This study is an extension of Nahatame's (2018) research that demonstrated the effects of causal and semantic relations between sentences on second language (L2) text processing. Employing eye tracking, this study aimed to examine whether these effects appear during more natural, uninterrupted reading processes and to identify the time course of…

This paper starts a discussion of the process of extensive reading (ER) program implementation in schools from a functional perspective. It discusses some considerations that may have hindered the spread of ER into the public school systems of many countries. It makes an argument for a top-down approach being required for widespread implementation…

In second or foreign language (L2) extensive reading (ER) studies, learners have been encouraged to read easy books despite the lack of consensus concerning how to define book difficulty. In light of previous studies reporting that book difficulty can play an important role in learners' affect in ER (e.g., Bahmani & Farvardin, 2017; Chiang,…

Unlike alphabetic languages, Chinese text marks no word demarcation. Previous research inserted word-demarcating spaces into Chinese text but found inconsistent effects on reading efficiency. To address the potential trade-off effects of the additional length caused by inserted spaces, this study introduces color-and-font formatting as a word…

Some words in English are derived words, i.e., words with an affix that changes their part of speech, like know "(v)" [right arrow] "knowable (adj)," or meaning, like "pleasant (adj)" [right arrow] "unpleasant (adj)." As a reading teacher, Tom Cobb had always believed that derived words were not particularly…

We are encouraged by Cobb's (2022) description of changes to the Morpholex profiling tool (https://www.lextutor.ca/cgi-bin/morpho/lex/) resulting in more accurate word classifications. This addresses one point in our recent commentary on Morpholex and on Laufer and Cobb's (2020) study using Morpholex (McLean & Stoeckel, 2021). However, Cobb…

This study examines the difficulty shown by Spanish-speaking university students in decoding pre-modified noun phrases (NPs) in English. NPs carry a heavy lexical and conceptual load and foreign language (L2) readers may be challenged by first language (L1) crosslinguistic influence triggered by cognate NPs. Therefore, this study also attempts to…

This study explored the contribution of second language (L2) discipline-specific vocabulary to Chinese chemistry major undergraduates' reading of textbooks. Participants included 82 second-year undergraduates majoring in chemistry. Their discipline-specific vocabulary knowledge and chemistry textbook reading ability were measured. Their L2…

This study examined the effects of relevance instructions on English as a foreign language (EFL) readers' text processing and memories. The participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: the experimental condition, where they read texts to identify a specific category of information, and the control condition, where they read texts…

Our aim here is to investigate reading in a foreign language from a multilingual perspective. Much research has focused on first- and second-language reading, especially the important role played by strategy deployment in helping readers to make meaning from texts in different languages. Less emphasis has been placed, however, on how bilinguals…

Using a mixed method explanatory sequential design, this study investigates intensive English program (IEP) instructors' perceptions of the impact of COVID-19 emergency remote teaching on reading instruction. Forty-four IEP instructors completed an online survey, and seven of them participated in follow-up interviews. Both quantitative and…

This bibliometric study analyzed the research topic structure of the "Reading in a Foreign Language" ("RFL") journal in the past two decades. Using two well recognized bibliometric approaches, namely, the keyword co-occurrence analysis and hierarchical cluster analysis, the study examined author keywords and their co-occurrence…

This study aims to investigate the influence of an English as a foreign language college extensive reading program on different types of motivation to study English within the framework of Self-Determination Theory in order to identify and clarify students' motivational changes. Identical questionnaires were administered to a group of nonEnglish…

In second language (L2) reading strategy research, two concerns need addressing: (1) the discrepancy in assessing strategy use between written surveys and verbal reports, and (2) the effect of using strategies on readers' comprehension outcomes when different types of comprehension tasks are utilized. The present study addressed these concerns by…

This paper contributes to a research program within extensive reading (ER) and "Reading in a Foreign Language" using corpora to simulate ER input to develop vocabulary through incidental learning to 9,000 words. This helps researchers/teachers evaluate ER. If corpora indicate no 'pathway' from smaller to larger vocabulary sizes through…