies, namely, summarizing and students-generated questions have been…

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…

The current study investigated the relation and comparison of reading comprehension and reading rate in Japanese high school EFL learners. One hundred and forty-eight tenth-graders in a Japanese high school participated in this study. Results showed that the relation between reading comprehension and reading rate was weak, but significant (r =…

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…